What's the Difference Between Hard and Soft Coffee Beans? How Does Growing Altitude Affect Coffee? How Are Coffee Grades Classified?

Understanding Hard Beans vs. Soft Beans in Coffee

We often hear baristas talking about "hard beans" and "soft beans" - things like "soft beans are easier to grind" or "hard beans are harder to extract." But when we pick up what's supposedly a soft bean and squeeze it, we might find ourselves thinking: wait, this doesn't feel soft at all! Why would a barista call this a soft bean?

What Are Hard Beans and Soft Beans?

Actually, "soft beans" and "hard beans" don't refer to the flexibility of the bean itself, but rather to its density! Why? Because originally, the concept of "hard beans" came from coffee bean grading systems! In Central American countries like Panama, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, their coffee bean grading systems are based on altitude. When coffee beans are grown at higher altitudes, their density increases, and so does their grade.

FrontStreet Coffee has mentioned before that higher altitudes mean lower temperatures. Such environmental conditions slow down the growth and maturation of coffee beans. For example, coffee beans grown at 1,000 meters altitude can mature and be harvested in just half a year, while coffee beans grown at 1,500 meters need about a year to mature. During this time, coffee beans can absorb and accumulate richer substances, continuously adding delicious flavors to the final coffee.

Therefore, most Central American countries, unlike older producing regions, don't use "size" as their grading method. Instead, they use the growing altitude of coffee beans as the standard for measuring their quality.

Coffee Grading in Central America

To put it simply, when beans are grown at higher altitudes, they take longer to mature, accumulate more substances, become harder, and ultimately produce more delicious coffee. Since we're on this topic, let's take a look at how Central American coffee regions grade their coffee!

The above uses Panama's grading standards. We need to note that although many producing countries use altitude-based grading, different countries have different altitude standards because their plantable areas and average altitudes vary. It's worth mentioning that some countries use neither altitude/bean hardness for grading nor size-based grading systems. That's right - we're talking about Ethiopia! Ethiopia's average altitude is very high, so it doesn't need to use altitude for grading at all - most beans are extremely hard beans.

Factors Affecting Coffee Bean Density

In summary, we now know that what baristas call "hard beans" actually refers to beans grown at high altitudes that are harder. Since hard beans refer to hard beans grown at higher altitudes, soft beans naturally refer to beans grown at lower altitudes with lower density. Besides altitude, many other factors during the growth and development of coffee beans can affect their density, such as growing environment, climate conditions, and so on.

The Challenges and Rewards of Hard Beans

High-density coffee beans are indeed more delicious (relatively speaking), but they also create more obstacles in every step of coffee preparation. FrontStreet Coffee believes that friends who use hand grinders should understand this well - with the same light roast coffee beans, higher altitude beans are indeed more laborious to grind. This situation is also evident during brewing, just like when a friend recently commented under FrontStreet Coffee's article: light roast Yirgacheffe is more likely to clog the water flow. The reason is simple - it's because it's lightly roasted and harder, with higher density.

But perhaps this is what they mean by "the bigger the waves, the more precious the fish" - in putting in more effort, we also receive proportional deliciousness in return~

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