Coffee gains a Woman

The National Weekender

By LARRY ANDREW
PESERVERANCE and a passion to learn has opened up a whole new world for a young woman of Manus and Morobe parentage. Lovelynn Pewi Kunoko, 33, is now accredited with an Arabica Q Grader certificate after training in the Philippines last September.
Lovelynn was born and raised in Lae and is the third child in a family of four. She graduated with a tourism and hospitality diploma from Lae Technical College (now PNG Poly Technical Institute). Her first job was with Niugini Coffee in 2008 which at that time came under Mainland Holdings. NGIP Agmark took over the company in 2012.
“I never studied food technology. It was on the job training and having the passion to learn had brought me this far. My encouragement (to others) is that nothing is impossible, set your mind on goals and have the drive to achieve.”
The Q grader training and exam was held from September 16-19 at the Barista and Coffee Academy of Asia, in San Juan City, Metro Manila. Lovelynn was one of nine people who attended.  Japan, the United States and Papua New Guinea had one representative each while the rest were Filipinos.
The programme was divided into two parts, with the first three days set aside for training and calibrations, followed by three days of examinations. The purpose of the training was to gain a qualified Arabica Q Grader certificate using the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) standards and protocols.
It is a highly effective method that identifies coffee that sells for premiums in the marketplace, developed by the Coffee Quality Institute which implements industrially recognised standards for quality. The goals of the Q grading system are to:

  • set a standard for quality
  • use licenced Q graders to measure quality
  • provide feedback on quality
  • create a common language for quality
  • link producers with quality buyers; and
  • establish a relationship between quality and price

Lovelynn said the Q grader programme creates a skilled and credible body of speciality coffee cuppers to consistently and accurately assess coffee quality in both cup and grade.
She said speciality coffee can consistently exist through the dedication of the people such as cuppers who make this their life’s work. These people continually make quality their highest priority and speciality can only occur when all those involved in the coffee value chain work in harmony and maintain a keen focus on standards and excellence from start to finish.
There are about 2000 licenced Q graders worldwide. It builds credibility for sellers by having the quality verified by an independent third-party and also provides an opportunity to reach new customers who are seeking higher value differentiated coffees.
With no previous qualification in the coffee industry and knowing nothing about coffee, coffee quality or exporting – except for consumption as a beverage – Lovelynn dedicated her time to learning.
“I realised that learning theoretically is never the same when it comes to practice. There are a lot more to master then learning from the books. When something becomes someone’s passion, striving for better and higher levels over a period of time becomes a part of that person’s life.
”For me to get this recognition is a challenge because I taste mostly PNG coffee. And to taste coffee from other countries I am not used to is very challenging. I never thought that I could become the first female in the country to be recognised as an Arabica Q Grader.”
Lovelynn said she sees the experience and knowledge she acquired as vital for the coffee industry, especially in terms of the production and export of speciality coffee. She said the opportunity to train with Barista and Coffee Academy of Asia (BCAA) was a great chance to learn and build her professional development.
“I consider myself as a very lucky individual to be provided with the opportunity to be a part of a world-recognised and certified programme. This opportunity is a big milestone in my career development,” she said.

What is a Q Grader?!
‘Q GRADER’ is a term that is heard of more and more in the speciality coffee industry. But what does it mean?
The Q grader programme was established in 2004 as a way to objectively examine coffees and score them based on their many attributes and therefore overall quality. It is in fact the only certification in the industry that is based on quality.
The aim behind the programme is to create an ‘army’ of cuppers all over the world who all speak the same language when it comes to coffee. The system quantifies taste attributes such as acidity, body, flavour, aftertaste, uniformity, balance, sweetness etc to ensure all participants are identifying flavour characteristics in the same way. By using the Q system, coffee buyers can essentially communicate quality right through the coffee supply chain from the farmer to the exporter to the roaster. By applying a score to a coffee, everyone involved in the process understands the quality of that coffee.
In simple terms, a Q grader is qualified to give a coffee an SCAA score out of 100 and can therefore classify it as being speciality or non-speciality. The programme itself is run completely blind and independently which means cuppers learn to evaluate the coffee without the influence of external factors such as price/farm/availability. This means the assessment is solely based on the quality of the coffee, allowing the whole supply chain to look at the coffee objectively.
It requires a vast amount of training and experience to be able to consistently score coffees in line with other Q graders and to become qualified, it is essential that you can identify defects and attributes in coffees consistently. It is also vital that you have cupped enough coffees to have built up a ‘sensory memory’ in order to compare against coffees you might have cupped previously.
Rob Stephen (a Q instructor and one of the founders of the programme) believes that people looking to take the Q grader exam should be those whose job it is to make important decisions about coffee quality.
There are about 3800 Q graders in the world, with efforts to expand the programme being focused on the producing countries. Farmers and exporters value the programme as it allows them to understand how they can improve the quality of their coffees in order to attract higher prices from the buyer. The Q programme also provides them with a meaningful way of communicating with importers and roasters.