Coffee Quality Institute (CQI)
The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) is the nonprofit best known for building the Q Grader program — the certification that trains and licenses people to score green coffee to a common standard.1 A “Q Grader” is, in effect, the coffee world’s licensed taster.
CQI’s grading system historically leaned on the Specialty Coffee Association cupping framework, which is why Q scores and SCA scores speak the same 100-point language.2
CQI also runs the Q Coffee system, where producers submit lots to be scored blind by licensed graders and get back a standardised score and report a distant buyer can act on.3
To verify — the governance change, partly corroborated
The channel notes flagged an ownership change around the Q Grader program (heard as moving to “SEA” after an acquisition). Two things now point the same way: the SCA presents the Q Grader licence as its own on its live course page, with no mention of CQI, and CQI’s own site links to a page whose address reads
cqi-sca-transition. That suggests the “SEA” in the notes is really SCA. But the transition page returned 404 and CQI’s FAQ says nothing about it, so the effective date and what transferred remain unconfirmed.4Pulling the other way: CQI’s own Q Grader FAQ page says CQI “will continue to train, test, and certify Q Graders as it has done for the past 20 years,” and will keep using the 2004 cupping form “for the foreseeable future”. That page is undated and reads as if written before the handover, but it means CQI has never publicly stepped back from the role. The one thing that page does settle is the status of existing certificates — it states the changes have “no impact on your Q Grader Certification, which is still valid.”5
Separately, still confirm what “SEA market price” refers to (green coffee market / the C-price / a regional index).
Related
- Q Grader · Specialty Coffee Association · Cupping · Coffee scoring · Fine Robusta
- Trish Rothgeb — CQI’s Quality Evaluation Specialist, who runs the Q Grader programme and its educators