The U.S.- and Europe-based Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) introduced it’s taking on control of the Q Grader program starting Oct. 1, 2025.
The Q program has been the flagship certification and training program of the U.S.-based nonprofit Coffee Quality Institute. Monetary phrases of the offer between the 2 organizations have no longer been publicly disclosed.
Continuously in comparison to sommelier certification within the wine trade, the Q Grader program has supplied greater than 8,000 espresso pros with rigorous-exam-tested bona fides on arabica espresso, robusta espresso and post-harvest processing. This system has additionally boosted CQI’s broader efforts to advertise espresso trait as a method to beef up top class marketplace get entry to for espresso farmers and manufacturers.
The SCA and CQI are describing the “transition” of the Q program control to the SCA as a part of a “partnership.”
The SCA mentioned that an developed Q program can be in accordance with its Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) program, a suite of cupping modes and protocols rolled out in 2023 and designed to interchange the gang’s legacy cupping modes, impaired for pro espresso analysis, a.ok.a. “cupping.”
“Coffee is more than a score. The partnership between SCA and CQI to evolve the Q Grader program is the latest milestone towards delivering on the SCA’s purpose to make coffee better,” Yannis Apostolopoulos, CEO of the Distinctiveness Espresso Affiliation, mentioned in a statement of the Q program offer at the eve of the SCA’s flagship U.S. industry display, the SCA Expo. “Upon completion of the program, Q Graders holding the evolved, CVA-based license will set the standard for modern coffee evaluation. Through a system that takes a holistic view of value in coffee, they’ll play a key role in driving progress in the global specialty coffee industry.”
A broadly impaired device during the worldwide area of expertise espresso trade, the SCA’s legacy cupping modes have traditionally been referenced in Q Grader coaching and training. In October of 2022, because the SCA despatched a understand to participants, signed through Apostolopoulos, that it was once launching a “task force” to create a brandnew espresso grading and cupping device (now referred to as the CVA) for pro cuppers.
In that announcement, Apostolopoulos described a belief of dissatisfaction with the “current administration of the Q program.”
“Over the past few months, we’ve heard from the Q Grader community — a key group of experts who use the SCA cupping and grading protocols — that they feel underserved and underrepresented in the current administration of the Q program,” Apostolopoulos wrote in 2022. “Though the SCA does not administer the Q program, we take this matter seriously and are taking necessary steps to ensure SCA’s cupping and grading protocols are serving the value chain as intended, and to support coffee cuppers and producers.”
Representatives of CQI and the SCA declined DCN’s requests to remark at the document referring to that message on the month.
In the day before today’s announcement, CQI CEO Michael Sheridan, who joined the organization in late 2023, mentioned, “We are proud of the role we have played in the first 20 years of the Q, and honored by the way it has been embraced in the coffee industry… And we are excited to partner with the Specialty Coffee Association to evolve the Q to meet the demands of the industry today.”
CQI has arrange a Q “transition” FAQ page on its website.
DCN could have extra as this tale develops.
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