SCAA - Specialty Coffee Association of America.
Established in 1982 by a small group of coffee professionals
seeking a common forum to discuss issues and set quality standards for
the specialty coffee trade, the SCAA is now the world's largest coffee
trade association with nearly 3,000 company members.
The SCAA has also been at the forefront of developing and promoting specialty coffee to insure coffee, and the people involved in coffee, may reach its fullest potential.
Along with it's annual trade show, a "Coffee of the Year" competition is held. This is a totally "blind" competition of high scoring coffee (at least an 84) and is judged by certified coffee tasters. Entries can number 130 coffees from all of the top coffee producing countries.
In the beginning, cupping was random and blind. Results and winning coffee was determined by the overall score. As an example, in 2003, Panama finished five coffees in the top ten scores. After that, coffees of one country were grouped with coffees of other countries with the top two scoring coffees from each group advancing to another "final" cupping. When Panama was grouped with two other countries, the two that advanced were always the Panamas. In 2010, things changed again. Now, coffee from each country are scored and the top coffee is given the top origin award. While you can look at all the scores for these origin winners, it is difficult to say that the highest scoring coffee from among these winenrs is really the top overall coffee. When coffee from all countries are randomly and blindly cupped, there is true comparison. When you are cupping a group of one country's coffee, you are only comparing those. I am not sure that cupping standards really keep scoring "equal" in this situation.
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