What Are the Coffee Bean Grading Systems? Does Bean Size Relate to Flavor Intensity? What Are the Advantages of Coffee Cupping?

As we all know, among the three major grading systems for coffee beans, there is one system that grades based on bean size. The larger the bean size, the higher the grade, and naturally, the higher the selling price. Some even go to great lengths to bypass this grading system by specially separating peaberries and creating stories to sell them at premium prices. Don't you feel curious? Does coffee flavor really differ based on size variations?

To find the answer to this question, FrontStreet Coffee specially selected Costa Rican beans for an experiment! Since Costa Rican beans are graded by cultivation altitude, we could find beans with extremely large variations in size within this batch. Lacking specialized sieves, FrontStreet Coffee chose to use the high-resolution human eye for selection. We separated these coffee beans into large, medium, and small sizes, then compared the two extremes with the most significant differences (the largest and smallest beans) to see if there would be substantial variations in flavor between them.

The extraction method naturally was cupping, as it's a coffee extraction method that reduces human intervention, allowing us to more intuitively perceive the differences between them. The coffee beans used in this test were Costa Rican Mozart! Parameters: 12g of coffee grounds, 200ml of hot water, water temperature of 94°C, coarse grind, and steeping time of four minutes.

When the time was up, we skimmed off the foam and residue, then tasted. The results showed—hey! There were indeed some differences. The flavor of one cup was slightly more pronounced than the other! But the interesting point was that, unlike the grading system where large beans would be better than small ones, the opposite was true: the small beans had more prominent flavors than the large ones (though just slightly). Although! There were slight differences in flavor, we need to understand that this difference stems from the variation in bean size, which leads to different heat requirements during roasting, ultimately resulting in different roast levels. So after accounting for this difference, their essential distinction is minimal.

The Real Factors Behind Coffee Flavor

Actually, we don't even need to test this—we can directly see such results from the appearance characteristics of some common beans on the market. For example, Ethiopia's 74158, and the famous elephant bean Pacamara! The small ones are very small, the large ones are very large. Although they each occupy an extreme, their flavor performance is exceptionally excellent. The principle is simple: the formation of coffee bean flavor has no direct relationship with body size. Because, as FrontStreet Coffee often mentions, the true factors that can influence bean flavor are nothing more than growing environment, processing method, and roast level.

Growing Environment

In Mr. Han Huaizong's "Specialty Coffee Studies," there's this sentence: 70% of the flavor and richness potential of coffee beans is determined by genetics, while the remaining 30% is determined by the ecological environment of the growing area. This environment includes altitude, soil, rainfall, sunshine duration, and so on during cultivation. Take altitude as an example: the same coffee beans, when grown at higher altitudes, have longer maturation times. This provides them with more time to absorb nutrients, resulting in more abundant flavor compounds after maturity.

Processing Method

Once the basic flavor of the beans is formed, we can gain control over their flavor profile. Through processing, we can amplify their original flavor characteristics, and people choose different processing methods according to different needs. For example, if you want to make the coffee have richer layers on top of its original foundation, you can choose the natural processing method with full sun-drying; if you want the beans to have a cleaner expression, you can opt for the washed processing with lower fermentation levels.

Roast Level

And roasting is the final stage in the process of beans transforming into coffee where flavor can still be altered! With appropriate roasting, the bean's flavor can be maximally released and expressed. But if we don't roast them properly, resulting in under-roasting, the extracted coffee will likely be bland and tasteless. Just like the beans in our experiment, due to significant size differences, some small beans were slightly inferior because they weren't fully roasted. Therefore, everyone can understand that bean size has no direct relationship with flavor quality (the impact is minimal). More important are its genetics, its growth, and its "cooking" process.

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