Reading a lot
How to Read a Green Coffee Offer List
An offer list is the standard artefact of the green coffee trade and almost nobody explains it. Here is what each column means, which numbers are contractual and which are indicative, and where the useful questions are.
An offer list is a table. Each row is a lot the seller currently has, and each column is a specification you are being asked to buy on.
It is not marketing. It is closer to a datasheet, and the discipline of reading it properly is what separates a buyer who gets what they expected from one who opens a container and finds out otherwise.
The columns
Lot or mark
The seller's name for the coffee. On an estate offer this identifies a specific farm and often a specific block or processing batch. On a trader's list it may identify nothing more than a warehouse position.
The question worth asking: does this name correspond to a place, and can you trace it back to one?
Grade
Grade is a size and form classification applied after curing, not a quality score. It tells you the beans were screened and what came out.
Grade names are origin-specific. An Indian AA is not defined identically to a Kenyan AA. A Colombian Supremo is not an Indian AAA. If you are reading an unfamiliar origin, get the underlying screen sizes rather than assuming the letter means what it means elsewhere.
Screen size
The mesh the beans passed over, in 64ths of an inch. Screen 18 is 18/64″ ≈ 7.1 mm.
Screen matters to a roaster because a tight size distribution roasts evenly. A lot stated as "17/18" should be predominantly those two screens; a lot stated as "15+" is telling you only about the floor.
The question worth asking: is that a range or a minimum?
Moisture
Expressed as a percentage. The trade norm is broadly 10–12%.
Too high and the lot is at risk of mould and rapid staling in transit; too low and it has usually been over-dried, which flattens the cup and makes the beans brittle. Moisture is one of the few numbers on the list that is genuinely predictive of whether the coffee survives six weeks in a container.
Ask whether the figure is at the time of the offer or at the time of shipment, and ask whether water activity was measured alongside it.
Altitude
Metres above sea level, usually as a range across the growing blocks.
Altitude is a proxy for temperature, and temperature is a proxy for maturation speed and bean density. It is a useful indicator and a bad guarantee: shade cover, aspect and latitude all shift the same altitude's effect. Indian coffee grown under a heavy canopy behaves like coffee from somewhat higher elevations elsewhere.
Process
Washed, natural, honey, pulped natural, monsooned. The vocabulary is not standardised between origins — Indian and Brazilian usage of "pulped natural" and "honey" diverge — so if the process matters to your roast, get it described in a sentence rather than a word.
Harvest
The crop year, and sometimes the picking window. Fresher is not automatically better — some coffees are best after a few months' rest — but it tells you where the lot sits in its life, and past crop should be priced as past crop.
Packing
The bag and any barrier. 60 kg or 30 kg jute; with or without GrainPro or a vacuum liner. This is a shelf-life question more than a logistics one: a barrier liner substantially slows moisture exchange and staling, which matters most on long transits and for coffee you will hold.
Bags available
How much there is. On a well-built list this is split by market, because the same lot is often not offered in the same volume everywhere — certification, contracts and local demand all reduce what is genuinely free to sell into a given market.
The question worth asking: is that number free stock, or the size of the original lot?
Cup notes and score
The most subjective column, and the one buyers read first.
Treat descriptors as an indication of what to look for, not a contract. If a score is stated, ask who cupped it and to which protocol. A score from the seller's own table is information; it is not the same as a third-party evaluation, and no honest seller will pretend otherwise.
What is contractual and what is not
This is the distinction that saves arguments later.
| Usually contractual | Usually indicative |
|---|---|
| Grade and screen | Cup score |
| Moisture at shipment | Descriptors |
| Packing | Altitude |
| Quantity | Harvest window |
| Certification status | Yield expectations |
If a number matters to you, get it into the contract and get it into the pre-shipment sample approval. "As per offer list" is not a specification.
The sequence after the list
An offer list is the beginning of a conversation, not a shop.
- Type sample — representative of the grade, to see whether the origin is worth pursuing.
- Offer sample — from the specific lot being offered.
- Contract — quantity, price, quality, packing, shipment window, Incoterm.
- Pre-shipment sample (PSS) — drawn from the actual bags about to ship, approved before the container moves.
- Shipment, then arrival sample against the approved PSS.
Skipping the PSS is the most common way a first-time buyer ends up disappointed.
Reading ours
The Hoysala offer list carries grade, screen, moisture, altitude, harvest, process and packing for every SKU, with separate bag counts for India and for the EU — because those are genuinely two different books of stock, and merging them would misstate availability to both.
Where a lot is not offered into a market, the table says so rather than leaving the cell blank.
The current list runs six lots: Athi (washed arabica), Nerle (arabica cherry), Basri (washed robusta), Halsu (robusta naturals), Bodhi (monsooned arabica) and Nandi (monsooned robusta) — each with grade, screen, moisture, altitude, harvest, cup notes and packing, and separate bag counts for India and the EU.