SCA Green Coffee Professional develops sample evaluation, contract understanding and buying strategies in 21 hours of learning. You need the Intermediate certificate in Green Coffee. Use the worked records and purchasing example below to practise separating evidence, requirements and assumptions.
What the Professional level covers
Green Coffee Professional is the most advanced of three levels in the SCA's Green Coffee course, aimed at advanced sourcing and purchasing: evaluating samples, understanding contracts and building buying strategies.
Professional is the third level of the Green Coffee module. Its 21 hours is course learning time, not assessment duration. The course contributes toward the Coffee Trade Diploma, which combines several certificates.
- Foundation (7 hours): the coffee value chain, basic grading, quality fundamentals
- Intermediate (14 hours): accurate grading, defect identification, processing methods
- Professional (21 hours): sample evaluation, contracts, buying strategies
Sources checked: Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses; SCA Coffee Trade Diploma: current required courses and levels — Diploma pathway portal, CSP Green Coffee cards; Education - Diplomas — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/diplomas
Prerequisites, delivery and fees
You need the Intermediate Certificate in CSP Green Coffee. Delivery is in person or combines in-person and distance learning.
The current diploma portal explicitly requires the Intermediate certificate. Confirm your certificate and enrollment arrangements with an Authorized SCA Trainer (AST); work experience is not evidence that this requirement has been waived.
Trainers, not the SCA, set course prices. A course price bundles the trainer's tuition, materials and delivery with an SCA course enrollment fee, and the trainer may or may not cover that fee for you. Ask for an itemized quote so you know what each part costs.
Use SCA’s Course Finder for dates, then confirm the schedule and complete price with the listed trainer. The SCA enrollment fee varies by pricing group.
Sources checked: SCA Coffee Trade Diploma: current required courses and levels — Diploma pathway portal, CSP Green Coffee cards; Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses; Education - Diplomas — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/diplomas
The assessment and the details you must confirm
SCA describes practical and written assessments. Ask your AST for the Professional course’s assessment arrangements.
The current pages reviewed here do not supply this module’s question count, task timings, passing scores or retake conditions. Confirm those details before booking.
Sources checked: Education - Diplomas — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/diplomas; Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses
Preparation priorities from the official topics
Use all three topics to organize preparation: sample evidence, stated purchasing requirements and the decision itself.
The SCA's Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) framework gives you useful grounding for sample evaluation. It records a coffee's value through four complementary assessments — physical, descriptive, affective and extrinsic — and the physical assessment, based on the 2004 SCA green coffee grading system, covers attributes such as color, defects, moisture content and size.
The course pages list the topics but not an exam blueprint, so treat the CVA as background knowledge that sharpens how you evaluate samples, not as a confirmed question list. Reading the CVA forms and glossaries the SCA publishes is a practical way to see how professionals describe a coffee in standardized language.
For contracts and buying strategy, use a trainer-supplied specification or a fictional quote. Identify the stated quantity, quality criteria, price, delivery terms and any information missing from the exercise. Keep these reading tasks separate from deciding what a real contract legally requires.
- Sample evaluation: distinguish physical findings, sensory description, preference and information about origin or processing.
- Contracts: identify the stated requirements and ask which terms or evidence are missing.
- Buying strategy: compare options against all stated requirements, then explain the tradeoff. These are study suggestions, not an official topic weighting.
Sources checked: Coffee Value Assessment — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/value-assessment; Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses
Processing terms you will meet in sample records
Processing names describe which fruit layers were removed and when; the Codex definitions of dry, wet and semi-washed processing give you the backbone.
In the dry route, whole cherries dry before the husk is removed, producing natural green coffee. For washed coffee, pulping removes pulp, remaining mucilage is removed through fermentation or mechanical methods and washing, and the beans dry in parchment. Hulling removes the dried parchment.
Semi-washed coffee sits between the two: pulped beans are dried while still inside their mucilaginous parchment, then hulled. Related operations worth recognizing include sorting to remove foreign matter and defective beans, and polishing to strip residual silverskin from green coffee.
