Sourcing
Sourcing coffee involves learning a new language and a new set of abbreviations. Unfortunately there is not a universal classification system that covers all origins.
For Example SHG (Strictly High Grown) means slightly different things in different countries.
- SHG in Nicaragua means coffee grown between 1,500 – 2,000 metres
- SHG in Honduras means coffee grown between 1,500 – 1,800 metres
“Brazil Cerrado NY2 17/18 B FOR NAT JUTE”
If we look at the description above this will tell us a number of factors, however the description above as mentioned in not universal to all origins and all origins do not use all the classifications.
Brazil:
The country of origin is Brazil
Cerrado:
The region within Brazil
NY2:
This is the classification system from the New York Coffee & Sugar Exchange and is based on the number of defects found in a 300g sample – 2 Grade would have no more than 4 defects
17/18:
The screen size, coffee varies in size and is passed through a series of different size sieves resulting in a percentage in each sieve. 17 = Bold Bean 18 = Large Bean – The higher the number the larger the bean.
B:
This describes the Varietal in this instance B is for Bourbon. Bourbon is a mutation from Typica and was discovered on the island of Réunion – at that stage called Bourbon
FOR:
This is the certification of the coffee. In this instance Fairtrade, Organic and Rainforest Alliance, this could also be described as triple certified.
NAT:
Natural process has been used to process the coffee.
JUTE:
The coffee is packed in a Jute bag and coffee from Brazil normally comes in 60Kg