Certified Quality Grader (CQG)

A Certified Quality Grader is a professionally trained coffee evaluator responsible for assessing the sensory and physical quality of coffee beans to international standards. This role is essential in ensuring that farmers, processors, roasters, and buyers trade coffee based on transparency, accuracy, and globally accepted quality benchmarks.

Core Responsibilities

  • Sensory Evaluation (Cupping):
    Analyzing aroma, flavor, acidity, body, balance, and overall cup characteristics.
  • Physical Analysis:
    Evaluating green beans for defects, moisture content, density, and screen size.
  • Quality Scoring:
    Assigning objective scores using frameworks such as the SCA protocol or GOOD Trade sensory model.
  • Traceability and Documentation:
    Recording results for certification, export documentation, farmer feedback, and market transparency.
  • Calibration & Standards Compliance:
    Ensuring consistency by maintaining personal sensory calibration with industry standards.

Importance to the Coffee Value Chain

Certified Quality Graders:

  • Support farmers by identifying strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Enable fair pricing by linking coffee quality to actual value.
  • Uphold market integrity, reducing exploitation and misinformation.
  • Promote specialty coffee by showcasing unique origins, terroir, and processing methods.
  • Strengthen systems like GOOD Trade Certification, ensuring farmer-centered validation.

Training Pathway

At Kenya Coffee School or through GOOD Trade Certification programs, trainees learn:

  • Sensory science
  • Cupping standards
  • Defect identification
  • Processing influence
  • Roast influence
  • Coffee chemistry
  • Recordkeeping & digital tools for quality tracking

Upon passing both theoretical and practical exams, one earns the title Certified Quality Grader—a respected professional qualification in the coffee world.