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That’s a great question, and while the terms are often used together, Specialty Coffee and Single Origin Coffee are not strictly the same thing.

Specialty Coffee vs Single Origin Coffee

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Specialty Coffee: This term refers to the quality of the coffee. It signifies coffee that has been graded 80 points or higher on the 100-point scale by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). This high score reflects excellence throughout the entire process: minimal defects in the green beans, distinctive positive attributes (like flavour, aroma, acidity, body), and proper cultivation, harvesting, processing, roasting, and brewing. The focus is on achieving the highest possible cup quality and flavour potential.

2. Single Origin Coffee: This term refers to the traceability and source of the coffee beans. It means the coffee comes from a single known geographic location, which could be a single farm, a specific cooperative, a particular washing station, or a distinct region within a country. The goal of labelling coffee as “single origin” is to showcase the unique flavour characteristics (the “terroir”) imparted by that specific location’s climate, soil, altitude, and processing methods.

Single Origin Coffee

The Relationship:

• Overlap: A vast majority of coffees marketed as Single Origin are also Specialty Coffee. This is because the whole point of isolating beans from a single origin is usually to highlight unique and desirable flavours, which naturally aligns with the high-quality standards of specialty coffee.⁷ Roasters choose exceptional single origin lots specifically because they meet specialty grade standards and offer distinct taste profiles.
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  Single Origin and Specialty

• Distinction:
  • You can have a Single Origin Coffee that isn’t specialty grade (it might come from one place but have too many defects or simply not taste good enough to score 80+).
  • You can have Specialty Coffee that isn’t Single Origin. This would be a Specialty Blend, where a roaster carefully combines two or more high-quality, specialty-grade coffees from different origins to create a specific, balanced, and complex flavour profile that still meets the overall quality standards.

Single Origin and Specialty Coffee

In short: “Specialty” defines the quality, while “Single Origin” defines the source. While they frequently go hand-in-hand in today’s market, they refer to different aspects of the coffee.

Specialty vs Single Origin Coffee