The live reference for specialty coffee.

Cherrybook helps you decide which coffee is worth buying next. We track live coffees from more than 405 specialty roasters across 32 countries, spanning every major specialty market and producer-country roasters in Colombia, Brazil, India, and Vietnam; normalize the messy details into one schema; and show the evidence behind each coffee before you leave for the roaster’s checkout.

The job is simple: search the live shelf, compare real lots side by side, understand the strength of the signal, then buy directly from the roaster.

What we catalog

We collect public product information from roaster shops: coffee name, origin, producer, process, varietal, tasting notes, roast level, price, bag size, availability, and source URL. When roasters publish scores, sensory details, certifications, or freshness policies, we preserve those too.

Because every roaster describes coffee differently, Cherrybook normalizes the raw listing into shared vocabulary for origins, processes, varietals, flavor families, brew suitability, and sensory dimensions. That is what makes cross-roaster comparison possible.

Cherry’s Index

Cherry’s Index is a signal summary, not an independent cupping. It combines the strongest quality evidence Cherrybook can find for a coffee and reports how much coverage backs that number. A high score means the available signals are strong; low coverage means the score should be read cautiously.

Base components

• SCA grade (25%) — roaster-published cupping score, mapped from 80-100 to 0-100.
• Coffee Review (20%) — matched Coffee Review scores, mapped the same way.
• Reddit reputation (18%) — public community sentiment about the roaster, distilled from r/Coffee, r/specialtycoffee, and adjacent subreddits.
• YouTube reputation (10%) — sentiment from third-party YouTube reviewers (channels not run by the roaster).
• Buyer reviews (12%) — aggregate star ratings scraped from the roaster’s own checkout (Yotpo, Reviews.io, Okendo, Loox, Stamped, Judge.me). Real-purchase signal, requires at least 5 reviews to count.
• Cherrybook reader ratings (5%) — aggregate of Cherrybook users’ opt-in published tastings (display name only, never email). Requires at least 5 ratings.
• Transparency (5%) — deterministic score for how thoroughly the roaster discloses each lot (tasting notes detail, producer, farm, process, varietal, harvest year, altitude). Specialty roasters typically publish this; sparser listings score lower on this axis, which is a disclosure signal, not a quality verdict on the cup itself.

Missing components are dropped and the remaining weights are renormalized. SCA and Coffee Review are capped together so two correlated cupping signals cannot dominate the score on their own. We also publish a 1-5 sensory radar (acidity, body, sweetness, balance, cleanliness) on the coffee card, but that’s editorial color only — taste is subjective per drinker, so we don’t treat it as a quality signal in the score itself.

Coverage shrinkage

Renormalization alone has a flaw: a coffee with only one weak source could be scored on that source alone, then mathematically beat a coffee with five sources averaging the same number. So after renormalizing, we shrink the result toward a neutral 50 baseline based on how much of the signal universe is actually covered. The formula is final_base = renormalized_base × confidence + 50 × (1 − confidence), where confidence = min(1, coverage / 0.40). A coffee at 40%+ weighted coverage scores at face value; a coffee at 5% coverage gets pulled most of the way to 50. You’ll see the shrinkage applied transparently on every coffee detail page so the math is visible, not hidden.

Bonuses and penalties

Cherry’s Index can move modestly for strong external evidence: Cup of Excellence results (finalist + auction premium), competition-lot matches (WBC / WBrC finalists), Good Food awards, Coffee Review Top 30 placement, sustained editorial coverage (Sprudge / DCN / Perfect Daily Grind), and Roaster of the Year recognition. Older in-stock lots can receive a small freshness decay when they appear to have sat too long without restock.

Coverage and confidence

Every score carries a confidence label derived from coverage: High confidence (≥55% coverage with 4+ sources) means a wide and independent panel; Confident (≥40% with 3+) means the score runs at face value with no shrinkage applied; Preliminary (≥25%) means partial shrinkage is in effect; below that the score is heavily pulled toward 50 and should be read as a placeholder. Coffees with too little useful signal at all show as Not yet rated rather than a misleading low number.

We also label data-quality gaps. If sensory information, flavor tags, or customer reviews are estimated or pending, the interface says so instead of silently pretending the catalog is complete.

Reviews

Two distinct review signals contribute to Cherry’s Index as base components (12% buyer reviews + 5% community), and both are surfaced separately on coffee detail pages so you can read them on their own merits.

Buyer star ratings

When a roaster runs a review platform on their own checkout (Yotpo, Reviews.io, Okendo, Loox, Stamped, or Judge.me), we read the public review payload for each lot and surface the aggregate star rating + reviewer count. These are reviews left by people who actually bought the coffee at that roaster. Coverage is partial — only roasters who run one of those platforms expose data — but where it’s available it’s a strong real-purchase signal. The 1-5 average is mapped to 0-100 and contributes 12% to Cherry’s Index. A floor of 5 reviews applies; below that, the component is omitted from the score.

Cherrybook community tastings

Signed-in Cherrybook users keep a private tasting log by default (their own record, theirs to read). They can opt in to publishing individual tastings under their chosen display name — never their email. Published tastings feed an aggregate community sentiment per coffee, surfaced on the detail page and contributing 5% to Cherry’s Index on the same 1-5 → 0-100 mapping. Lower weight than buyer reviews because the community data pool is newer and smaller. Tastings stay private unless explicitly published; a floor of 5 published ratings applies.

Commerce

Cherrybook does not sell coffee. Every buy link sends you to the roaster’s own product page. The roaster controls price, inventory, fulfillment, returns, and customer service.

Some outbound links may earn Cherrybook a commission. Affiliate status does not affect ranking, Cherry’s Index, search results, or editorial placement.

Freshness and limits

Catalogs are refreshed regularly, but coffee inventory moves fast. Prices, availability, roast timing, and shipping terms should always be verified on the roaster’s site before purchase.

Cherrybook is strongest when roasters publish rich data. Sparse listings can still be useful for search and comparison, but they will carry lower confidence until more evidence exists.