Wall Street has an elite coffee-tasting force. It’s struggling to find recruits.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The people who gather in this small room on the eighth floor of the New York Stock Exchange look like a group of middle-aged caffeine addicts.They sit around what resembles a school science lab sniffing coffee beans and slurping coffee so aggressively that there’s loud music playing to drown them out.But these aren’t junkies with bad manners. They’re part of an elite team of graders who help keep the commodities market running. Their ratings help set U.S.

futures-market prices for arabica, and in turn, the global coffee industry. And they’ve arguably never been more valuable.That’s because the flow of young talent that keeps the grading system running is slowing to a drip. For one thing, young people are opting to work at private-equity firms, high-frequency trading desks and other glitzier jobs where coffee serves as fuel, not product.

And even among high-earning commodities traders, coffee is seen as less glamorous than oil and natural gas.But perhaps the biggest impediment is that the test to become a grader isn’t getting any easier. The four-day exam, given roughly once every five years including this week, has a razor-thin pass rate. John DeMuria, chief executive of coffee supply-chain company Coastal Commodities, and a grader of 35 years, said he failed the first time he tried.“It’s not like the CPA exam,” he said.

“Once you fail, you have to go back and start over. If you pass certain parts, it doesn’t count the second go around.”DeMuria is in good company. Only about 5% to 8% of test takers will typically pass each time the test is administered, according to Stacy Moeller, who runs the grading room as senior commodity operations analyst for NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange,