Current quality standards for coffee are based mainly on the physical appearance of beans and the subjective assessments of professional tasters. While statistical data shows some correlation between quality and physical appearance, the wild variances among cupping assessments renders these subjective evaluations statistically useless. Subjective assessments become even less reliable when the experts conducting the analysis have vested interests in the commercialization of a particular brand or origin.

Additional challenges to the current methods for determining the quality of coffee beans arise when random variations such as year-to-year changes in weather, green processing, age of the tree, roasting and brewing techniques, equipment, and personal preferences of the evaluator are added to the equation. The lack of a truly objective quality-assessment mechanism has contributed to the far than adequate compensation system for green coffee that is partially responsible for the current coffee crisis. In the end, the current compensation method punishes producers of high quality coffee and rewards producers of low quality coffee by encouraging marginally different prices between the two. Predictably enough, the market has been saturated with low quality coffee beans that cost significantly less to produce.

Because most of the factors that determine the final quality of the cup occur before the bean is roasted, it is CAFECA's conviction that the quality of coffee must be determined exclusively at the green stage. While bad roasting can spoil perfectly good beans, no amount of care in roasting will enhance the quality of low-grade beans. Roasting is an obviously important factor in the quality of the final product; however, “high quality roasting” cannot be related in any way to the intrinsic quality of the green bean. Based on the above statements, CAFECA will not use roasted beans to determine the quality and price of green beans.

Since there are many factors that contribute to the final quality of the green bean, CAFECA aims to provide the customer with sufficient information to produce an educated judgement not only about CAFECA's brands, but also about all coffee beans in general. For example, coffees of the species arabica , grown at high altitudes in volcanic soils , harvested by hand, washed, grown in an habitat-friendly , sustainable environment and obtained by fair trade will be deemed of a higher quality than robusta beans grown at low altitudes, highly mechanized, unwashed, without shade, with high use of agrochemicals and traded at market price.