What to expect in your Q Grader course.
The Q Grader Arabica course typically takes 6 full days to complete. The schedule below provides a typical layout for 3 days of instruction and practice with a subsequent 3 days of cuppings and examinations. Depending on your course instructor or your host, your program may look slightly different.
How to prepare for your Q Arabica course.
As you can see from the 6 day Q Grader course schedule above, there are many cuppings and triangulations with various sensory tests you should seek mastery in. Many attendees are nervous and wonder if they can pass each of the exams. Here are some helpful ways you can prepare and enter your Q Grader course with confidence. After the list (while referencing the schedule above) you can prepare and practice at home, at your cafe or at your roastery before attending your Q Grader Arabica course.
Create and practice solutions exercises.
Setup various cuppings and triangulations to identify odd cups out.
Familiarize yourself with the SCA cupping form to cup and score coffees.
Practice with the Le Nez Du Cafe aroma kit.
Learn to identify and distinguish between organic acids.
Learn how to grade 350g of green coffee.
Learn how to identify roast defects in a sample and in the cup.
Familiarize yourself with general coffee knowledge: cupping, grading, roasting, brewing, cultivation, harvesting and processing.
Practicing for the Q Grader Arabica in Detail
Let’s look at every one of these core skills, and insert great practical advice, in detail so that you can feel 100% prepared for your upcoming Q Grader course.
Practice solutions exercises.
For students of the SCA Sensory Skills Intermediate course this will be a familiar skillset. Various solutions of sweet, sour, salt will be made using water and sugar, organic acid and salt (respectively). A standard concentration will be created and then diluted several times. Students in the Q Grader course should be able to differentiate between the various strengths of solutions ordering them from least to most while identifying the basic taste present in the cup.
Next, the students should be able to identify if a cup has both salt and sugar or if a cup has both salt and acid present. In varying degrees these basic tastes will be mixed together for identification using taste only.
This is an easy and fun practice for your home or roastery or cafe. Purchase sugar, citric acid and salt. Blend 1-2 grams of powder into 1L of water and practice various levels of dilution to find your tasting threshold.
Students can also consider taking the Specialty Coffee Association courses such as Sensory Foundations and Intermediate courses for preparation and confidence on the Q Grader course.
Setup cuppings and triangulations.
To prepare for the many cuppings and triangulations in the Q Grader course you should consider a couple areas to strengthen your coffee olfactory skills. The first is your access to and familiarity with a wide variety of coffee origins. Some professional coffee learners find it difficult to access: washed milds (such as Colombia, Guatemala, Latin or South American coffees), African coffees (washed and natural Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, etc.), Natural processed coffees (classic fruity, earthy, heavy bodied coffees including Brazil and pulped-natural) and Asian coffees (classic Sumatra, Indonesia earthy coffees with optional Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, etc. “lush” coffees).
You should not expect to differentiate between or identify the country of origin, but you should be able to identify: classic African acidity sweetness vs. the class Asian earthy herbal cups in triangulations. You should be able to distinguish between a Mild and African or a Natural and Washed.
These tests are closely related to your first skillset to identify levels of acid and sugar along with a distinction between body and character. Those Q Grader Arabica students who have passed the SCA Introduction to Coffee as well as SCA Roasting and Green Coffee will not find these tests overly challenging.
See also the Coffee Tasting and Sensory Kits available to practice these skills.
Score coffee with SCA cupping form.
A great value that the certified Q Grader brings to her roastery or quality control program is her ability to grade coffees and qualify them accurate with the descriptions provided by exporters offering sale. Familiarity with the SCA Cupping Form and the ability to closely score a coffee with other Q Grading professionals is an essential feature to being certified as a Q Grader and maintaining your status with regular 3-year calibrations and recertifications.
Again, all SCA learners and graduates of Foundation or Intermediate level courses will find this an acceptable challenge. See the Resources and PDFs available here to begin scoring coffees to building confidence.
