The SCA's Green Coffee Classification system sorts visible imperfections into Primary and Secondary defects, assessed on a 300–350g sample.
•Primary (Category 1) defects are severe: full black beans, full sour beans, dried cherry/pod, fungus damage, foreign matter, and severe insect damage.
•Secondary (Category 2) defects are less severe individually but add up: partial black, partial sour, parchment, floaters, immature/unripe beans, withered beans, broken/chipped/cut beans, and slight insect damage.
•Specialty grade requires zero Primary defects and no more than 5 full Secondary defects in the sample.
•Defect counting uses weighted equivalents — for example, several partial black beans together count as one full defect.
