Spencer Turer Earns Q-Grader License

We are please to announce that Director of Coffee Operations Spencer Turer is now a Licensed Q-Grader. An article from CoffeeTalk describes what it means to be a Q-Grader:

The Q-Grader pro­gram is designed to give a com­mon lan­guage to describe qual­ity in cof­fee and is used from the farmer to the con­sumer. It quan­ti­fies cof­fee attrib­utes and gets all par­tic­i­pants to iden­tify taste char­ac­ter­is­tics in the same way. The true pur­pose there­fore is to be able to com­mu­ni­cate qual­ity up and down the sup­ply chain and raise the over­all qual­ity of cof­fee in the process.

Jeremy Raths of The Roastery in Minneapolis, and a Q-Grader Instructor, describes the Q-Certification of cof­fee this way, “For the cof­fee indus­try it is the only cer­ti­fication based on Quality. It is totally blind, inde­pen­dent and adher­ing to a strict pro­to­col. It is all about the cof­fee. No guilt, no shame, just cof­fee qual­ity. It is a way that the whole chain can objec­tively look at a cof­fee using quantification.”

Q-Graders must pass a rigorous five-day exam to earn their certification, comprising of 22 sections on coffee-related subjects, such as green grading, roast identification, coffee cupping, sensory skills and sensory triangulation. There are currently over 1,000 Licensed Q Graders worldwide.

Coffee Analysts benefits by having two licensed Q Grader on staff.  Both Coffee Analysts owner Dan Cox and Spencer Turer provide leadership to sensory evaluations ensuring SCAA and Q standards are followed for coffee evaluations, and provide training to staff members as well as insuring proper calibration among sensory panelists.

“We are proud of Spencer earning his Q-Grader License,” remarked Cox. “It’s a rigorous and world-renowned program, and Coffee Analysts will benefit greatly from having another Q-Grader on our team.”

Congratulations, Spencer!