Practice with Le Nez Du Cafe.
If you have access to (or desire to purchase) a Le Nez Du Cafe aroma kit, this is an essential coffee tasting, sensory and Q Grader skill. The original SCAA Coffee Flavor Wheel as well as The Art of Aroma Perception posters were built upon this 36 aroma vial kit.
One of the goals of the Coffee Quality Institute is to create a standard language and point of reference for coffee professionals around the world. Though coffee is comprised of thousands of chemical components there are only 6 core categories of the 28-30 essential aromas required to convey to the human mind “this is coffee”. As a result, mastery over 36 aromas will provide you all the exposure required to pass your Q exam olfaction component while aligning you with growers, producers, exporters, roasters and professionals around the world.
Available at www.sca.coffee also purchased digitally by ROCC.
Distinguish between organic acids.
Closely associated with the solutions exercise, you should take a step deeper to understand that there are different types of acids which contribute to the acidity we find, enjoy or avoid in coffee. If able from online or offline stores you could access food-grade and food-safe organic acids to taste (safely diluted in water) learning to distinguish between: acetic, malic, citric and phosphoric acid.
This section in addition to all other sections will be practiced in the first 3 days before being tested in the final 3 days of your Q Grader Arabica course.
Grade green coffee.
Many certified Q Graders hold positions as green coffee sellers and buyers. Within this quality control program we need to have the skills to communicate up or down the coffee value chain while confirming within our own company what price points and quality assurance we hold for selling and buying decisions.
In your Q Grader Arabica course you should demonstrate the ability to grade a standard sample of 350 grams of coffee finding green coffee defects. Another aspect of the green coffee grading will be to judge if the sample size meets purchasing, size and other quality metrics.
Students of the SCA Green Coffee Foundations and Intermediate course should have no fear about facing this section of the Q Grader Examination. For a helpful video on Green Coffee Grading click here and view several other videos in the Green List.
Identify roast defects.
As a coffee professional and certified Q Grader it is essential that you can spot the difference between a green coffee defect and a roast defect. Some Q Graders are coffee roasters who can control the quality of the roasted sample they are cupping for evaluation or purchasing decisions. However, many Q Grading coffee quality controllers do not control the roasted sample they receive. For the latter group it is essential to know when the coffee is a lower grade green with astringency versus the roasted sample being underdeveloped and improperly roasted (also imparting a green astringency).
Likewise in this section you will learn, and be tested on your ability, to identify baked coffee (a flat, dull, roast error) versus scorched and tipped coffee (with bitter or harsh notes). In the former example, we may experience baked coffee attributes in a similar manner as we may experience the green defects of quakers, old crop or immature beans. In the latter example identifying scorching or tipping in the cup is akin to identifying insect damage, shells and other bean compromised effects.
Graduates of SCA courses in Green Coffee, Roasting and Introduction to coffee will all have a leg up on this section as so many of these same exercises and concepts are thoroughly introduced and explored in the classic Roaster’s Bundle of SCA certified courses.
General coffee knowledge.
Finally in the general knowledge section of your Q Grader exam, you should pass a written knowledge and theory section. This is standard specialty coffee knowledge from cultivation, species, varieties, harvest, processing, storage, transportation, logistics, roasting, quality control, extraction, blending, brewing and barista skills. The entire coffee value chain may be covered in the 100 question exam, but all content should be familiar to coffee students who are well studied. Furthermore all content will be covered in the duration of our 6 days together. The final coffee knowledge exam is generally offered in the final 6th day.
I hope this overview of the Q Grader Arabica course was helpful for you as you considering joining the ranks of coffee professionals certified by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). I also hope you have the chance to join one of the upcoming SCA Courses to get certified online with Introductions, Green Coffee, Roasting, Sensory, Brewing and Barista Skills.
If you would like to learn more about upcoming Q Grader courses please see our Course Calendar. As of this post date, our upcoming Q Grader course is open in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for March 2022.