It is the best known and most widespread professional certification for coffee tasters in the world. It’s been created by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). To become a certified Q-Grader, it is necessary to complete a training course and pass a very demanding exam, in which the tasters’ overall cupping skills (tasting) and analysis of the specialty coffees are assessed.

There are several course options:

– Q-Arabica, to be credentialed to grade and score arabica coffees and specialty coffees;

– Q-Robusta, to be credentialed to grade and score robusta coffees and fine robusta coffees.

Today there is also a new certification process called Q-Processing, to certify competencies around coffee production and processing.