Analyzing Green Coffee

We analyze each and every shipment of coffee twice, once before it leaves its country of origin and once when it arrives to our Lincoln, CA facility. This careful attention to the coffee we receive ensures it is of the best quality for you!

We perform two types of analysis:

PHYSICAL ANALYSIS
In our physical analysis, we make sure the beans pass size, color and moisture specifications.

TASTING ANALYSIS
Once the green beans pass the physical analysis, our technician roasts a small composite sample of the coffee to prepare for cupping evaluation.

I come to work every day and I get to taste the greatest coffees in the world. Sounds like a dream job to me!

~ CARLOS SERRANO
Licensed Q Grader / Green Coffee Manager

Our Cupping Process

After the coffee is roasted, we prepare a tasting session. We take 8.25 grams of roasted ground coffee and pour 150 ml of water at 200 degrees, let it steep for a few minutes and begin tasting.

In our cupping analysis, we evaluate and record all the attributes of the coffee. These include fragrance/aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, balance, uniformity, clean cup, sweetness, and defects.

These categories are rated on a 16-point scale representing levels of quality between numeric values of 6 to 10. Coffee tasting is similar to wine tasting and below is the coffee flavor wheel we use to describe flavor profiles.

San Francisco Bay Coffee only accepts the highest quality of beans, and typically the coffee ranges from Excellent to Outstanding on the Quality Scale.

The Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel by the SCA and WCR (©2016-2020) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.