Plantation A vs AA vs B vs PB: A Buyer’s Guide to Indian Arabica Coffee Grades
Plantation A vs AA vs B vs PB: A Buyer’s Guide to Indian Arabica Coffee Grades
If you’re sourcing green coffee from India for the first time, the grading codes on a sample bag — PL A, PL AA, PB, Arabica Cherry AB — can look like a foreign language. They’re not arbitrary. Each code tells you something specific about bean size, processing, and what to expect in the cup. Understanding them properly is the difference between ordering what you think you’re getting and ordering what you actually need for your roast profile.
This guide breaks down India’s Arabica grading system the way an exporter would explain it to a new buyer over a cupping table — plainly, and with the commercial context that most grading explainers leave out.
Plantation vs Cherry: The First Distinction
Before screen size, the first thing a grade code tells you is how the coffee was processed.
- Plantation (PL) means washed Arabica. The cherry is pulped, fermented, washed, and dried — a process that produces a cleaner cup with brighter acidity and more defined flavor separation.
- Cherry (AC) means natural/dry-processed Arabica. The whole cherry is sun-dried with the fruit intact, producing a heavier body, more fruit-forward sweetness, and a less “clean” but often more complex cup.
If a buyer asks for “Plantation A,” they’re asking for washed Arabica at a specific screen size. If they ask for “Arabica Cherry AB,” they’re asking for natural-processed Arabica at a slightly smaller size. Same origin, different processing, different cup — and often a different price point.
Screen Size: What A, AA, AB, and B Actually Mean
After processing, beans are sorted by screen size — the size of the holes in the sorting sieve, measured in 64ths of an inch.
| Grade | Screen Size | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Plantation AAA / Mysore Nuggets Extra Bold | 19+ | Largest, most uniform beans. Premium specialty tier. |
| Plantation AA | 18 | Large, dense beans. Refined cup, strong commercial appeal for specialty roasters. |
| Plantation A | 17 | The benchmark washed Arabica grade. Clean, balanced, widely used as a blend base. |
| Plantation AB | 16-17 mix | Slightly smaller than straight A, still high quality, often better value. |
| Plantation B | 15.5 | Smaller beans, reliable for commercial blends and high-volume roasting. |
| Peaberry (PB) | N/A — round bean | A natural mutation where the cherry develops one round bean instead of two flat ones. Occurs in roughly 5-10% of any lot. Dense, often sweeter, prized by roasters who separate it out. |
A common misconception: larger screen size does not automatically mean better flavor. It means larger, more uniform beans — which roasters value for consistency in the roaster, not necessarily for cup score. A well-processed Plantation A from a good estate can outscore a poorly handled AA. Screen size is a sorting specification, not a quality guarantee on its own. The estate, processing care, and storage matter just as much.
What Each Grade Is Actually Used For
- Plantation AA — Specialty roasters building single-origin offerings or premium blends where bean uniformity in the roaster matters (even roast = even extraction).
- Plantation A — The workhorse grade for both specialty and quality commercial blends. If you’re a roaster building your first India-origin offering, this is usually the right starting point.
- Plantation AB / B — Strong value options for roasters scaling volume without sacrificing the washed-process clarity that defines Indian Arabica.
- Peaberry (PB) — Niche, limited-availability lots. Good for single-origin specialty releases where the story of the grade adds value, not just the cup.
The Question Most Grading Guides Don’t Answer: What Does This Cost You Landed?
Grade explainers are everywhere. What’s harder to find is what a grade actually costs once you account for processing, certification, and freight to your port — because that’s the number that determines whether a grade fits your program.
As a reference point, current FOB pricing for washed Arabica from South Indian estates typically runs:
- Plantation A: roughly USD 8.50-9.75/kg FOB
- Plantation AA: roughly USD 9.00-10.00/kg FOB
These ranges reflect estate-sourced, traceable lots with standard export documentation, and shift with harvest cycles, estate availability, and lot size. For an exact quote on current availability, reach out directly — we’ll work from your volume and destination port to give you an accurate landed-cost picture.
Questions to Ask Before You Commit to a Grade
- Is this a single estate or a blended lot? Single-estate lots offer traceability and consistency; blended lots can vary cup-to-cup.
- What’s the harvest date and how has it been stored? Green coffee degrades. A 2025 harvest stored properly will outperform an older lot at the same grade.
- Can you get a sample before committing to a container? Any reputable exporter should send a 200g-1kg sample for cupping before a full order.
- What certifications does the exporter hold? Organic, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, and 4C certifications affect both pricing and which markets you can sell into.
A Note on Sourcing
At Tradetastic Overseas, we work directly with Coffee Board-registered estates and Q Grader-vetted sourcing partners across Karnataka, supplying Plantation A, AA, and B grades along with Arabica Cherry and Robusta lines. If you’re evaluating Indian Arabica for the first time, we’re happy to send cupping samples before any commitment — that’s how every serious buyer relationship should start.
Tradetastic Overseas Pvt. Ltd. is a Coffee Board of India and APEDA-registered merchant exporter of green coffee, Basmati rice, and agri-commodities, shipping FOB Mundra and FOB Cochin.