How to Read an Ethiopian Coffee Offer Sheet, Line by Line

Every green buyer receives them weekly: offer sheets listing Ethiopian lots with a dozen abbreviations per line. Buried in those lines is everything you need to judge whether an offer is serious — and a few tells that separate a professional exporter from someone recycling last season's list. Here is each field, what it means, and what to check.

Region and washing station

"Yirgacheffe — Chelbesa WS" tells you far more than "Yirgacheffe." A named washing station means the lot is traceable through the direct/vertical channel; a region-plus-grade line with no station usually means exchange-sourced coffee. Neither is wrong — but station-level lots carry the provenance and the data (geolocation, reception records) that certifications and EUDR files increasingly demand. If the station is named, you can also look up its reputation from previous seasons.

Grade: what G1 and G2 actually measure

Ethiopian export grades (G1–G5) are defect counts per 300g sample, set at national inspection — not cup scores. G1 allows the fewest defects and, for washed coffee, is the top specialty tier; G2 washed and G1 naturals make up most of the specialty trade. The key point: grade and cup quality correlate but are not the same thing — which is why the next field matters more.

Q score: the line that dates the offer

A serious offer quotes an SCA cupping score from a licensed Q grader for the current crop — "86.25, Nov 2025 crop" — and can produce the certificate. The single most useful question you can ask about any Ethiopian offer: "Is this Q score from this harvest?" Recycled scores from previous seasons are the commonest inflation in the trade. (New to Q-grading? Start here.)

Processing and screen size

Washed, natural, honey, or anaerobic — each maps to a different cup style (our menu guide covers choosing between them). Screen size (e.g. 14+) describes bean size in 1/64-inch increments; Ethiopian heirloom types naturally run smaller than Latin American beans, so a 14+ Ethiopian screen is normal, not a defect. Some sheets also list varietal information — increasingly 74110/74112 or landrace names on documented lots.

Volume and shipment position

Volume is quoted in 60kg bags ("320 bags" = one 20-foot container; "40 bags" = a pallet-scale micro-lot). Shipment position — "prompt," "Jan/Feb," or "afloat" — tells you when the coffee can sail. Cross-check position against the harvest calendar: fresh-crop washed Yirgacheffe offered "prompt" in September should raise an eyebrow, because the main harvest runs roughly October to January.

Price basis: reading "FOB Djibouti USD 4.10/lb"

• FOB Djibouti: price includes everything to loaded-on-vessel at Djibouti; sea freight, insurance, and destination costs are yours. CIF includes freight and insurance to your named port.
• USD/lb vs USD/kg: both are common; 1 kg = 2.2046 lb — check twice before comparing sheets.
• Fixed vs differential: specialty Ethiopian lots are usually offered at outright fixed prices; commercial offers may quote a differential against the New York C futures price ("NYC +180").
• Validity: offers are typically valid days, not weeks — the "subject unsold" line means the lot can go to another buyer until you confirm.

The five checks that filter any offer sheet

1. Harvest year stated? No crop year = ask before anything else.
2. Q score current and certificated? Request the PDF; graders' names and dates are on it.
3. Station-level traceability? Needed for provenance marketing, certifications, and EU compliance.
4. Sample policy clear? Type samples show the style; pre-shipment samples confirm the actual parcel — you want both, and approval rights on the PSS written into the contract.
5. Documentation listed? A professional sheet states what ships with the lot: certificates, moisture records, and — for EU buyers — geolocation data. Ours is itemised on the lot list.

Want to practise on a real one? Request our current offer sheet — it comes with every field above filled in, current-crop Q certificates attached, and samples on request.