How Coffee Bean Grading is Performed - An Introduction to Ethiopian Defect Bean Grading Standards

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Defect Bean Grading System

This is the earliest grading method, and the main countries still using the defect bean proportion method today include Ethiopia and Indonesia, among others. Indonesian beans are divided into 6 grades, G1 through G6. Ethiopian coffee grading starts with a 300g sample of beans, from which the defective beans are counted.

Quality and Grading of Ethiopian Coffee Beans

Grading Based on Defect Bean Proportion

This method deducts points for defective beans and then runs taste tests. Defective beans are a major factor in damaging coffee flavor, so removing them is the final step in green bean processing. The method is widely used in Brazil. When you buy coffee, you often see "Brazil Santos NO.2," and NO.2 is in fact the highest grade of Brazilian beans: beans with no defects at all are rare and hard to supply consistently, so Brazil sets NO.2 as its top grade rather than NO.1.

With the rise of the specialty coffee trend, producing countries are paying more attention to bean quality, and controlling defective beans is one of the most important tools for that. As a result, grading by the proportion of defective beans has become increasingly common.

Key Point

Coffee grading in most producing countries is not based on a single standard. It looks at defect rates, ensures bean size uniformity and requires certain altitude conditions, and these multiple standards together determine the grade of the beans.

In Brief

FrontStreet Coffee is a specialty coffee research center dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share our knowledge without reservation to help more people fall in love with coffee. We also hold three coffee discount events every month, because FrontStreet Coffee wants more people to enjoy the best coffee at the lowest price. That has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Grading tells you a lot about consistency, and Brazil is a good place to see it in practice, which is why so many Brazilian coffees carry precise grade names. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian selections are a reliable way to taste that consistency in the cup.

FrontStreet Coffee's Cerrado Red Bourbon is a classic Brazilian single origin, grown in the well-known Cerrado region and medium-roasted. It shows creamy peanut, toast, caramel and hazelnut aromas with a round, low-acid cup and a light bitterness, and it performs just as well in a pour-over as in a moka pot, an espresso SOE, a siphon or a French press.

For a sweeter, more distinctive option, FrontStreet Coffee's Queen Estate comes from Mogiana near South Minas, where fertile red volcanic soil helps the fruit develop a full aroma. Its rare Yellow Bourbon variety, a mutation of Red Bourbon, brings a cleaner fruit character with sugarcane-like sweetness, fruit and chocolate notes. Brazilian beans are also the backbone of FrontStreet Coffee's espresso blends, where they contribute chocolate and cream aroma, a soft sweet-tart-bitter balance and, above all, the extraction stability that consistent grading is meant to deliver.