Ask ten people what specialty coffee is and you will probably get ten different answers. For us, it is simple. Specialty coffee is coffee that has been looked after at every step, from the farm where it grows to the cup you are holding, and that can tell you where it came from. Here is what that means in practice, how the industry defines it, and why we think the definition is only part of the story.
How does the coffee industry define specialty?
For more than twenty years, the industry has drawn the line with a number. Trained cuppers taste the coffee under fixed conditions and score it out of 100. A coffee that scores 80 points or more counts as specialty. Anything below that is commodity coffee.
The score looks at the things you would expect: aroma, flavour, acidity, body, sweetness and aftertaste, along with how clean and consistent the coffee is from cup to cup. Defects cost points. It is a careful, demanding process, and it is still the most widely used definition of specialty coffee.
The cuppers who score coffee are often certified Q Graders, trained to taste to a shared standard so that a score means the same thing in Colombia as it does in Spain.
Is a higher score always a better coffee?
Not always. A score tells you a coffee is well grown, well processed and free of faults. It does not tell you whether you will love it. An 88-point coffee can be technically excellent and still not be the cup you want to drink every morning.
The Specialty Coffee Association, which wrote the original scoring system, now says something similar. In 2024, it adopted a new way of assessing coffee, the Coffee Value Assessment, which separates describing a coffee from judging how much you like it. We think that is right. The score gets a coffee through the door. What happens next is about something else.
What do we look for beyond the score?
When we taste a coffee, the score is a starting point. Then we ask three questions.
Where does it come from? We want to know the farm, the region and the person who grew it. Take Flight 001. It comes from Finca Motta in Acevedo, Huila, Colombia, where Jefferson Adrián Motta grows a rare variety called Ombligón at 1,700 metres.
How was it grown and processed? How the cherries are picked, how the fruit is handled and how the beans are dried all shape the flavour. Flight 001 was handpicked when ripe, processed using the yellow honey method and dried on raised beds.
Is it clear, and will you remember it? We want a cup with clarity and character, one you still think about after you have finished it. Flight 001 tastes of coconut, clean and sweet.
What is the difference between specialty and commodity coffee?
Commodity coffee is traded on price. It is bought in bulk, blended from many sources and treated as interchangeable, which is why a bag of it rarely tells you more than a country name.
Specialty coffee is traded on quality. Its value comes from a particular farm, a particular variety and a particular way of handling the harvest. The people who grew it can be named and recognised for their work.
Why does specialty coffee taste different?
Because it is allowed to taste of where it came from. Commodity coffee is often roasted dark to cover flat or harsh flavours. Specialty coffee is roasted to show its character, so you can taste fruit, flowers, chocolate or nuts depending on the origin, the variety and the process.
That is why two specialty coffees can taste nothing alike, and why we roast every lot to its own profile.
How does Swallow work with specialty coffee?
We only work with specialty coffee. We choose the green coffee ourselves, roast each lot to its own profile and taste every batch before it reaches the bar or your door. From roastery to cup, every decision is ours. If you would like to see how that works, we wrote about it in How Swallow Roasts.
Our range is small and changes through the year as harvests come and go. You can see what we have right now on our coffee page.
If you are in Alicante, you will find Swallow Specialty Coffee, Plaza del Carmen 13, Alicante, open every day from 08:30 to 16:30. You can read how it all started in our story, and common questions are answered on our FAQ page.