SCAA 2026

Specialty Coffee Market Insights

What 3,073 coffee releases from 86 specialty roasters tell us about where the market is — and where the opportunities are.

3,073

Coffee Releases

Roasters

Flavor Clusters

Country of Origin

Colombia leads with 25% of all releases — more than Ethiopia and Blends combined.

Colombia and Ethiopia are table stakes. To differentiate, look at emerging origins like Ecuador (100 releases), Rwanda, or under-represented origins like Tanzania, Yemen, and China.

Top Varietals

Gesha/Geisha dominates with 381 combined releases — nearly 3x the next varietal.

Sidra, Chiroso, and Typica Mejorado are showing up more frequently — varietals worth watching as they gain traction across roasters.

Processing Methods

Only 13% of releases explicitly tag their process. Of those tagged, washed leads at 49%.

* "High Intervention" combines Anaerobic and Various/experimental processes. We don't yet track coferments, thermal shock, and other specific high-intervention methods — these are grouped together until more granular data is available.

High-intervention processes make up over a quarter of tagged releases, these include methods like anaerobic and cofermentation.

Flavor Profile Clusters

Every release is assigned to one of 10 AI-derived flavor clusters. Over 45% of the market is bright, floral, and citrus-forward.

Nutty Chocolate & Creamy and Classic Comforts together represent only 2.6% of releases. These comfort-driven profiles are drastically under-served — the mass market loves these flavors. Bringing specialty quality to comfort profiles is a huge opportunity.

How We Standardize Flavor Notes

Every roaster describes their coffees differently. We map each tasting note to the SCA flavor wheel so we can compare across roasters consistently.

"Strawberry Jam"→StrawberrySweet

"Orange Blossom"→OrangeFloral

"Cacao Nibs"→Dark ChocolateCocoa

Flavor Notes (SCA Standardized)

Tasting notes mapped to the SCA flavor wheel taxonomy. Broader categories like "Other Fruit" absorb many specific notes.

Other Fruit and Citrus Fruit dominate as broad SCA categories. Specific notes like Milk Chocolate, Caramel, and Hibiscus get rolled up into parent groups — compare with the Actual notes to see what's lost.

Flavor Notes (Actual)

Raw tasting notes as provided by roasters, before any mapping.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel top the actual notes — neither appears in the SCA-mapped top 15. Notes like Apricot, Plum, Mango, and Hibiscus are also common in roaster descriptions but get absorbed into broader SCA categories.

Roast Level Distribution

96% of specialty releases are light roast. Dark roasts are nearly nonexistent.

96% of releases fall into the light roast range. Medium and dark together account for under 3%. This data is a bit conjecture since we can't inspect individual batches.

Top Estates

The farms that appear most frequently across specialty roasters.

The same handful of estates appear across many roasters. Meanwhile, hundreds of farms in our data have only 1-3 appearances — the long tail is much larger than the top.

Key Trends We're Seeing

Patterns emerging from 3,073 specialty coffee releases.

Flavor Concentration

Over 45% of releases cluster into bright, floral, citrus-forward profiles. Light roasts skew towards floral and citrus which is probably why my epresso is always sour :(.

Comfort Profiles Are Rare

Nutty, chocolatey, creamy coffees represent just 2.6% of releases — a notable gap but expected considering the popularity of light and ultra-light roasts.

Light Roast Dominates

96% of releases fall into the light roast range. Medium and dark together account for under 3%. This data is a bit conjecture since we can't inspect individual batches.

Estate Overlap

The top 15 estates appear across many roasters. The long tail of farms with only 1-3 appearances is much larger.

Emerging Varietals

Sidra, Chiroso, and Typica Mejorado are showing up more frequently — varietals gaining traction across roasters.

Data sourced from the Spro platform — 3,073 releases from 86 tracked roasters — April 2026
Powered by Spro's AI-driven flavor mapping and the SCA flavor wheel