Coffee Education at the Culinary Institute of America
Posted by TheShot on 20 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Fair Trade, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee
Promising news for anyone who takes the gamble of ordering prepared coffee in restaurants: the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) has recently announced a partnership with Durham, NC’s Counter Culture Coffee to develop a coffee curriculum: newsobserver.com | Coffee partnership forms. (Press release from last week.)
Unlike the closer-to-home CCA (California Culinary Academy) — which has made overtures to become the “Draw Tippy the Turtle” of cooking schools by reportedly whoring itself out to every Food TV watcher/wannabe chef with a checking account — the CIA is held in the highest esteem among America’s top culinary pros. We still feel that many notable chefs suffer a kind of hubris: that demonstrating a mastery in cuisine naturally confers an equivalent expertise with anything put into your mouth (i.e., coffee — let’s keep it clean here, folks!). The fact that the CIA is giving it serious treatment is a real step forward given how far coffee quality standards at restaurants have to improve.
Now we’ve expressed our ambivalence over some of Counter Culture’s Fair-Trade-club-to-the-head marketing, even if their heart is in the right place. (And the next simpleton who says that an argument against Fair Trade is an argument for poverty should be clubbed in the head.) We have even questioned their habit of shoehorning “coffee cupping” into some perverse wine-tasting proxy; even Peet’s has the sense to offer “Comparative Tastings” instead. But by all accounts, they sure do know their beans. Unfortunately they didn’t exist when I lived in Durham briefly back in 1991. (Time to hit my Linden Terrace crew up on my ghettro for a kilo, yo.)
1 Comment »
on 21 Feb 2008 at 12:39 pm -06:00T 1.Wayne said …
Ciao,
That is good news about the CIA adding coffee to the curriculum. Apart from educational programs for chefs, the other main way that restaurants increase their coffee IQ is via their vendors — the ones that give a damn, I mean. In the Bay Area I feel safer ordering espresso in a venue supplied by Blue Bottle or (the unfortunately-named) Mr. Espresso.
Re the CCA diploma mill, the less said, the better, and that’s speaking from first-hand knowledge (not as a student, thank God!) Their admissions office would in any other company be called a Sales Dept.: the culinary version of Glengarry Glen Ross.