At Coffee Quality Institute our different certifications and benefits can apply to people, coffee, and places. We want to take a moment to focus on two types of certifications – for places and coffee.
CQI works directly with In-Country Partners (ICPs) and Q Venues to ensure that learners, educators, and local coffee communities are experiencing CQI education in a consistent and reliable environment. Additionally, ICPs are the infrastructure of the Q Coffee System and function as a hub where Q Graders evaluate coffee quality using industry standards for both arabica (specialty) and robusta (fine).
Taiwan Coffee Laboratory (TCL) in New Taipei City is one of two ICPs in Taiwan. TCL began their journey as an ICP in 2020, with a goal of better serving the local coffee community, including producers, Q Graders, and aspiring coffee professionals. Their mission is to promote the specialty coffee industry in Taiwan through technical services, education, training and much more. TCL’s founder and CQI Instructor, Krude Lin, has hosted several Q Arabica, Q Robusta, and Q Processing courses at the certified Q Venue. He has also helped translate educational materials to provide CQI training to the local coffee community in Taiwan.
In 2022, TCL – in conjunction with government agencies and CQI – hosted the Pacific Rim Coffee Summit – with the goal of strengthening and elevating the Taiwan coffee industry. This summit welcomed international speakers, including CQI Instructors and Q Graders. To present the diversity and beauty of Pacific Rim coffee culture they gathered nearly 100 green coffee samples from 13 different countries, utilizing CQI standards and protocols for Q Graders to evaluate them and ultimately narrow them down to 20 superb lots. Those final lots were presented in a beautiful commemorative coffee collection.
All samples were Q graded and documented through the CQI database – the Q Coffee System – resulting in Q Certificates that provided specialty scores, tasting notes, farm profiles and much more. You can view all certified Q Coffees here.
Watch this video to learn more about the 2022 Pacific Rim Coffee Summit.
