Death by origin: an Australian’s contrarian view
Posted by TheShot on 09 May 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
Australians are no slouches when it comes to appreciating good coffee. But last month, an opinion piece in The Australian highlighted what the author, John Lethlean, felt was a lot of misplaced fuss, pomp, and circumstance going into coffee origins these days: Just a strong one, thanks | The Australian.
A self-described “coffee-geek groupie,” Mr. Lethlean appreciates the energy and dedication behind the many nuances of “single origin”, “estate-grown”, and “cupping”. However, he refuses to play along. Why? In the end, many of these subtle shades of variation don’t make all that much difference to him — particularly when contrasted with the impact a barista can have preparing an end result espresso.
Mr. Lethlean also reaches out to the inevitable wine analogy. But even there, he points out, few wine consumers can discern subtle differences of terroir, variety, harvest condition, and method — and even fewer consumers can do the same with their coffee.
We agree with many of Mr. Lethlean’s sentiments. His article reminded us of what we recently wrote about the recent obsession with origins and “maximizing adjectives”: that it reflects a current trend intensely focused on experimentation over a more learned enjoyment. However, our society has yet to simplify a single consumable after fragmenting its market — whether soda, yogurt, or orange juice. So even as consumer interest in coffee experimentation could potentially wane, we still expect the adjective parade to live on.
4 Comments »
I think that a subtle thing missing from the opinion piece is that he’s going there enough times to be bothered by the choice.
To abdicate choice to the ‘experts’ but still keep going to his ‘local’ means that his trust is in that cafe and it’s overenthusiastic staff to do a good job. His emphasis on a good barista’s ability to make crap beans taste adequate is itself negatived by repeated patronage of said cafe due to its’ combination of good beans and good baristas. It will still taste good to him irregardless of origin or terroir.
His issue comes down to nailing place that tries to force feed information to it’s customers. I agree because there’s no point in doing it if the recipient isn’t keen.
Misplaced fuss, pomp and circumstance in that they waste energy describing it to him yes, misplaced in that what they do is too much about experimentation and not learned enjoyment, no. How else are you supposed to learn if you don’t experiment in the first place? Should we all be following the general roast profiles and blend percentages that have been handed down since 1950? For that matter why aren’t we still driving Model T Fords? Should we stop doing something just cos a lot of other people don’t know it, don’t get it? What about the feelings of the people working with the product every day?
From the tone of your article it sounds like you’d prefer a status quo where people just do the same thing over and over, like robots and that the result of this will somehow be learned enjoyment. As someone who’s both an Australian and also a long term barista who has worked in just about every iteration of an espresso bar, cafe and restaurant I’ll provide another angle.
Having new information and ideas enter the workplace keeps the job interesting and rewarding for us. Whether we are baristas, roasters, sales or tech staff we benefit from this and it renews our passion for it. Times change, ideas change, some people take it upon themselves to embrace it and others choose to reject it. Either option has the ability to succeed in our market and once again, it comes down to personal choice.
Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ant. The truth is, we enjoy experimenting — a lot. (Though how could you review over 600 espresso purveyors in your home town and not be interested in experimenting?)
The point of our “experimentation vs. learned enjoyment” comment is that much of the quality-obsessed coffee industry today seems focused entirely on customers in the former category. They promote consumer cuppings front-and-center in their cafés, they publish menus of single origins du jour, etc.
All that isn’t bad. And we expect many true coffee lovers not to stagnate on old tastes, but to continue to educate themselves over the years. The trouble comes when an overbearing emphasis on experimentation and learning overshadows the enjoyment of what’s already learned.
The vibe in many of our favorite coffee houses today is that coffee enjoyment must be an educational journey. We are continually accosted with a steady stream of inadvertent messages: that we know nothing about coffee, that there are too many things we have yet to try, and that coffee enjoyment is a skill that must be mastered. New adjectives and choices come at us — with some new cafés even making the act of bypassing them more difficult — often resulting in a bit of paradox-of-choice consumer anxiety and decision paralysis.
Western society trumpets the flawed, foundational belief that you can maximize individual happiness and enjoyment by maximizing an individual’s knowledge and power of choice. Whether you call this the Third Wave or not, coffee is no different from everything else. But there is a point of diminishing returns. Knowledge and choice come with associated, albeit obscured, costs. [Link to a comedian's version of essentially the same premise.] And this point differs for different people. For some, like the cited article’s author, the negatives of all that choice and required knowledge (i.e., added complexity) outweigh any meager positives.
While a lot of this may be true, it’s true from the point of view of a consumer who’s heavily into coffee already. I run espresso courses every two weeks as a part of this (http://www.sunbeamcoffeeschool.com.au/) and each time the classes run without fail there will be at least one or more people who have the idea that coffee is an invincible product that just tastes like coffee.
My role is to teach them about a fresh product, get them to start interacting with coffee and thinking of it as a fresh product and also to teach them the basics of espresso extractions, milk texturing and cleaning and maintenance. I can honestly say from anecdotal evidence that there is not much information out there about coffee that is floating around in the general public. Even here in espressoland downunder our consumers only have a small amount of knowledge about the process and the taste behind a good coffee. Educational programs by companies like the two that I work for, as well as the ones that you talk about are akin to preachers out on the street doing their thing. Not everyone listens, and not everyone needs to listen but for those that do, there’s a certain joy in the experience of good coffee and I think that’s what it’s all about in the end for the preachers amongst us. What I have experienced in talking flavours, it’s a relational experience and in talking with like-minded people this ability gets developed over time. I prefer a subtle approach to developing a consumer’s mind because this isn’t something that is actively taught to the general population. I know about 4 different wine reps and even a few bee keepers and they commonly accept that nuanced flavours in their product lines also require experience with said product and sometimes education. I also don’t like sledgehammer approaches you mention and in some cases it’s probably better to talk about a product in detail after someone has tried it, and liked it. Once again it comes down to the company philosophy as well as the customer empathy in the server.
The benefit I have in exploring single-origin coffee is the ability to compare the differences. It’s amazing how earthy the flavours are from Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees. If it weren’t for my interest in single-origin coffee I would have never realised that my favourite coffee region is Papua New Guinea. I also enjoy Mexican Chiapas coffee as well as the already mentioned Ethiopian.
Blends are great too but it’s hard to find consistency if you are drinking coffee from different outlets. At least with the regional stuff you can know what to expect more or less.
For instance I try to stay away from central American coffees (Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua) because I find that they are too mild (exception with Chiapas, Mexico).
I will most probably enjoy any strong blend from a good roaster and good barista, but when you are always travelling, it’s good to know what you like even if it is only a country you can name.