The most important public face of specialty coffee today
Posted by TheShot on 26 Dec 2012 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends
The specialty coffee industry has a strangely ambivalent, love/hate relationship with the mainstream. On the one hand, it thrives on an independent spirit rooted in independent businesses, an artisinal “craftsman” approach, an often bristling indifference to its customers, and it eschews much of anything that smells like the status quo (the stereotypes about things like sleeve tattoos and body piercings are hardly an anomaly).
And yet specialty coffee is also desperate for public approval, acceptance and validation, with many in the industry applauding virtually any public mention of decent coffee in the general media, coveting a rightful place in the pantheon of food television’s popular glow, and even going so far as to be willingly (and eagerly) exploited by TED. (And don’t get us started on the resulting Coffee Common star chamber charade.) This makes specialty coffee a bit like the high school social misfit that both publicly heaps scorn on the school’s popular cliques while secretly wishing to be a part of them.
Todd Carmichael prepares greens for an on-the-spot roast at origin on ‘Dangerous Grounds’
But Todd Carmichael is a *bleeeeep!*
Among some in the industry, this may seem heretical — if not unjustified. Highly respected, legendary professionals in the field such as Tom Owen (of home roasting Sweet Maria’s fame) have even created video parodies the show’s very concept — i.e., travel to coffee’s origins as a sort of danger sport — over a year ago and well before the show was even created. Others still see polar explorer and SCAA outsider Todd Carmichael, and his La Colombe Torrefaction coffee operations, as decidedly “pre-Third Wave” — akin to a shorthand for “don’t trust your coffee to anyone over 30”. (Five years ago Nick Cho, portafilter.net host and then of D.C. Murky Coffee fame, once publicly announced terminating his readership here for, among other things, a favorable post we made on La Colombe.)
However, over the years, specialty coffee has repeatedly proven itself incapable of speaking to layman consumers without trying to strong-arm them into first becoming like-minded professionals. This is a fundamental reason why Dangerous Grounds works: it hasn’t forgotten that good storytelling, even if embellished a bit, is at the heart of any legitimate mainstream media success.
Contrast an hour-long episode of Todd’s travels, trials, and tribulations with what the specialty coffee industry would otherwise celebrate as great video: sensory, stylized video montages/wannabe-TV-commercials that seem entirely designed to appeal to fellow coffee professionals. To the layman, these videos are unoriginal exercises in coffee navel-gazing — as utterly monotonous as the ubiquitous “hand-on-mouse” shots that dominated every 1990s TV show about the World Wide Web. You know it works when people who aren’t into coffee find the program entertaining, because the inconvenient truth is that video about coffee, like video about wine, is inherently boring.
Of Oliver Strand and Erin Meister
Which isn’t to say that video is the only way to bring the message of specialty coffee to the masses. Regular New York Times columnist Oliver Strand achieved a kind of patron saint status among the specialty coffee industry because a) his words were distributed in the nation’s preeminent newspaper, and b) he spoke cohesively about subjects the industry is frequently too tongue-tied to speak for itself. A rare case of a layman who reports on the specialty coffee world, industry blogs, coffee Web sites, and tweets alike eulogized the recent news of the demise of “Ristretto”, his occasional coffee column in the New York Times.
Contrary to some opinions in the specialty coffee world, Oliver Strand does put his pants on one leg at a time
That said, despite good writing, Strand’s articles virtually never broke any new ground, proposed any original thought, nor provided an opinion. Of course you could say that a journalist’s core mission is to reveal the truth, regardless of opinion. But his stories typically consisted of news or trends that had been well-covered elsewhere on the Internet, often failing at the “new” part of the word “news”. As a result, and as coffee laymen ourselves, we almost never learned anything new from Ristretto. This unfortunately made Ristretto function a little more like specialty coffee’s society pages, where industry insiders wondered whether their name might feature or not in the latest edition.
A bit more of an industry insider, Erin Meister has worked in customer support for Counter Culture Coffee and has developed some of her own barista chops. She has posted coffee articles in a variety of publications, but she’s received most of her attention and accolades for her regular column at the Serious Eats Web site.
