From Rosemary Pangborn to Coffee Value Assessment and Q Grader Program: The Scientific Maturity of Coffee Evaluation
During the last World Of Coffee in Geneva, Morten Munchow talked and challenged the new CVA program based on Rosemary Pangborn fundamentals. As I strongly agreed with Morten, I wanted to analyse the new Q program on that basis and look on how conform it is with Pangborn’s sensory science fundamentals.
In 2025, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) introduced the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) as a new foundation for coffee evaluation — a move that redefines how the industry measures quality and value. The updated Q Grader program, now fully aligned with CVA, marks a paradigm shift from score-based cupping toward a scientifically structured sensory assessment.
But this transformation is not without precedent. It stands on the shoulders of Rosemary Pangborn (1919–1990) — a sensory scientist at UC Davis who formalized how humans perceive and evaluate flavor. Her framework of Discrimination, Description, and Affective (Hedonic) testing remains the cornerstone of all sensory science today (Heymann, 2019).
- Discrimination – Can you tell the difference?
Pangborn emphasized the necessity of psychophysical discrimination: the ability to detect perceptible differences between products.
In CVA and the new Q Grader curriculum, this is foundational — whether identifying processing differences, roast impacts, or sensory defects. Triangulations are part of the new Q program, so Discrimination is there !
It’s where sensory acuity meets analytical rigor.
- Description – What defines the difference?
Once differences are perceived, the next step is structured description: naming and quantifying sensory attributes using calibrated references.
This phase transforms subjective perception into shared, communicable data — essential for traceability, quality communication, and sensory research.
CVA formalizes this through descriptive cupping and calibrated sensory language (SCA Education, 2025).
- Affective (Hedonic) – Do we like it?
Finally, affective testing measures preference, not quality.
In Pangborn’s framework, this is distinct — because liking is contextual and market-driven, not intrinsic to the product itself.
CVA acknowledges this separation by integrating an affective dimension to capture consumer or buyer preference, complementing descriptive data rather than replacing it.
From Sensory Data to Coffee Value
By combining these three scientific dimensions, CVA evolves beyond the cupping form.
It becomes a multi-layered system that integrates:
- Descriptive (intrinsic sensory profile)
- Affective (market desirability)
- Physical (defects, consistency)
- Extrinsic (origin, process, certification)
This shift aligns the coffee industry with established sensory science, positioning cuppers not merely as tasters but as sensory analysts capable of generating reproducible, market-relevant data.
Why it matters
Rosemary Pangborn’s vision was that sensory analysis should transform perception into knowledge.
So, YES, I think that the new CVA and Q Grader programs embody that ideal — advancing the field from intuition to empiricism, from scoring to understanding, and from flavour to value. Probably, it is not perfect yet and changes already occurred after 1 year, so we need to let this system have a chance just because the other system doesn’t fit anymore with the reality of modern processes.
“Sensory analysis is not about opinion — it’s a scientific discipline that gives structure to perception.”
Sources:
- Heymann, H. (2019). A Personal History of Sensory Science. UC Davis.
- SCA (2025). Coffee Value Assessment and Q Grader Framework. sca.coffee
- Pangborn, R.M. (1964). Principles of Sensory Evaluation of Food. Academic Press.