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What is the grading system for coffee beans? Is there a relationship between bean size and flavor? What are the advantages of cup testing coffee?

Published: 2026-02-25 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/02/25, As we all know, among the three major grading systems for coffee beans, there is a system that grades beans according to their size. The larger the particle size of the beans, the higher the grade, and the higher the selling price. In order to break out of this hierarchical system, some people will specially pick up the round bean list and tell a story to sell it at a high price.

As we all know, in the three major grading systems of coffee beans, there is a system of grading according to the size of beans. The larger the particle size of the beans, the higher the grade, and the higher the selling price. What's more, in order to get out of this hierarchical system, some people will specially bring out the round beans and tell a story to sell at a high price. Aren't people curious? Does the taste of coffee really vary according to its size?

In order to get the answer to this question, Qianjie specially selected a Costa Rican bean for the experiment! Because Costa Rican beans are graded by planting altitude, we can find large and small beans with great deviation in this coffee bean. Since there is no special screen, Qianjie chooses to use human eyes with extremely high pixels for selection. Distinguish the coffee beans by large, medium and small grains, and then compare the two extremes with great differences (that is, the largest and smallest grains) to see if there is a big difference in taste between them.

The way of extraction is naturally cup test, because it is a way of coffee extraction that can reduce human intervention, so that we can more intuitively feel the difference between the two. The coffee beans used this time are Mozart of Costa Rica! The parameters are as follows: 12g powder, 200ml hot water, 94 °C water temperature, rough grinding, soaking time is four minutes.

When the time is up, we get rid of the scum residue and try. It turns out that, hey, ah! There is indeed a slight difference, the flavor of one cup of coffee will be slightly more obvious than the other! But the special point is that, unlike the hierarchy, large grains are better than small beans, but on the contrary, small grains are more prominent than large ones (just a little bit). although! There is a slight difference in taste, but what we need to know is that the difference comes from the difference in particle size, which leads to a difference in the amount of heat required, resulting in a difference in the degree of baking. So if you get rid of this difference, there is essentially little difference between them.

In fact, there is no need to test, we can see such results directly from the appearance characteristics of some common beans on the market. For example, 74158 in Ethiopia, and the well-known elephant bean Pacamara! The small ones are very small and the big ones are very big. Although they are all at one extreme, their performance in flavor is very excellent. The reason is simple: the flavor formation of coffee beans is not directly related to body size. Because, the only thing that can really affect the flavor of beans is the planting environment, treatment, and baking degree that are often mentioned in Qianjie. Planting environment: in Mr. Han Huaizong's "boutique Coffee", there is such a sentence: 70% of the flavor and mellow potential of coffee beans are determined by genes, and the other 30% are determined by the ecological environment of the planting land. The environment here includes altitude, soil, rainfall, sunshine time and so on. Take altitude for example, the same coffee bean, when it is planted at a higher altitude, its ripening time will be longer. This can provide it with more time to absorb nutrients and have fuller flavor substances after maturity.

How to deal with it: when the basic flavor of the bean is formed, we can have control of its flavor. Through processing, enlarge its original flavor properties, and according to different needs, people will choose different treatment methods. For example, if you want to enrich the coffee on the original basis, you can choose the whole drying method; if you want the beans to have a cleaner performance, then you can choose the less fermented water washing treatment.

Roasting: roasting is the last step in the process of turning beans into coffee. Under the condition of suitable baking, the flavor of beans can be released and displayed to the maximum extent. But if we don't roast it properly so that it's not ripe, the extracted coffee can easily be bland and tasteless. Just like the beans in the experiment, due to the large size gap, a small number of beans are slightly inferior because they are not fully baked. Therefore, you can know that the size of beans is not directly related to the taste (the effect is negligible). What is more important is its gene, its growth, and its "cooking" process. -END-