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What do "SS" and "FC" in Brazilian coffee stand for? How to grade Brazilian coffee?

Published: 2026-04-26 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/04/26, Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer and plays an important role in the global coffee market. Its coffee exports account for one-third of the global market. However, its flavor is not outstanding, low acidity, high sweetness, and mellow taste. Therefore, it often appears in blended coffee. However, when purchasing Brazilian coffee, you will find it on the sacks

Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer, the global coffee market has an important position, its coffee exports account for 1/3 of the global market, but its flavor is not outstanding, low acidity, but high sweetness and mellow taste, so it often appears in blended coffee. However, when purchasing Brazilian coffee, you will find a series of English and numbers on the sack, such as "CERRADO NY-2 SC-17/18 SS FC". What exactly do these English and numbers express?

Here we will talk about the classification of raw coffee beans in Brazil, which is established by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and supply (MAPA), and is usually composed of specific producing areas, defect grades, coffee bean particle mesh, cup test scores and sensory grades.

First of all, Brazil is rich in land and resources. 17 of the 26 states produce coffee. These states are also coffee producing areas, and each producing area is divided into multiple sub-producing areas, so coffee beans produced by a single producing area will be specifically identified. For example, "CERRADO" refers to the sub-producing areas of Hirado, in addition to common producing areas such as MOGIANA, SULDE MINAS and so on. In addition, some port names will be marked, such as Santos, which represents the port of Santos, Brazil.

Brazil's raw coffee bean defect classification comes from the New York Coffee Bean Association (Green Coffee Association of New York), so it starts with "NY". Brazil's highest grade is "NY2". Because Brazil believes that coffee belongs to agricultural products, and Brazil's special geographical advantage of the plain, through purely mechanized harvesting, although it can save manpower, but to a certain extent affect the quality of coffee, so it is impossible to have zero defects, so the highest grade is 2 instead of 1.

The following figures are classified as the proportion of defects, which can be divided into 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, and so on. The larger the classification, the more the proportion of defects. The "deduction method" is usually used to rank the number of defective beans in 300 grams of raw beans.

After the classification of defects, a fixed-size screen will be used to classify the number of coffee eyes. "SC" represents the number of eyes, which are 17 and 17 eyes, respectively. In addition, there are normal flat beans and round beans in Brazil, the normal flat beans are generally 10 to 19 mesh, and round beans are 8 to 13 mesh. Although the maximum is 19 orders in Brazil, the yield is very small, so 17 and 18 orders are already the highest grade.

After grading, the sample beans will be baked and then cup tested. The scoring method of cup score is borrowed from the cup scoring method of ‌ Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). And divided into Strictly Soft (SS), Soft (S), Softish, Hard, Hardish, Rioy/Rioysh, Rio. Among them, "SS" is the highest level, with a basic score of 85 or more, followed by "S", with a cup score of 80-84, followed by "Softish" and a cup score of 75-79.

The last component is the taste, which is usually divided into six grades: Fine Cup, Fine, Good Cup, Fair Cup, Poor Cup and Bad Cup, of which Fine Cup (FC) and Good Cup (GC) are the most common. To sum up, BRAZIL NY-2 SC-17/18 SS FC CERRADO means that it is produced in Hilado, Brazil, with a defect rate of grade 2, raw beans with an order of 17,18mesh and high quality. This is also the Brazilian formula beans that Qianjie Coffee has been used to mix coffee.

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