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Roasting & Quality Standards |
How do we know we've got the best beans around?
Our farmer partners cultivate the finest quality Arabica beans in the world. The coffee is grown on land which the farmers proudly own and hope to one day pass on to their children. The special effort the farmers take to protect the soil and properly care for the surrounding environment comes through in the flavor in your cup. Our sourcing standards reflect our commitment to outstanding beans from inspiring people.
Quality Testing
Our quality control systems start with an inspection of the sample, direct from farmer co-operatives, to ensure the beans meet the strict requirements of specialty-grade coffee.
Our producer partners take representative
samples from each lot of coffee ready for
export in their warehouse. The samples are
milled to remove the parchment and then
sent to Equal Exchange for approval.
Each green coffee sample sent to Equal
Exchange is put through a strict physical
quality examination of the size, color, smell,
density, the number of imperfections and the
amount of moisture in the green coffee beans.
If the sample does not fall within our adopted
quality standards—those set by the Specialty
Coffee Association of America (SCAA)—the
lot of coffee will be rejected.
Each sample is then roasted to a cinnamon
color in our double barrel Probat sample
roaster. This style of roasting is required for
tasting the sample through cupping. We use
the internationally recognized cupping form
of the SCAA, which is based on a 100-point
system with 10 categories. This is similar
to the system used for scoring wine, and
highlights the outstanding characteristics that
make coffee so special.
The objective of cupping is to identify the fine
characteristics of a particular coffee through
this lighter roast and to test the power and
consistency of the sample. All coffee samples
are cupped blindly to avoid bias.
 Quality Feedback for our Producer Partners
Each year, our buying team makes numerous
trips to visit our farmer partners and to
investigate coffee crops. In the process
of selecting coffees, we work with our
producer partners to deepen the relationships
and share in the evolution of a common
vocabulary. We share important information
about the U.S. market, and the farmers, in
turn, share their experiences with us.
For each sample of green beans that we
analyze, roast and cup, we send a report back
to our producer partners. This is vital
information for our producer partners and
enables them to make changes, adjustments
and improvements over time. The physical
record of a particular imperfection, the way
a coffee is roasted and the notes about a
particularly unique characteristic in the cup
are useful for the producers and deepen the
bond between buyer and producer. Most
coffee companies do not provide specific
feedback to producers, instead they get a
simple rejection of the coffee.
Read "Quality: Bean to Cup" for a look at the journey from the coffee nursery to the cup, exploring the deep and complex nature of the brew.
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Wholesale 
