FROM THE EDITOR
Shanna Germain
AS I WRITE THIS, I’m on a plane home from the World of Coffee event
in Bern, Switzerland. Hosted by the Speciality Coffee Association of
Europe (SCAE), the event drew more than 7,000 attendees from around
the world—roasters, baristas, allied members, retailers and more.
There are so many things I could talk about after a show like that:
perhaps the hands-on seminars that were filled to capacity every day.
Perhaps the three floors of booths, the tasters’ championship
or the after-hours events, where the streets of Bern were filled with
the sounds of coffee people talking flavor profile, origin and barista
competitions in too many languages to count. Or maybe even just the
cultural differences of a show in Europe. I, for one, have never before
had the experience of walking an indoor show floor accompanied by both
cigarette and roaster smoke.
But even as I run through all of those options in my mind,
I already know what I really want to write about. It was sealed this
morning, as soon as I sat down on the plane next to a doctor flying
back to Washington, D.C. The conversation began with those magic words: “You’re
traveling for work? What do you do?” And, as is often the case,
as soon as I mentioned coffee, out came the questions: What was my take
on Starbucks? What did specialty coffee mean? What coffee was the best?
In the time it took for the flight attendants to give us the “your
seat turns into a floatation device” spiel, we’d hit on
espresso (why did it taste so bad?), origin (I saw coffee trees in India
last year, I had no idea that’s how coffee grew) and coffee conferences
(so you all just get together and talk about coffee?). And, more importantly,
in that short of time, my neighbor had gone from someone who drank his
cup of caffeine in the morning to someone who had developed a curiosity
and interest in good coffee.
I’m sure you’ve all had similar conversations with seatmates,
friends, family members, strangers in the grocery store. In fact, this
chance to change perceptions about coffee might be one of my favorite
parts of being in the industry.
Which brings me back to the show, and one of the pervading
themes: how to teach consumers about specialty (or speciality, if you’re
in Europe) coffee. This was especially clear on the last day of the
show, during a presentation and discussion among some of the world’s
main coffee organizations. The purpose of the gathering—which
included specialty coffee associations from Europe, America, East Africa,
Japan and India—was to discuss how the organizations could work
together to move the specialty coffee industry forward, reach a consensus
on the definition of quality, and present a united front when teaching
the consumer about specialty coffee. Most of these discussions are unfinished,
and probably will be for years, as the industry continues to grow and
change.
However, one thing was clear: getting the message to consumers
is the key to the survival of the industry. As Trygve Klingenberg, director
of international development for SCAE said during the discussion, “If
we can’t make the consumers differentiate between good and bad,
we’ve lost the battle.”
The good news is that consumer education is a battle that can
be waged on many fronts: getting retail customers as excited about the
World Barista Championship as basketball lovers are about the playoffs
is one way. Marketing campaigns and formal education by world coffee
organizations is another. And then, there is that thing we can all do:
let our love of great coffee come out in conversation, whether we’re
talking to our customers, our employees, our neighbor, or the stranger
next to us on the plane. Perhaps it seems like a small victory, turning
one more person on to specialty coffee, but this is the way the industry
seems to work best, each of us passing our knowledge, passion and beans
from one hand to the next until we create not only an amazing coffee
experience, but a whole world of specialty coffee, in every conversation
and every cup.
Keep the flame burning,
Shanna
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