ABSTRACT
Coffee quality – including measurement of quality parameters and the application of a quality assurance (QA) system – cannot be discussed without previous agreement on the definition of quality. There are many different definitions of quality. Some of these definitions lend themselves better for an industrial product or a commodity: ‘conformance to requirements’; ‘the ability of a product or service to meet a customer’s expectations for that product or service’; ‘the extent to which products, services, processes, and relationships are free from defects, constraints, and items which do not add value for customers’, while other definitions are best suited for specialty products: ‘a degree of excellence’ (Anon., 2001). Should we apply to coffee the commodity-oriented or the specialty-oriented definitions? One of the roots of current misunderstandings about coffee quality is that we are in the middle of a paradigm shift, from viewing coffee solely as a commodity, to a reality in which every year a larger percentage of the coffee volume is considered a specialty product (Anon., 2014a). The current specialty coffee market assumes that specialty coffee has a ‘distinct taste and personality different from, and superior to’ ‘commercial quality coffee’ (Anon., 2014b). Therefore, the definition of quality for commercial coffee is equalled to the absence of defects and conformance to the trade contracts, while specialty coffee is expected to show ‘a degree of excellence’ beyond the commercial specifications.
