Specialty Coffee by the Numbers: What's Inside 24,911 Bags

About the Dataset

These numbers come from the live catalog behind Beanie, a specialty coffee discovery app that gathers coffees from roasters around the world. We counted only active coffees, meaning bags a roaster currently lists, and we recomputed every figure directly from the data before publishing.

One thing to be upfront about: roasters do not fill in every field. Some list a full story (origin, process, altitude, variety, tasting notes), and some list almost nothing. So before any stats, here is how well each field is covered. Every percentage later in this post is calculated against the coffees that do list that field, and we show the denominator each time.

How Well Each Field Is Filled In

Two fields were too sparse to report, so we left them out entirely:

• Roast level is blank on roughly 99% of coffees, so any roast breakdown would describe a tiny, unrepresentative sliver.
• Ratings are too thin across the catalog to rank origins or roasters fairly, so this post includes no "best" or "highest-rated" claims.

We also do not cover pricing here.

The Big Picture

If you read nothing else, here is the typical specialty coffee in the catalog:

The rest of this post breaks each of these down, with the full tables and the denominators behind them.

Where Specialty Coffee Comes From

Of the 17,522 coffees that list an origin, Colombia leads by a wide margin, and a large "blend" bucket (coffees whose origin field names more than one country) sits in second.

Rank	Origin	Coffees	Share
1	Colombia	3,125	17.8%
2	Blend (multi-country)	2,863	16.3%
3	Ethiopia	1,866	10.6%
4	Brazil	959	5.5%
5	Guatemala	943	5.4%
6	Peru	739	4.2%
7	Honduras	655	3.7%
8	Costa Rica	653	3.7%
9	Kenya	551	3.1%
10	Indonesia	542	3.1%

A few takeaways:

• Colombia and Ethiopia are everywhere. Together they make up more than a quarter of all coffees with a listed origin.
• Central and South America dominate the top of the list, with Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, and Costa Rica all in the top eight.
• East Africa punches above its volume. Ethiopia and Kenya are smaller by count but carry an outsized reputation for distinctive flavor, which we will see in the fingerprints below.

For a full taste-by-country breakdown, see our guide to coffee flavors by origin.

Single Origin vs Blend

The origin text field can be messy, so for the single-versus-blend split we used a cleaner signal: the catalog's single-origin flag, which covers nearly every coffee.

Type	Coffees	Share
Single origin	13,088	52.5%
Blend	11,820	47.4%

The market is split almost down the middle. Single origin has a slight edge, which fits a specialty scene that prizes traceability, but blends are far from rare.

How Specialty Coffee Is Processed

Processing is how the fruit is removed from the bean after harvest, and it is one of the strongest influences on flavor. Of the 12,553 coffees that list a process, washed is the clear default.

Process	Coffees	Share	What it is
Washed	6,780	54.0%	Fruit removed before drying
Natural	2,833	22.6%	Bean dried inside the whole fruit
Honey	833	6.6%	Some fruit left on during drying
Anaerobic	783	6.2%	Fermented in sealed, oxygen-free tanks
Water process (decaf)	574	4.6%	A decaffeination method, not a fruit step

Worth noting: about half the catalog lists no process at all, so this table describes the half that does. Washed alone accounts for more than half of those, while natural, honey, and anaerobic are where bolder, fruit-forward flavors cluster.

We dug into which flavors track with each method in our companion piece on how processing shapes coffee flavor.

How High Specialty Coffee Is Grown

Altitude matters because higher, cooler farms grow beans more slowly, which tends to concentrate sweetness and acidity. We parsed a usable altitude from 8,141 coffees.

• Median altitude: 1,700 meters
• Most common band: 1,500 to 2,000 meters, covering 61.5% of these coffees

Altitude band	Share
Below 1,000 m	2.6%
1,000 to 1,499 m	20.9%
1,500 to 1,999 m	61.5%
2,000 m and above	15.0%

The takeaway: most specialty coffee with a listed altitude sits in a fairly narrow high-grown band, though plenty of excellent coffee is grown lower, especially in Brazil and parts of Central America. We explain why height matters so much in why coffee growing altitude changes the flavor.

The Most Common Flavors

Tasting notes are the flavor descriptions roasters print on the bag. Across the 19,060 coffees that list at least one, sweet and brown flavors run the show.

Rank	Tasting note	Share of coffees
1	Caramel	9.7%
2	Chocolate	9.6%
3	Dark chocolate	8.0%
4	Milk chocolate	7.3%
5	Brown sugar	4.8%
6	Honey	4.3%
7	Vanilla	4.3%

Percentages do not add up to 100%, because each coffee can list several notes. The top four are all dessert-like flavors, and counted as one family, chocolate is even more dominant: about 41% of coffees with notes list some chocolate-related descriptor (7,807 coffees), far ahead of any single note. Many of these flavors are created during roasting, which is why they are so widespread.

