Kieran - guest blog post
Kieran is an A, B, C in BAC. Recently obtaining his Q, he recounts his experience to demystify what it does/n’t mean to the coffee enthusiast or coffee professional.
The Q Process
SCA, CQI and the Q grader program (Can do solo with guests)
Why does the Q program exist? What benefit does having alignment/calibration mean?
The Q program exists to create alignment within the specialty coffee community, specifically within green buying coffee professionals
The philosophy behind the program is that coffee has an inherent objectivity that is measurable beyond our own personal preferences and can be scored as such to come to some conclusion on price
That way a Q grader in another place can look at the scoresheet and understand why you came to the conclusion for that particular coffee
What does alignment mean to you?
In my mind alignment and calibration within the specialty coffee community has everything to do with realizing our own biases but being able to set those things aside and attempt to objectively score a coffee in a way that can be understood by another calibrated individual on the other side of the globe
Having the certification doesn’t mean you are necessarily any better than other experienced tasters, rather it specifically shows that you understand how other individuals within the Q system should ‘theoretically’ judge coffee
Being aligned with other Q graders does not mean that I am no longer able to calibrate to other tasting individuals. As long as I am able to separate individual biases and adjust to the tastes of the other folks on the cupping table we can come to some sort of alignment based on our collective experience on the table. That separation is key to maintaining some level of objectivity while acknowledging everyone’s equipment (palate) is a bit different
What value have you found the program to have provided to your professional career?
Having gone through the Q program I have been exposed to an innumerable amount of coffee that I otherwise would have had to search for on my own, all processed and roasted in a way that illustrated the depth and range of flavor that coffee can express.
I have also had the opportunity to meet many individuals who are like minded within the coffee industry and share my level of passion
What takeaways do you have from going through the course?
Tasting can be a communal experience rooted in shared memory
Flavor memory/recall is all within how you are able to articulate a specific feeling of when you consume something
I would argue that Q raises the floor and ceiling for tasters in that the overall experience you can immediately share with the folks you're tasting with as well as the raising the potential to share even more with others that aren’t within your immediate vicinity
What was the most difficult part of the week-long exam?
The most difficult aspect of Q is palate fatigue. In my experience and opinion, no amount of practice can prepare you for this specifically. Unless students are constantly tasting coffees all day every day for your job already, they will have a hard time adjusting to the sheer amount of coffee you have to taste.
How has becoming a Q grader impacted your day to day as a coffee professional?
In all honesty the only thing that has changed is some level of instant credibility in my direction from others within the industry. Once it becomes known that I hold the cert, people light up and treat me a little bit differently, especially when I am in another country (Japan has an interesting reverence for Q)
What do you think about the comparison of Q graders to sommeliers and how some Q graders see themselves as such?
I feel the comparison is a bit unfounded. People are grasping for a way to compare Q graders to other professional titles within adjacent industries. To a degree, a Q grader is similar in function to any QC position within adjacent beverage industries, whether that be wine, whiskey, tea etc. While Q graders can provide education, similar to a somme, their main responsibility is to QC. So while similar, the positions aren’t exactly one to one. Any Q grader who compares themselves to sommeliers may have ulterior motives for such a comparison.
Why do you think CQI wants us to feel there is an objective quality to coffee?
Without an objective good it becomes really difficult to create alignment within ‘calibrated’ professionals.
What was the most challenging module of the test and what do you recommend to other folks taking their Q exams in the future?
The most challenging module for me was roast ID for sure. I hadn’t practiced tasting defective roasts intentionally before and having to ID them in triangulations after blowing out my palate tasting everything else from exam week was difficult. Utilize any defect kits you can find. I also would recommend two things; trusting your gut reaction and letting the coffees cool in triangulations. Your first instinct will very likely be your best and letting the coffees settle and cool will help you identify different characteristics of the coffees on the table, whether that be acid perception or some level of sweetness etc.
New trends/analysis forms? CVA vs SCA for?
Answered below in why does the program exist question.
To your knowledge of modern coffee that you were already doing, what does Q not cover/clarify?e.g. Processes, varietals, brew methods, roasting, brewing.
Q only covers tasting skills and does not teach one how to brew, roast or educate others about coffee. Q is primarily about how to assess coffees and communicate what you are experiencing to other ‘calibrated’ individuals. All of the other disciplines within coffee are peripheral and thought to be understood within Q that they have their own interpretations for brewing, roasting and education. There is however a general knowledge module where questions about process, varietal and roast do come up. It is assumed that coffee professionals pursuing a Q certification have some level of knowledge and background within coffee. Q does not teach you everything. It only teaches you palate assessment skills.
Post-Q, how does it affect how you look at purchasing coffee?
E.g. What details do might you look at differenlty on a website description
I feel like I look at coffees more holistically now than I did before, however I am much more confident in what I know I like and that gives me extended confidence within service, illustrating to other why I may enjoy a specific coffee. When looking at tasting notes on a website/identifying specific flavors I can confidently fill a menu slot with a coffee I know we can work with and help it express in the way the producer and roaster expected it to. Their notes help me make an informed decision on what to buy and I can buy with more confidence.
What is the Q?
I want to preface this by saying nobody needs to have a Q certificate to critically taste coffee. The two things that will matter most is how you taste and how often. The Q is not a fast track to getting good at tasting, it just becomes a part of your experience. For many, the program can buy some level of instant credibility, it being an intensive week-long endeavor that really does put you through the wringer of tasting a wide (but not full) range of what specialty coffee has to offer. By and large it is a path to learning how to score and price discover specific coffees. The program is meant to ensure that folks who are looking to get into buying green coffee are able to consistently taste, score and articulate their experience of roasted samples of coffee. Many coffee companies will have a Q grader as their decision maker for green coffees their company may want to purchase. That is not to say that a green buyer must have a Q certificate in order to fulfill the role, rather Q graders are more likely to understand the proper protocol to follow in fully understanding the potential value a coffee holds and what role that coffee could potentially play on their menu.
