For years, the cupping score was the dominant language for talking about quality, but the industry is sharpening its lens to describe value with greater detail. The Specialty Coffee Association launched the Coffee Value Assessment, a system designed to portray a coffee with a “high resolution” view through four separate evaluation forms, intended to reduce bias and capture more attributes than a single number. This update is relevant to green coffee because it changes how qua

Decaf is trending again, but the conversation has shifted from “taking something out” to “preserving what matters.” The European Union defines “decaffeinated” coffee by a strict caffeine threshold, allowing the term only when anhydrous caffeine does not exceed 0.3 percent by weight of the coffee based dry matter for certain coffee extracts. For green coffee sellers, that kind of definition turns decaf into a spec driven category where process control and documentation become

The Freshness FirewallWater activity adds a second lens because it reflects how available that water is for reactions and microbial growth, not just how much water is present. Here is where things get practical for anyone shipping and warehousing coffee. Sustainable Harvest reports that, in their sample data, a water activity of 0.70 tends to correlate with moisture content that can be higher than 12 percent, which means a coffee can look acceptable on moisture while still ca

Fermentation used to be a mystery step you trusted a producer to manage, but controlled fermentation is quickly becoming a measurable, repeatable technique. Recent research and industry reviews describe how selected yeasts and lactic acid bacteria can steer aroma and acidity by shaping organic acids and volatile compounds during processing. One 2024 review in Trends in Food Science and Technology highlights the expanding use of specific yeast strains to influence coffee senso