What’s the difference between gourmet coffee and specialty coffee?
Question by y/a: What’s the difference between gourmet coffee and specialty coffee?
Can you give me an example of each? I’ve searced it everywhere i could think of and couldnt’ find anything that tells the difference or example of each. thanks
so would caribou’s Kenya AA considered a gourmet coffee or specialty coffee? it doesn’t really say in it’s website.
thanks Nicholas and AJC, that’s very insightful and helpful of you.
Best answer:
Answer by stephanie sapra buchdale
not sure
Give your answer to this question below!
nothing. they are both gross.
One has the word “Gourmet” in front of it, the other has the word “Specialty” in front of it.
Actually, there is no difference….they are both disgusting.
great question?
My guess there is no difference and these are just marketing terms.
Dr. i agree with you, as a marketeer its only the marketing language here no big difference therefore.
Gerald Katabazi
volcano coffee Uganda.
gourmet is supposibly “better” fresh and all that.
specialty is like their main coffee, everyones favorite.
I think gourmet coffee is the beans
specialty coffee is what you add to the coffee like flavoring
Caribou serves gourmet coffees, premium loose-leaf teas, blended coffee/espresso drinks, and bakery goods. It also markets the Caribou brand with clothing and accessories available at most stores and licenses third parties to use the Caribou Coffee brand on food and merchandise.
Caribou serves many specialty espresso drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas. It also offers dark and white hot chocolate. Caribou’s signature cold drinks are called “Coolers” (blended coffee with flavors such as coffee, vanilla, caramel, chocolate, espresso, and toffee). The lighter version of these “Coolers” are called Northern Lite Coolers (customers can choose from caramel, chocolate, coffee, espresso and vanilla).
The price
My last post went loopy… Let’s try again…
As an Italian, I love coffee! The difference between the two is;
Gormet coffees are usually roasted beans, which have a finer quality than other beans. These coffee’s are also usually drunk after dinners etc…
Specialty coffee is a normal everyday blend, in which there is no significant taste that differs from another brand. Gormet’s on the other hand have different flavours, just as you would get in single malt whiskey’s and wines, with their blends of berry and nuttiness in some.
I wrote an article about organic coffee that might have some answers for you. It’s at http://www.organic-home-online.com/organic-fair-trade-coffee.html . I do think that these are marketing terms but this article will tell you what to look for in a good coffee.
Coffee is yummy, by the way. 🙂
Best Regards,
Healthy Mom
Well – while I dont imagine there is a huge difference in “Gourmet” and “Speciality” (other than the choice of the one making the label….there are different types of beans that make a big difference.
There are Arabica beans and Robusta beans. Arabica coffee is considered more suitable for drinking than robusta coffee robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor than arabica. For this reason, about three-fourths of coffee cultivated worldwide is arabica.
However, there is a huge difference in the blends and roasts of coffee. The less expensive (or easier to mass produce for less cost) is what you find in the store coffees like Folgers and Maxwell House.
Starbucks is considered to have more premium coffee than either Folgers or Maxwell House – but in my opinion the best product that I have come accross is from Gevalia (look them up online). They are a mail order coffee club, but the coffee is just perfect – they have many roasts and blends and are not any more expensive than Starbucks or other similar “premium” coffee companies.
My understanding is specialty gourmet coffee is one description of coffee. They are used either together or separately. Sometimes they are also known as premium coffee.
Specialty Gourmet Coffee are from the arabica coffee beans, grown at high altitude, like above 3000 feet. Apparently has less caffeine than robusta coffee, more aromatic and fuller flavor.
Specialty Gourmet Coffee must be 100% arabica. Jamaican Blue Mountain is apparently a known gourmet coffee.
Caturra, Typica, Bourbon, are arabica coffee.
I have read quite a lot on coffee from this site :
http://www.sgcoffee.com
In the more specific industry terms, Speciality is actually a grade of green (unroasted) coffee. Gourmet is simply a marketing term.
The replies here that say that “gourmet” is the fancier line and “specialty” are the generic line are actually quite misinformed.
___***You can label any coffee you want gourmet, but in order to label a coffee “specialty” it actually has to be from the top tier of production and sorting.***___ http://www.coffeeresearch.org/coffee/scaaclass.htm
Granted, once a roaster receives a ‘specialty’ coffee they can roast it however they see fit, and many roasters out there (the aforementioned Starbucks, Gevalia, Folgers, Maxwell House) do an exceptionally poor job at it, so just because it’s specialty, doesn’t mean it’s going to be delicious. It simply means that the coffee met certain criteria when going through sorting (lack of defects, uniform size, etc.)