Colombian Coffee by Size
June 10, 2008
By
Andres Castro
I have had the opportunity to visit the quality control office of Almacafe located inside the private port of Cartagena. I had the chance to visit my old colleagues and refresh my coffee knowledge. I would like to write about some interesting facts regarding the logistics of the coffee prior to its shipment by vessel.
Picture 1. Colombian coffee by size
There are many interesting topics involving the last checkpoint for Colombian coffee before shipping. There are two main issues addressed here; one is the weight and the other is the quality of the coffee.
One of the duties of the Quality Office is to gauge the size of the beans for each lot by sampling 250 bags (on average). Since I have already written a general article about the size of the coffee bean in a previous article, I want to focus now on an aspect of that subject.
If you look carefully the picture 1 you might notice 7 different types of coffee base on size and one more which is Decaf. All of them are Excelsos (Green Coffee). This is a measurement for different presentations as follow Premium (screen 18), Supremo (screen 17), Extra (screen 16), European Preparation (EP) (screen 15), Colombian Excelso or Usually Good Quality (UGQ) (screen 14), Peaberry “Caracol” (screen 12) and Maragogipe, which is an Arabica varietal.
I hope this information helps you to understand that the quality of green coffee might be understood through a more holistic approach. There are different assessments (such as the size of the beans) that must be taken into account, but nevertheless the cupping stage is the key factor to choosing a good coffee.
I have had the opportunity to visit the quality control office of Almacafe located inside the private port of Cartagena. I had the chance to visit my old colleagues and refresh my coffee knowledge. I would like to write about some interesting facts regarding the logistics of the coffee prior to its shipment by vessel.
Picture 1. Colombian coffee by size
There are many interesting topics involving the last checkpoint for Colombian coffee before shipping. There are two main issues addressed here; one is the weight and the other is the quality of the coffee.
One of the duties of the Quality Office is to gauge the size of the beans for each lot by sampling 250 bags (on average). Since I have already written a general article about the size of the coffee bean in a previous article, I want to focus now on an aspect of that subject.
If you look carefully the picture 1 you might notice 7 different types of coffee base on size and one more which is Decaf. All of them are Excelsos (Green Coffee). This is a measurement for different presentations as follow Premium (screen 18), Supremo (screen 17), Extra (screen 16), European Preparation (EP) (screen 15), Colombian Excelso or Usually Good Quality (UGQ) (screen 14), Peaberry “Caracol” (screen 12) and Maragogipe, which is an Arabica varietal.
I hope this information helps you to understand that the quality of green coffee might be understood through a more holistic approach. There are different assessments (such as the size of the beans) that must be taken into account, but nevertheless the cupping stage is the key factor to choosing a good coffee.