The first problem is in the Web site’s name: Eats. How can we take Serious Eats seriously about coffee when its very name excludes the subject matter? That’s like reading Men’s Health for tips on menopause. (Are you listening, Good Food Awards?)
But far more troubling is an editorial slant that seems focused on evergreen content designed for SEO rankings, with insipid article titles like “Our 5 Favorite TV Coffee Shops“, “5 Coffee Tattoos We Love“, and “5 Reasons to Hate Starbucks“. Although we’re sure Ms. Meister has no say in the copy-editing matter, it follows the old ladies’ home journal formula of the words “secrets” and “perfect” plus a numeral combined with warmed-over content that’s been posted on the Web 120,000 times prior. There’s also something creepy about reading articles written more for computerized Web crawlers than for actual humans.
Love it or hate it, this is specialty coffee’s most important public face
Todd Carmichael prepares to descend a zipline in search of coffee on ‘Dangerous Grounds’
Curiously enough, all three personalities have had to confront the specialty coffee industry’s excesses of preciousness in recent times: Meister with barista attitudes (one of her best pieces of the past year), Strand berating industry pros for not even providing basic contact information in a speech at this year’s Nordic Barista Cup, and Carmichael’s rants against hipster coffee. That gives us strange comfort in knowing we’re not alone in trying to escape the dysfunction.
19 Comments »
An interesting article. The whole indifference to consumers thing seems more of a US than UK phenomenon. Over here in the UK, I find the specialist coffee professionals are generally anything but indifferent to their consumers.
However, the communication issue is one that also besets us. I think that part of the problem is that once you are into excellent coffee, it’s hard to remember what it was like before you got there. We can berate the general public for going to chains like Starbucks, but we very much miss the point.
First off, berating rarely works. And secondly, great coffee is an acquired taste. I was into my 30s before I developed a taste for espresso and I’m still educating my palate today. There’s a whole new wave of coffee shops in the UK doing incredible things with the subtle flavours of coffee and frankly, it passes my uneducated palate by.
We need to find ways to educated and encourage people and to do that, you have to start out where they are at now, not where you want them to be.
Brian.
I would like nothing more than to collaborate with you and anyone in the community on any origin or coffee or most anything the community feels important. As for the past, I for one am the first to recognize, over 30 or not, that I have been heavy handed and overly brutal with my portrayal of certain behavior within the community, no matter the origins of those thoughts, even irrational at times. For that i have been at times a willing and unwilling outcast. But lets face it, coffee is the central thing in all our lives, we wake up thinking about it, and go to sleep dreaming about it. We can not imagine our lives without it and often think “Where would I be if it were not for coffee?” Our kitchens are full of paraphernalia, from Chemexs, to v60s, to presses, to espresso machine parts and all of us seem to be to continually tinkering on how to make it that much better. We are all continually on the hunt, it never ever stops, even after 30. What’s worse, it takes years to get any good at it, which often means personal and financial hardship and a lot of explaining to those around you. Line cooks and coffee people, we all share that same struggle. We all have. And to many of those still in that struggle, I’ve been abusive with my printed word, for a cheap laugh. For that I am sorry.
Personally, I would like nothing better than to lose my outcast status, open my door to anyone intereted in collaboration, and be part of what we all are working so damn hard at, making great coffee for people.
Don’t change a thing, Todd. Even cliques of social outcasts need further outcasts to set their perspectives straight once in a while. 😉
Leave it to me to hit “paste” twice on my post. TheShot, a little editing help on my post? Jesse, sorry.
Sure thing, Todd. Hopefully our editing did it justice.
Nice perspective! As a full-time barista at La Colombe Philly, I can say first-hand how refreshing it is to work with a company that maintains the simplicity and elegance of the coffee tradition down to the way we serve it at the bar. Coffee, at a base level of sensory appreciation, should be accessible to everyone. It should be easily shared, and not over-complicated.
Kissing up to the boss, eh?
There is no ambivalence, no struggle, no love/hate.
There is a tv show that now for the first time in many years has put the spotlight on specialty coffee.
It reaches the masses thru travell channel and now, all of a sudden, john doe can watch a guy hold raw coffee beans somwhere in bolivia.
