At Lincoln & York, we’ve been delivering delicious coffee for over 30 years but this level of excellence wouldn’t be possible without the expertise of our three in house Q Graders. Their insight and experience are key to maintaining our high quality coffee so we felt it only fair to give them their own blog, answering the question that many of you may have wondered, what is a Q Grader?
A registered Q Grader is a coffee professional who has been certified by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) to assess and score coffee using a specific set of practices. Think of them as the sommeliers of the coffee world who speak a unique language that allows them to converse with coffee experts across the world. They see, smell and taste coffee against a standardised scale and use this scale to identify defects, taste for key attributes and consistently score coffee quality with a cup score.
Q Grader qualification
To gain a Q Grader certification you must sit six days of exams and pass 21 individual sensory tests. During these exams, Q Grader hopefuls are asked to cup and taste a variety of coffees. Their sensory skills are put to the test to determine the flavour, aftertaste, acidity and body of the coffees tastes as well its overall complexity.
Potential Q Graders must also spot quality issues and defects in roasted coffee, as well as grading unroasted green coffee samples. Lastly, the Q Grader test asks 100 multiple-choice questions about roasting, harvesting, cupping grading, growing and processing to really make sure all Q Graders have a deep understanding of coffee at every stage of its process.
This Q Grader course and rigorous testing ensures that every Q Grader meets the CQI’s exacting standards. But it doesn’t stop there, even having passed your Q certification, Q Graders are required to ‘recalibrate’ every three years. This means they are retested to ensure their coffee analysing skills are still accurate and they’re able to carry out their role as a Q Grader effectively.
With such high standards to maintain, it’s no wonder there are only 135 Q Graders in the whole of the UK and we are extremely proud to have four of them right here at Lincoln & York.
Q Grader role
On a day to day basis, our Q Graders are responsible for tasting and assessing all of the coffee that comes in and goes out of our roastery. This means tasting 150 cups of coffee a day in our state of the art tasting lab to ensure it meets our customers’ requirements in terms of quality and consistency.
Always keen to help our customers get the most from their coffee, our Q Graders work closely with them on establishing their perfect blend and educating their staff on the blend origins, taste profile and optimum serve to deliver the perfect coffee every time.
Our Q Graders often embark on origin trips, visiting our coffee farmers across the world, building connections with our suppliers and playing an integral role in coffee sourcing and blend development all the way from bean to cup.
Need a Q Grader?
Whether you already have your own blend and you’re looking for a new roasting partner or you want to create something entirely new, our expert team of Q graders is on hand to help.
We take the time to understand your business, your brand and your customers, combining commercial analysis, competitor reviews and consumer insight to create the perfect blend for you. And, thanks to the brilliance of our Q Graders, you can rely on us to deliver consistently excellent coffee every time.
