You don't need to be a Q-Grader to know whether you're drinking something worth the price. The signals that separate genuine specialty coffee from commercially passable coffee are readable in seconds — once you know what to look for. This is those signals, in plain language.
What to Look for on the Bag
Origin — the more specific, the better
Good coffee tells you where it's from. Not "100% Arabica" or "premium blend" — actual geography. Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, Colombia Huila, Kenya Kirinyaga. The more specific the origin, the more traceable the bean, and traceability is the prerequisite for everything else that makes specialty coffee specialty.
Roast date — not best-before
Coffee is not wine. It does not improve with age. Peak flavour is 2–6 weeks after the roast date. After that, the compounds that produce clarity, fruit, and florality begin degrading. "Fresh" is not a marketing word — it is chemistry. A bag with no roast date, or a best-before eighteen months out, is commodity stock. A roast date six months ago means the café or shop selling it doesn't understand specialty coffee.
Processing method
How the coffee cherry is processed after harvest profoundly shapes the cup. Washed produces clean, bright, clear-flavoured coffee with high acidity and strong origin expression. Natural produces heavier body, fruit-forward notes, often blueberry or tropical fruit. Honey sits between the two — sweetness and body with some of the clarity of washed. A bag that discloses this was sourced by someone who knows what it means.
The One Number That Matters
The Specialty Coffee Association uses a 100-point cupping scale administered by certified Q-Graders. The threshold for specialty grade is 80 points. Below 80 is commercial-grade coffee, regardless of what the branding says. Above 90 is exceptional — very few coffees in the world consistently achieve it.
The Rule
- —80+ points = specialty coffee.
- —Below 80 = commercial grade. No exceptions.
- —Most supermarket coffee scores in the low 70s.
- —If a café can't tell you the score, they almost certainly don't have one.
Green Flags
Signs you're in the right place
- Origin clearly stated — country, region, ideally farm or cooperative name.
- Roast date on the bag, within the last 6 weeks.
- Processing method disclosed — washed, natural, or honey.
- Tasting notes that are specific — "blueberry, jasmine, long finish" rather than "smooth and rich."
- The barista can answer your questions without checking their phone.
- Light to medium roast — chestnut brown beans, not dark or oily.
- The coffee tastes of something other than just "coffee."
Red Flags
Walk away
- ✕No origin information. "Premium blend," "artisan roast," "100% Arabica" — none of these mean anything specific.
- ✕No roast date. Only a best-before date a year or more out.
- ✕The barista can't tell you the origin of what's in the machine.
- ✕Dark, shiny beans. Dark roasting masks defects and destroys the flavour complexity that justifies the price.
- ✕Coffee that consistently causes stomach discomfort — this is the body telling you something about quality, not personal sensitivity.
One Final Note
None of this requires expertise or connoisseurship. You just need to ask the questions that any café genuinely serving specialty coffee should answer instantly and with pleasure. In cities with mature specialty scenes — London, Copenhagen, Melbourne — this transparency is unremarkable. It is simply how coffee is presented to an educated public.
Salzburg deserves the same. The world is moving toward transparency. So should your cup.