The prevalent perception of coffee grades and how it affects producers

Two years ago we wrote an article about the different grading systems in the coffee industry. It’s a good article that had a lot of research put into it, however it doesn’t cover everything.

It doesn’t cover what we think of the grading system, our experiences with it, or any producer’s experiences with it. Which is a slip up on our part, because there are a lot of assumptions surrounding the topic of grades that really need to be cleared up.

In this article we’re going to be taking a closer look at the Kenyan grading system. How coffees are graded, why they’re graded, and what the grades mean for buyers and roasters.

But to do this, we need an expert! And I know just the man for the job.

Sidney Kibet is the founder of Lot 20 Coffee in Kenya. Lot 20 is a coffee producer that buys cherries from smallholder farmers in the Western counties of Kenya, supporting them year-on-year with the processing and export of their coffee. We’ve been working with Sidney for a few years now, buying Lot 20’s graded washed coffees along with their naturals and experimental coffees, and there’s no one more well equipped to take us on a deep dive into Kenyan coffee grading.

How is coffee graded in Kenya?

Sidney explains that coffee gets divided into grades during the milling phase of production: 

“In Kenya we use mostly commercial dry milling. The way milling is done, we are trying to basically remove the parchment layer of the coffee. So, it goes into a giant machine that strips out the parchment, polishes the beans, and then from the husking or the hulling machine, it goes into a separation table- a giant bed that shakes up a coffee and separates it based on densities.

Very light beans, they exit at the topmost part of the table, and those go separately into a pile of coffee that ends up being graded UG (ungraded).

In Kenya we have 4 grades: we have the double A -which are screen size 18 and above. AB -usually screen size 16 to 18. C just below that. Peaberry is special, you know, round little bean, super dense, goes separately into a different box. So those are the four main commercial grades that make it to the export market.

Oh, honourable mention on the grades, which are rarer than rare, are elephant beans. These are giant beans that are really, really big, like your thumb size. Those are usually above screen 22 to 24. You probably get like 5 kg for every batch you do.”

It’s important to emphasise here that the beans are being separated by density, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to quality. Yes, a lot of lighter units like broken beans and small pieces of debris are removed by the separator, however many defects will still find their way into the four commercial categories. As Sidney tells it:

“A green coffee cherry will still produce a big bean. It's just not ripe. It would still produce an AA, an AB, a peaberry, and a C. An overripe coffee will still produce an AA and AB, peaberry and a C.”

Instead these defects need to be removed by the Lot 20 team at a much earlier stage in processing, usually while they’re still cherries and their ripeness can be determined by colour or fruit density. There is also a final sorting stage after milling that is done by hand at Lot 20’s storage facilities. These processes are what really defines a coffee’s quality.

Why is coffee separated into grades?

So we have 4 commercial-quality grades sorted by densities, but if they don’t signify quality, why separate them at all?

Simple, to give a consistent roast!

If you make cake batter and put it in a cake tin and cupcake tin, you won’t be able to bake them both for the same amount of time, right? 

Right, and it’s the same with coffee. If you roast a coffee that hasn’t been separated into grades, you’re going to end up with a jumble of beans from light to dark roasted (now there is an exception to this rule, but we’ll cover it below). 

This is the main purpose of grading: to indicate how you should approach roasting the coffee. When a roaster sees ‘AB’ on their coffee, they can immediately infer a few things about how to roast that particular lot based on the presumed density of the beans.

Why are washed coffees graded but not naturals?

If you take a look at the Lot 20 coffees on our offer list, you’ll see that while washed, natural, and experimental coffees are available, only the washed coffees have grades.

Sidney explains the situation like so:

“Once the natural coffee is milled, it still goes through the same grading. We get the 4 grades, the AA, AB, peaberry, and C.

Based on our cupping in our lab, we found that there is less separation in terms of how naturals roast and taste. So if you have an AA, AB, and C blend, if you keep that blend above screen size 15, they roast very uniformly.”

As it turns out, Sidney’s natural/experimental coffees are graded, but once received after milling, the team uses a custom screen to remove all C grades below size 16, and set those to the side with the peaberries for sale on the local market. Everything else, the AAs, ABs, and Cs above size 15 are mixed back together after some hand sorting to remove remaining defects. 

This ABC blend is what you’ll find on our offer list, and Lot 20 have found that, unlike their washed coffees, the natural and experimental coffees give a consistent roast even with a mix of bean sizes.

But why go through the effort of grading these coffees at all if they’re just going to be blended back up again? A few reasons:

Firstly, as mentioned earlier, milling does remove some defects. Namely the very light ones in the form of chipped/broken beans, small pieces of debris, and extremely underdeveloped beans.

Another reason is that having the coffee in grades makes that final picking stage much quicker for the Lot 20 team. If all the beans on the sorting surface are a similar size, it’s much easier to spot a defect than it is if you have a range of sizes.

And finally, the bias buyers have toward different grades. This is an active decision we made with Lot 20 when they offered us the option to have graded naturals or mixed naturals. Both us as an importer that sells to roasters and Lot 20 as a producer that sells to different markets have experienced the assumptions people make when presented with the choice of different grades. 

The notion AA is better than AB is better than C just isn’t true! They all come from the same lot, they’ve all had defects removed by hand, the only difference is the size of the bean and how you roast it.

How do grading perceptions affect producers?

When a coffee is produced to a high quality, when it’s gone through several rounds of sorting and picking for defects, been processed to high standards, then milled into grades, each grade of that coffee should have a pretty consistent profile when cupped. As long as the roast considers the difference in densities (which is the only difference for Lot 20’s coffees), the AA, the AB, the C and even  the PB should taste very similar.

But these grades still fetch different prices because of the prevailing assumption that they correlate to quality. And that doesn’t translate to more money for producers or farmers. In actuality it reduces the amount they make for their coffee, because if they could sell every grade for the price of an AA, they would get a lot more bang for their buck.

Sidney has similar thoughts:

“The value of a C is still just as valuable as an AA, and I think it's just the way the system has been built. It takes the same hard work, same amount of work to produce that C, same amount of love to make that coffee. So I think we should not punish the value of a coffee because it's a smaller size. The value of a coffee should always be judged by the cup quality, whatever system you use. It doesn't matter if it's the CVA, if it's the SCA. An AB that tastes like an 80 scoring coffee, why would it be more expensive than a C that scores 86? 

Of course, this is a massive disadvantage to a producer that produces a high quality coffee. Just because it's got a smaller screen size, they're being punished for it. It's nature. But the taste of the coffee is there. Just because it's a smaller size, doesn't mean it's got less value. And I know the system is built that way. But it is an unfair system, in my opinion.”