Two cautions follow from these definitions. First, a process name describes handling, not cup quality — judging flavor is the job of separate descriptive and affective evaluation. Second, defect-grading systems vary by country and scheme, and defects are assigned weight values within whichever system governs your lot, so never treat one country's grade table as universal.
- Pulp (skin plus fleshy layer): removed mechanically in wet processing
- Mucilage: digested by fermentation or removed mechanically, then washed off
- Parchment: the covering that remains around washed beans during drying and is removed by hulling.
- Hulling and dehusking: the steps that release green coffee from its dried coverings
Sources checked: Codex Alimentarius CAC/RCP 69-2009 (Ochratoxin A in coffee) — Section 2, Definitions (based on ISO 3509); Coffee Value Assessment — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/value-assessment
Exercise: read two processing records
Identify what a process record establishes before drawing conclusions about quality.
This original exercise uses fictional records and the process definitions above.
Practice exercise
A producer's records summarize two lots: Lot A — ripe whole cherries were spread on patios, turned and dried intact, after which a dehusker removed the dried fruit layers. Lot B — cherries were pulped on harvest day, the remaining mucilage was removed through fermentation and washing, the beans were dried in parchment, and the dried parchment was later removed by hulling. (a) Which processing route does each record follow? (b) Do these two records, on their own, establish that one lot tastes better than the other?
Show answer
(a) Lot A follows the dry process and is a natural coffee; Lot B follows the wet process and is a washed coffee. (b) No — the records establish handling routes only, not sensory quality.
The records match the definitions exactly. Lot A dries the whole cherry and removes the dried fruit layers afterwards, which is the dry process producing natural green coffee. Lot B pulps the cherries, removes mucilage before drying, dries the beans in parchment, and hulls afterwards, which is the wet process producing washed green coffee. Part (b) is the trap worth practicing: a processing route describes handling, while quality judgments come from descriptive and affective evaluation of the actual coffee, which are separate assessments in the SCA's framework. A buyer reading these records would request samples and evaluation rather than inferring quality from the process name.
- Work through the prompt before revealing the answer, then redo the reasoning for a third record you invent.
Sources checked: Codex Alimentarius CAC/RCP 69-2009 (Ochratoxin A in coffee) — Section 2, Definitions (based on ISO 3509); Coffee Value Assessment — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/value-assessment
Buying exercise: compare the complete offer
A lower price per bag may not meet the complete purchasing brief.
This original exercise supplies every requirement and cost. It illustrates reading and arithmetic, not legal advice or an official SCA test item.
Practice exercise
A fictional buyer needs 10 equal-sized bags delivered by September 20 within a total budget of 1,000 units. Both offers have already passed the buyer’s sample checks, have 10 bags available, and have confirmed delivery dates. Offer A: 100 units per bag, no delivery charge, arrival September 19. Offer B: 95 units per bag plus 60 units delivery, arrival September 18. No taxes or other costs apply. Which offer meets every stated requirement?
Show answer
Offer A. Its total is 1,000 units and its arrival is before the deadline. Offer B totals 1,010 units, exceeding the budget by 10.
A: 10 × 100 + 0 = 1,000. B: 10 × 95 + 60 = 1,010. Both meet the supplied quantity, sample and delivery requirements, but only A meets the budget. B’s lower per-bag price and earlier arrival do not cancel its budget failure. A real purchasing decision would also need the actual terms and evidence; this result depends on the complete fictional premises.
Sources checked: Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses
Deciding whether this course fits your goals
Match your preparation to the three Professional topics and the practical feedback you need.
If you already evaluate samples or work with purchasing records, identify which decisions still need feedback. If these tasks are unfamiliar, discuss preparation and sample access with your trainer while retaining the documented Intermediate prerequisite.
Ask what samples and records you will use, how practical work is delivered, and what the complete fee includes.
- Review a sample using separate physical, sensory and informational records.
- Read a supplied purchasing brief and identify missing evidence.
- Calculate complete costs and explain whether each offer meets the stated constraints.
Sources checked: Education - Courses — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/courses; SCA Coffee Trade Diploma: current required courses and levels — Diploma pathway portal, CSP Green Coffee cards; Education - Diplomas — Specialty Coffee Association — sca.coffee/education/diplomas
Sources checked
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