What G1 actually means.

Ethiopian export grades run on defect counts in a 300 gram sample. For washed coffee, Grade 1 allows only zero to three defects and Grade 2 allows up to twelve. Natural coffees are permitted more, because the process carries more, which is why a natural sitting at a lower grade can still cup beautifully.

The grade describes the sorting

A defect count is a measure of how clean the physical lot is. It tells you about picking discipline, about the mill, about how carefully the coffee was sorted. It does not tell you whether the coffee tastes good. Those are related but they are not the same measurement, and a lot of confusion in this trade comes from treating one as a proxy for the other.

The cup score describes the coffee

A Q-grader score is a sensory assessment made by a certified taster against a defined protocol, and it comes with a score sheet showing how the number was reached. A specialty natural that would have shipped as a lower grade under older rules can still score 86 and above. Read both numbers together. One without the other tells you half the story.

Ask for the sheet, not the adjective

The practical version of all this: when someone offers you a Grade 1, ask which process, then ask for the score with the sheet attached, then ask for the condition readings. Grade, score, moisture and water activity are four different questions and every one of them has an answer that can be written down. Our specimen lot record shows the format we use, with each reading plotted against the band it has to sit inside.