What counts as specialty coffee

Specialty coffee is coffee that scores 80 or more out of 100 on the Specialty Coffee Association’s tasting scale, grown and roasted with care and traceable to where it was grown. A specialty café serves it fresh and brews it well. Every café here is recommended for its coffee by a named person in the coffee community.

Specialty coffee, in plain words

• It is graded. Trained tasters score green coffee out of 100 using the Specialty Coffee Association’s method. Coffee that scores 80 or more, with almost no defects, is specialty grade. You will also see it spelt “speciality”.
• It is traceable. You can tell where it was grown: the country, often the region or the estate, and how it was processed.
• It is fresh. It is roasted to bring out that coffee’s flavour, and brewed within weeks of roasting.
• It is brewed with care. Espresso, pour-over or filter, made by someone who knows the coffee and can tell you about it.

What we look for in a café

• Coffee first. The coffee is the reason to go, even when the food is good too.
• They roast their own beans, or say whose beans they pour.
• Someone you trust has been there and says what to order.

How a café gets on Specialty Coffee

• A named person in the coffee community adds it to the shared list on Google Maps, with a short note on what to order. Their name goes with it.
• The site picks it up in the weekly update, and checks every café that is listed.
• No café can pay to be listed. A sponsored slot is always labelled “Sponsored”.
• There are no star ratings and no bad reviews: if the community does not recommend a café, it is not here.

Specialty coffee in BengaluruCoffee roasters in Bengaluru

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