What is the difference between regular coffee and specialty coffee? To summarize briefly, it is the difference in the coffee beans and the management method.
There are also ranks for coffee beans, and to put it simply, there is Matsu, Takebai, and below. In other words, even within specialty coffee, Matsu, Takebai, and below are divided, but beans below that are for convenience stores, restaurants and bakeries that mainly serve meals, and beans in drip machines that anyone can easily operate are far from beans that can be called specialty coffee. Some restaurants are particular about their coffee beans and roast and serve proper beans even if they use drip machines, but even in restaurants in famous hotels, I feel that there are quite a lot of coffees that do not feel special.
This means that there are that many types of beans, but the reality is that there are good and bad prices at the stage when we get them domestically, and the quality of raw beans is proportional to the price. High quality beans are expensive and the rest are relatively cheap. There are Matsu, Takebai (expensive to cheap) raw beans called specialty coffee, but that does not mean that they are bad quality just because they are cheap. Use them according to your purpose.
For example, if you want to make a strong coffee that makes the most of the bitterness, like espresso, you roast the raw beans quite darkly. In that case, if you use expensive, high-quality raw beans, they will lose all of their characteristics, such as their fruitiness and aroma. In that case, you choose beans that are of medium or lower quality at the time of harvest, and that will bring out the characteristics of espresso if you roast them well. This is the Takebai level among specialty coffees.
Expensive raw beans like Matsu are lightly roasted, but they are carefully managed so that you can enjoy the characteristics of the beans, so the price is slightly higher. This is reflected in the price of a cup of coffee, which is higher than that of chain stores such as S Coffee. In return, the coffee is delicious and healthy for your body.