The term “specialty coffee” was first used by Erna Knutsen, in an article published in the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, in 1974.

As established by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), to be defined as Specialty, a coffee must be evaluated by a Q-grader certified by the Coffee Quality Institute. The coffee assessment consists of an aspect grading of the green beans, which must have zero primary defects and a maximum of 5 secondary defects, and a cupping test scoring 80/100 or above, according to a standard cupping protocol to assess the quality of the cup. A Specialty Coffee differs from any other coffee, first of all for the work done by the farmers: specialty coffees are grown at the perfect altitude and in the best soil, they are harvested at the right time and processed with extreme care and expertise.