We ranked the full top 15 and explained what each note means in the most common coffee tasting notes.

The Most Common Coffee Varieties

A coffee's variety is the plant it grew from, and some varieties are naturally more chocolatey or more floral than others. Of the 9,422 coffees that name a variety, a handful of classic Latin American types lead.

Rank	Variety	Share
1	Caturra	18.9%
2	Bourbon	15.3%
3	Typica	9.3%
4	Gesha	8.0%
5	Castillo	7.3%
6	Catuai	7.2%

Caturra and Bourbon together appear on about a third of coffees that list a variety. Gesha (also spelled Geisha) is famous for intense floral, jasmine-like flavor and high prices, and at 8.0% it shows up more often than its reputation as a rare, prized variety might suggest. For what each variety tastes like, see coffee varietals 101.

Flavor Fingerprints by Origin

Some origins do not just taste different, they have a signature note that shows up far more often than the catalog average. We measured this with "lift": how many times more common a note is in one origin than across the whole catalog.

Origin	Standout note	How much more common than average
Kenya	Blackcurrant	12.5x
Brazil	Peanut butter	8.1x
Ethiopia	Blueberry	5.3x
Colombia	Citric acidity	4.6x
Guatemala	Red apple	3.1x

A few stand out:

• Kenya and blackcurrant is the strongest fingerprint in the data. Kenyan coffees list blackcurrant more than 12 times as often as the catalog overall.
• Brazil and peanut butter captures Brazil's reputation for nutty, comforting, low-acid coffee.
• Ethiopia and blueberry reflects the bold berry character of many natural Ethiopian coffees.

These are tendencies, not guarantees, and they show association rather than proof, since processing and variety are tangled up with origin. The full method and a country-by-country table live in coffee flavors by origin.

Decaf and Availability

Two more practical numbers, recomputed for this post:

• Decaf: 9.7% of active coffees are decaffeinated (2,428 of 24,911), so roughly one in ten.
• Availability: of the 9,423 coffees that say whether they are seasonal, about 56% are sold year-round and about 44% are seasonal.

Decaf being close to a tenth of the catalog is a sign of how far decaf has come in specialty coffee, where it is now treated as worth doing well rather than an afterthought.

What We Left Out, and Why

Good data reporting means being clear about the gaps:

• No roast-level stats. The field is blank on about 99% of coffees, so any breakdown would be noise.
• No "best" or "highest-rated" lists. Ratings are too sparse across the catalog to rank anything fairly.
• No pricing. Out of scope for this snapshot.
• Coverage varies by field. Flavor and origin are well populated; variety and altitude are listed on roughly a third of coffees. Every percentage in this post is calculated only over the coffees that list the relevant field, with the count shown.

How to Use These Numbers

You can turn these patterns into better buying decisions:

• Use origin as a flavor shortcut. Bright and fruity points to Ethiopia and Kenya; smooth and chocolatey points to Brazil and Central America.
• Read the process. Washed means clean and origin-driven; natural means bold and fruity; anaerobic means wild and tropical.
• Lean on the common notes. If you love dessert flavors, the most common notes (caramel, chocolate, brown sugar) are easy to find. If you want something brighter, fruit and floral notes are the signal to look for.
• Filter instead of guessing. A coffee discovery tool like Beanie lets you search by origin, process, variety, and tasting note, so you can go straight to the style you enjoy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most common specialty coffee origin?

Colombia, by a wide margin. It accounts for 17.8% of the 17,522 coffees that list an origin, ahead of multi-country blends and Ethiopia.

What is the most common coffee processing method?

Washed processing, which covers 54.0% of the 12,553 coffees that list a process. Natural is second at 22.6%.

What is the most common coffee flavor?

Caramel is the single most common tasting note, listed on 9.7% of coffees that have notes. Counted as a family, chocolate flavors are the most common overall, appearing on about 41% of those coffees.

Are most specialty coffees single origin or blends?

It is nearly even. About 52.5% are single origin and 47.4% are blends, based on the catalog's single-origin flag across 24,911 active coffees.

How high is most specialty coffee grown?

The median altitude is about 1,700 meters, and 61.5% of coffees with a listed altitude fall between 1,500 and 2,000 meters.

What percentage of specialty coffee is decaf?

About 9.7%, or roughly one in ten active coffees in the catalog.

Where do these statistics come from?

They come from 24,911 active specialty coffees from 1,108 roasters in Beanie's catalog, recomputed from the live data in June 2026. Each percentage is calculated against the coffees that list the relevant field, and the denominator is shown alongside it.