During my initial instruction, our instructor Sandra Loufburrow prefaced the course by asking us to keep one thing in mind, ‘Remember that every coffee has a home. Regardless of how you feel about it, each coffee on the table deserves to go to a good home.’ Even if the coffee is sub-specialty. Even if it scores over 90 on your sheet. That coffee is the fruit of a laborious process that took many hands to get to the table. This was the biggest takeaway of the course for me. Every time I step up to the cupping table I remind myself to be as nice to the coffee as I possibly can.
Overall the Q is fairly straightforward. You spend a week understanding the many facets of what coffee can express. The first three days are lectures and practice tests for the last three days which are all set aside for exams. I’ll link Feran’s blog post on his recommended strategy on taking the Q to save myself from going too in depth in describing the ins and outs of the course. However, I will give a brief overview of my thoughts for each module and how it pertains to tasting coffee as a whole.
A major part of the Q that many people do not realize before taking the course is the emphasis on olfactory calibration and skills. Roughly speaking, about 60-70% of what we’re experiencing in taste can be attributed to what we’re smelling. The Q program has many modules focused around smell, targeting specific groups of scents that are recommended to be memorized. The scents are grouped into 4 categories based on the Le Nes du Cafe scent set. This set is a box of small vials labeled to their corresponding scents for students to blindly match during the exam. The 4 groupings include enzymatic aromas, sugar browning aromas, dry distillation and aromatic taints. Each of these groups focuses on specific aspects of coffee that help us more accurately describe the experience of smelling and tasting.
Who is the Q for?
I wholly believe that the Q can be for anyone with the desire to develop their skills in tasting coffee. The experience you gain from understanding how you experience tasting coffee in direct comparison to a cohort of fellow tasters breeds a calibrated understanding of alignment. In that vein the Q is for those who find value in being a part of an international community of calibrated individuals who are able to taste beyond their own personal preferences and judge a coffee as objectively as possible.
Professional use cases for the Q can vary widely depending on the opportunities already available for individuals. In most cases any person who is already conducting a green buying operation or people within the training/QC department of a coffee company would benefit greatly from at least going through the Q process. Even if you don’t pass, the Q provides you with many tools to help understand and articulate what you are experiencing while tasting specific coffees. Having a Q grader within your company in some capacity will hopefully help center your coffee program and retain a baseline of coffee quality.
Many Q students travel from around the world to take these exams with specific instructors. I’ve cupped with people from all over the US and all over the world. So suffice it to say that this course is not for the faint of heart and those who just want to have a certificate in tasting coffee.
If you are solely interested in learning how to taste coffee the Q may not be for you. The steep price of around 2 thousand dollars as well as the time commitment of a whole week can be a lot of overhead investment for an individual to incur for the singular purpose of learning how to align taste to a cohort of calibrated individuals. If you have no interest in aligning yourself with that standard of tasting you may be better off finding a local community of coffee enthusiasts to share your tasting experience with. This way you can still share coffee with others but in a lower pressure and less formal setting.
Many Q venues also hold smaller workshops for those interested in learning more about how to analytically taste coffee. These workshops are often free or very affordable compared to the Q and will help you decide whether or not becoming certified is the right choice personally or professionally.
I believe that any QC professional, green buyer and roaster would benefit immensely from becoming certified. Enthusiasts and even baristas can certainly benefit from going through the program but I would recommend investigating more affordable options to gain that tasting experience.
The single greatest challenge of the Q is developing confidence in yourself and trusting your initial gut reaction to the cups that are placed in front of you. Tasting is just interfacing with your own memory and the more standout experiences you have in your sensory memory bank, the easier it will be for you to accurately articulate what you find within individual coffees. With that confidence you are also responsible for understanding the difference between what a
Why does the Q program exist? What benefit does having alignment/calibration provide to the specialty coffee industry?
Please forgive my long winded answer to this question. Many things have changed since the initial draft of this article and I needed to include an addendum to my original thoughts on the Q program as a whole.
For better or worse my life has revolved around coffee and in part this certification for the better part of the last year and a half. I have been privileged enough to share cupping tables with esteemed professionals around the world, many of whom have completely abandoned their pursuit of getting Q certified. In light of the recent adjustments and the transition away from a CQI controlled Q program to one run by the SCA, I understand the choice that those individual professionals have made. We’re in a space where we vote with our dollars however, integrity and honesty are the currency that ideally runs specialty coffee. From crop to cup, calibrated professionals have and hold a responsibility to accurately assess and communicate the value of coffees produced around the world. In my initial Q course, my instructor Sandra Loufborrow stated that ‘every coffee has a home, and we should strive to be nice to each coffee that lands on our cupping table,’ an ideal that has stuck with me through my tasting experiences.
With the Q transitioning into the hands of the SCA, I can’t help but feel taken advantage of. I am being told that the hard work, time and monetary investment I initially put into earning the Q certification was not enough, and that to retain my status I would need to complete additional training for an added expense. While at its core I expect the Q to operate and stand for the same values and ideals our instructors had instilled in us, the need to justify how much I deserve to retain the certification feels arbitrary and like a cash grab. And even writing that out makes me feel like I’m knee jerking quite a bit.
However, this change goes beyond my own personal plight. In a move that essentially upends the standard of quality control within the specialty coffee industry, the SCA has undone a system that while imperfect, was a solid and respected platform for coffee professionals to align their palates to other like minded and certified individuals around the world.