Commercial Coffee Beans vs Specialty Coffee Beans: Differences and Flavor Characteristics

Commercially available coffee is generally classified into three categories: "Industrial Coffee," "Commercial Coffee," and "Specialty Coffee." The classification standards are as follows: (1) Industrial Coffee: 100% pure Robusta coffee beans. (2) Commercial Coffee: A blend of Robusta and Arabica beans (ratio approximately 7:3 to 3:7). (3) Specialty Coffee: 100% pure Arabica coffee beans.

Primary Uses of Coffee Categories

The three main categories of coffee have the following primary uses:

(1) "Industrial Coffee": Primarily used for coffee extraction and as the main raw material for instant coffee.

(2) "Commercial Coffee": Mainly used for blended coffee, which utilizes Robusta coffee beans (such as Brazilian coffee) mixed with Arabica coffee beans (such as Mandheling, Mocha, Colombia, etc.) in ratios between 7:3 and 3:7, then blended and roasted. For example, the popular Mandheling-Brazil blend on the market is commercial coffee. Some single-origin coffees may add Robusta beans to reduce costs but are still sold under single-origin names. However, such single-origin coffees are typically priced below market standards, making it difficult for consumers to detect. Some may even conceal this from consumers and sell them as regular single-origin coffees to reap excessive profits.

(3) Specialty Coffee: As 100% pure Arabica single-origin coffee beans, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Lindong Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Gold Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Mocha, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya AA, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Coffee's Hawaii Kona, etc. According to traditional international coffee grading and evaluation standards, they can be further divided into the following three categories:

Coffee Quality Evaluation Methods

(1) Quality evaluation by altitude: In principle, the higher the altitude, the lower the temperature. Coffee beans require more time to mature, and fully matured beans have better expansion properties, making them easier to roast and resulting in higher quality. However, low-altitude coffee-producing regions like Jamaica's "Blue Mountain" and Hawaii "Kona" can also produce high-quality coffee by carefully selecting and creating optimal growing conditions, including suitable temperature, rainfall, soil, morning fog, and significant day-night temperature differences. Through top-tier processing methods—hand-picking coffee and manually removing impurities and defective beans—they can equally produce high-quality coffee. Coffee producers in Taiwan, whether growing coffee at high altitudes or low altitudes, can produce high-quality coffee as long as they carefully select and create the climate conditions necessary for high-quality coffee and employ top-tier post-processing methods. They must clearly and specifically communicate to consumers why their coffee beans possess high-quality climate requirements and how they complete the post-processing procedures, allowing consumers to understand and accept the quality and pricing of the coffee produced.

(2) Quality evaluation by screen size: Quality is evaluated based on the size of green coffee beans, because well-developed large coffee beans have richer and more complex flavors than small beans. After screen grading and subsequent roasting, it's easier to control the flavor of the roasted coffee. Some coffee producers in Taiwan may not grade their beans due to small production quantities, may not know where to purchase grading equipment, may not be aware that coffee beans need to be graded, or may have unclear grading labels. There is significant room for improvement in this area. Taiwanese coffee producers must honestly face and faithfully inform consumers whether their self-produced and roasted coffee has been properly graded to achieve mutual understanding.

(3) Quality evaluation by screen size and defect ratio: This is a unique evaluation method used by Brazil, a major coffee-producing country. It uses a composite evaluation system combining defect ratio (deduction method), screen size, and taste testing to grade coffee. Brazil's taste testing is particularly worth learning from—they specifically divide coffee cupping standards into levels such as extremely mild, mild, somewhat mild, harsh, and iodine flavor. This allows people (including both coffee producers and consumers) to better understand how to taste coffee and accurately describe the mouthfeel of drinking coffee, rather than creating special terms that leave everyone confused and unclear.

Estate Coffee

Strictly speaking, "Estate Coffee" belongs to a higher standard within specialty coffee. Currently, it's evaluated by specialty coffee-related associations internationally and is known to have the following characteristics:

(1) Coffee producers provide buyers with a "Traceability" mechanism that allows tracking back to the producer.

(2) It's produced with a single estate as the production unit. Besides the essential condition that the estate's geographical location is highly suitable for coffee cultivation, estate coffee typically refers to beans from a single coffee estate or at least coffee beans produced by cooperatives composed of several coffee farmers. The quality of "Estate Coffee" beans can be maintained at a certain level, and beans from different estates possess different flavors, reflecting local terroir characteristics to some extent.

(3) "Estate Coffee" is sometimes shade-grown, sometimes organic, or environmentally friendly shade-grown coffee beans, etc. Some may have international certification, while others may be award-winning coffees from specialty coffee competitions. "Estate Coffee" typically represents coffee farms with diverse vegetation that can provide habitats for wildlife, birds, and insects—cultivating coffee trees while using natural resources without causing further damage to nature. Alternatively, coffee farms may grow various other cash crops and rotation crops, allowing farms to have diversified income and enabling land resources to recycle. Shade-grown coffee beans must also fully comply with organic coffee processing standards. In other words, "Estate Coffee" represents pursuing quality over quantity.

(4) Many internationally renowned coffee estates introduce themselves through the internet, and competitions evaluating top-tier coffee (specialty coffee, also called fine coffee) publish cupping results online, allowing those interested in "Estate Coffee" to easily find competition bean rankings online. In Taiwan, some businesses even purchase sample beans directly from estate owners for testing. However, it's important to note that beans produced by the same estate may not perform at the same level each year. After all, coffee beans are agricultural products that change with climate variations.

Understanding Coffee Grades

After having a preliminary understanding of the above coffee classifications, everyone can know which grade their consumed coffee belongs to. For lovers of "Specialty Coffee," the advanced threshold is "defect bean removal." If defect beans are not removed, it can only be considered as drinking true single-origin coffee, one step away from "Specialty Coffee," though already quite tasteful. For lovers of "Estate Coffee," the advanced threshold is to abandon the common perception that rich and strong flavors represent coffee taste, especially since many people in Taiwan drink coffee "preferring bitterness over sourness," believing that coffee with sour taste doesn't taste good. Those who drink "Estate Coffee" should not approach it with preconceived notions. If they don't experience the very sour "Estate Coffee" flavors that reflect local terroir characteristics, they can only be considered as "chasing trends" or using "Estate Coffee" to elevate their status, without truly entering the "coffee hall of fame," because "Estate Coffee" is specialty coffee that emphasizes quality over quantity. It often has rich coffee aroma when smelled, but doesn't taste like typical coffee when drunk. For example, the fine champion coffee Geisha is like this—all reaching considerable levels, with only differences in competition rankings. After all, "Estate Coffee" represents high-quality specialty coffee.

Commercial Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee roasted single-origin & espresso commercial coffee beans: FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya AA coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Butterfly coffee, etc., all have full guarantees in terms of brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer extremely high cost-performance ratio. A half-pound (227g) package costs only about 80-90 yuan. Calculating at 15g per pour-over coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to the normal café price of 30-40 yuan per cup, this represents extremely high value for money, suitable for广大 coffee enthusiasts to purchase and try.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473