Calibration across the globe
Sucafina Specialty has offices located around the world, including quality control (QC) labs for sampling incoming coffees. They work with a wide range of roasting- and producing partners, and seasoned coffee pros who help provide crucial services to all partners: from bank accounts for producers in Rwanda to exclusive specialty microlots for roasters in Hong Kong.
Over to Sucafina:
When buying coffee, it’s vital that your trader understand your needs. Effective calibration is our solution to understanding desires and needs of every party involved. Our QC labs are constantly working to maintain calibration across locations and teams, which helps us support both our traders and our roasting partners. It’s challenging, for sure. But a good combination of the right equipment and attitude makes it possible.
Cupping session at Sucafina. “When cupping for calibration, it’s important to keep an open mind” Celine says.
Staying Calibrated: A Shared Language
Staying calibrated means we can better serve the needs of roasters we work with. When we understand their needs, we can identify which coffees to sample them.
Calibration provides a mutual language for us to connect despite great distances between traders, origin colleagues and our roasting partners. We use a shared language to inform and discuss coffee preferences between us as traders and roasteries as clients. Thereafter, when communicating needs to origin colleagues, we can clearly explain what a roaster is looking for, using the shared terms and understanding. Our colleagues at origin can use that understanding to select appropriate coffees to share with roasters.
Using a mutual language leads to clear communication across offices. This speeds up the buying process, which is fundamental to finding the perfect coffees for all our clients’ needs more quickly and efficiently.
Sucafina use a shared language to inform and discuss coffee preferences between them as traders and roasteries as clients.
How We Do It
Celine Nguyen is Quality Control for Sucafina Specialty Australia, and she spends her days roasting, cupping and scoring coffees. “Across Sucafina labs, we follow SCA protocol to maintain calibration,” Celine says. “We use the SCA flavor wheel descriptors on our website, so we have a shared vocabulary to work from.” The SCA flavor wheel gives us a set of descriptors that we can use across all our labs. “Our online interface makes it easy to share cupping notes with colleagues and clients,” Celine explains. Roasters can search coffees and view cupping notes that use SCA-approved cupping sensory descriptors.
To stay calibrated “we use coffees that are readily available across labs to calibrate. For example, our Sucafina Originals are available in most labs at any time,” Celine says. Our Originals are sourced through our vertically integrated supply chains, which require constant calibration between our origin offices and traders. By staying calibrated, we ensure a consistent, year-round supply of delicious and affordable blends that meet our clients’ needs and price points.
Collaboration and discussion about scores also help our teams stay calibrated, even across great distances. When cupping for calibration, it’s important to keep an open mind, Celine says. “Everyone is open about adjusting their scores if they’re too far off from the crowd.”
Celine Nguyen in her element - roasting, cupping and scoring coffees.
Staying Ahead with Focused Innovation
“Calibration is also the result of staying updated on technological advancements”
Our Asia Pacific team, for example, is spread out over vast distances in several countries and across multiple continents. In this case, tools like water filtration systems and ROEST sample roasters are essential to maintaining calibration across our labs. In Asia Pacific, all of our quality control labs use the same water filtration system to help minimize changes across locations.
“Water plays a role in bringing out the flavors in a coffee. The composition of minerals and metals in water can vary significantly from location to location, so we use the same water filtration system across most of our labs,” Celine explains. And since we’re all about bigging up our amazing team: Celine recently spearheaded a research project about total dissolved solids (TDS) in water. You can read more about that experiment here.
Good calibration also means taking advantage of new technology as it becomes available. We’ve recently purchased ROEST sample roasters to ensure that everyone’s profiles are spot-on. When roasting samples for calibration, “we use the same roast profiles on the ROEST to reduce differences from roasting.”
Profiles by Sucafina. Download and give them a try!
ROEST’s precision through automatic profiles enables uniform sample roasts every time. This helps us ensure that roasts will be as similar as possible when we cup them, even in different cities and countries. We can also share our ROEST profiles with clients, making it easier to discuss our results.
A vital feature on ROEST is the first crack detection tool. The computer automatically detects first crack and adjusts the roast accordingly. This tool helps our labs manage large quantities of samples and maintain consistency across locations.
“QC labs handle a large volume of samples, so the ability to multi-task is important. Having precise first crack gives us a peace of mind that when we need to walk away from the roaster, the roast will still come out nice & consistent,”
This also ensures even roasts across labs, “we have the same profile and same first crack setting, removing human biases and helping with calibration,” Celine says.
With ROEST you can roast coffee wherever you wish. During the time of lockdowns Sucafina has roasting sessions in the kitchen, and it works great!
On ROEST, we can roast anything from 50 to 120 grams, making it a great choice whether it’s for a quick 3-cup session or a full 5-cup SCA-compliant cupping.
We use tools – water filtration systems, a shared cupping notes vocabulary and ROEST – to help us stay calibrated across vast distances. These tools help our colleagues across the world do an excellent job communicating about cupping notes, expectations and any problems that arise. With constant calibration and communication, we’re able to stay connected across all our offices, streamline buying decisions and better support customers.
Written by Victoria Brown at Sucafina
Photo courtesy of Sucafina