1.1 The SCA Q Grader License: Issuer, 2025 Transition & Course Design

The Q Grader License is the professional credential that tells green buyers, exporters, roasters, and quality labs that a cupper can evaluate coffee to a shared standard. If you are preparing in 2026, the most important fact to get right is which Q Grader exam you are preparing for. The program changed owners and changed its scoring framework in 2025, and much of the free material online still describes the retired version.

Who issues the license now

For about twenty years the Q system was run by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). On 22 April 2025 the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and CQI announced a partnership under which, as of 1 October 2025, the SCA operates an evolved Q Grader program based on the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) and CQI is no longer involved in Q Grader operations. The SCA's education pages now describe the credential simply as the Q Grader License, "issued by the Specialty Coffee Association" to people who complete the Q Grader course and all required assessments.

During the transition, the SCA offered a fast track: SCA Sensory Skills Professional certificate holders, and current or lapsed Arabica or Robusta Q Graders, Q Instructors, and Q Assistant Instructors could move to the evolved license by completing the SCA's CVA for Cuppers course by 31 December 2025. That window has closed, so a new candidate in 2026 takes the full six-day course.

What the course is designed to assess

The SCA describes the six-day course as an assessment of a learner's readiness to evaluate coffee in a professional setting. Because it is rooted in the CVA, it asks you to assess coffee across four dimensions:

• Physical quality — the green coffee itself: color, moisture, bean size, and physical defects (the CVA Physical Assessment, often called green grading).
• Flavor and aroma — an objective sensory profile recorded with intensity scales and check-all-that-apply (CATA) boxes (the CVA Descriptive Assessment).
• Overall cup quality — your impression of quality on a nine-point scale, converted into a cupping score (the CVA Affective Assessment).
• Origin characteristics — information beyond the cup, such as farm, variety, process, grade, and certifications (the CVA Extrinsic Assessment).

The course focus listed by the SCA is sensory evaluation, cupping, green coffee grading, and the CVA itself. The outcome is a Q Grader License valid for three years.

A typical six-day schedule

The SCA publishes a sample schedule. Individual courses vary, but the order shows how teaching and testing interleave rather than sitting in two separate halves:

Because each assessment can be attempted twice during the course, many providers schedule second attempts on later days. Plan your energy accordingly: sensory exams are clustered in the middle of the week.

Who the course is for

The SCA designs the course for coffee professionals working in quality control, sourcing, or roasting, for people with experience in cupping or sensory evaluation, and for those deepening specialty coffee expertise. It says you may be ready if you have cupping and sensory-analysis experience, are familiar with the CVA, and have a high level of sensory skill. Earlier-career learners are pointed to SCA Coffee Skills courses such as Sensory Skills or Introduction to Coffee, and newcomers to cupping to the Intro to Cupping workshop.

Career pathways listed by the SCA include coffee quality analyst, exporter or importer, green coffee buyer, sensory specialist, roaster or quality lead, and Q Instructor (with additional certification).

How to use this guide

Chapters 2 to 9 follow the practical exams: taste and smell skills, triangulation, sample preparation and cupping mechanics under SCA Standard 102, the Descriptive and Affective forms under SCA Standards 103 and 104, the Physical Assessment, and roasting problems. Chapters 10 to 12 provide origin, variety, and processing knowledge that feeds the Extrinsic Assessment and the written exam. Chapter 13 ties the four CVA assessments together, and Chapter 16 closes with a written-exam review.