Coffee scoring
When you hear a coffee described as “85 points” or “specialty,” that number comes from cupping — a standardized tasting where trained graders rate a coffee on a 100-point scale across attributes like aroma, flavor, acidity, body, and aftertaste.
The thresholds
- 80+ — the classic line for “specialty” coffee, per the Specialty Coffee Association framework.1
- 87+ — the current standard a lot must clear to win Cup of Excellence.2
- 90s — rare and exceptional; the record Best of Panama lots score here, and in 2025 five judges gave a Hacienda La Esmeralda washed Geisha a perfect 100 — a BoP first.
The higher the score, the higher the auction price tends to climb — which is how a 20 kg bag of coffee reached roughly $604,000 in 2025.
To verify
The Specialty Coffee Association has moved away from the classic 100-point form to its Coffee Value Assessment,3 which records four separate assessments instead of one number and does not publish an “80+ = specialty” equivalent. The 80/87/90 thresholds above still describe how competitions and the trade actually talk about coffee — but they belong to the older form. Confirm which system a given score came from before treating the threshold as current.
Related
- Specialty coffee — what the 80-point line is actually a line for, and why the SCA’s own definition no longer states it
- SCA cupping protocol — the form and procedure these thresholds are scored against
- Coffee Review — the publication that put 100-point scores in front of drinkers, on its own 50–100 scale with its own bands
- Cupping · Q Grader · Coffee Value Assessment · Specialty Coffee Association · Coffee Quality Institute · Best of Panama · Cup of Excellence