For the first time in years all people that drink coffee every day have to re examen the product they have used all their lives and got addicted to.
Just to find out that its cheap crap and that there is better stuff out there.
But this artikel above,,this useless exercise in navelgazing was, as revealed at the end, about the industries disfunction.
Or was just a page long pat on the back for Todd Carmichael?
The novelty of the show and Carrmichaels infectious enthousiasm are the key to this succes.
Here is a guy who crossed desserts, a polar explorer and adventurer who climes on a mopet in Cambodia to ride across mine fields to find what he is looking for…
To be honest? He could be looking for the lastest vaccuum cleaner model and his passion would still suck you in to screen. To think that this show is a succes because of coffee is fooling yourself.
Sure the specialty coffee industry can hitch a ride on Carmichels wave of succes but in the end, his star will shine brighter and much longer then that the specialty coffee industry.
I greatly enjoy the show and haven’t missed an episode since it first aired. Being a coffee drinker and lover this show was right up my alley so to speak.I hope the Travel Channel continues to carry it because it has done for me, exactly what I think it was intended to do, and that’s to educate the common household on coffee, great coffee and how it gets to our homes.
I’ve learned a lot and find the show very interesting. It is done in a way that is both informative and interesting to watch and Todd does a great job explaining things. Even the small things and all the little details. It’s also made me come to terms a little better with spending the extra money and buying a “real” coffee.
I will not look at the coffee maker on the kitchen counter the same after being hooked on this show. Funny thing, I recently booked a mtn climbing trip to Mexico and right after I booked the flights I was searching the web for Mexican coffee growers and their locations to see if any were in the area I was going to be in :).
Not at all. Come to our cafes in Philly and you’ll see what I mean.
Let me tell you why I’m a specialty coffee lover more than a specialty coffee drinker. I live in a SMALL town in North Carolina; not a local coffee shop within 20 miles. Several have tried but none lasted much more than a year. So if I want specialty coffee it’s all on me. This year for Christmas I asked for a new coffee machine, the best we could afford even though there were probably 20 things I needed much worse. I’m hooked on Dangerous Grounds and my husband now actually understands my coffee passion and ordered me a bag of the Haitian from La Colombe to go with my new machine. Yes, I love it but I’m drinking it sparingly because it’s simply not in our budget and paying shipping fees to get good coffee here in the ‘country’ is to me,the same as throwing money in a fire. I will continue to drink the good stuff when I travel and upgrade my equipment until I get where I want to be and splurge on the good stuff when the budget allows, just don’t overlook us out here who love it but just can’t get it!!
You’ve made some excellent points, except for this one:
“The first problem is in the Web site’s name: Eats. How can we take Serious Eats seriously about coffee when its very name excludes the subject matter? That’s like reading Men’s Health for tips on menopause. (Are you listening, Good Food Awards?)”
There already exist plenty of coffee-specific sites (like this one) where someone with specific interest in coffee can find info (although not all of it is actually fact-based or even useful).
IMO, the way to draw more people into specialty is through more general (if upscale) food blogs and articles. Coffee is a food. Serious Eats also occasionally talks beer and wine. I don’t see a disconnect at all. In fact, I’d argue that MORE exposure in general food press is far more valuable than additional coffee-focused web sites and blogs.
A few personal examples here. When I was a specialty roaster/retailer – and one of the first in my market – we were blessed with a food critic at our top newspaper who loved great coffee and generally always included a mention of coffee in her reviews. It helped raise consciousness that restaurant coffee was horrid and a number of chefs started to fix that, both in quality and service. It’s a better scene today.
I personally benefited from a relationship where my one restaurant client happened to be the best place in town. I regularly had people coming in to buy whole bean because the coffee they had to end their meal blew their minds. It was a win-win for both me and the restaurant. A light bulb went on for these customers who would never have experienced that coffee if they weren’t looking for a fabulous meal to begin with.
To the main focus of the article, Todd… I don’t know the man. I’ve read some unflattering stuff about his South Pole gig. He is a promoter. My first experience with La Colombe was judging a couple of their baristas at a regional competition in 2007. They weren’t very good – but they also admitted to not reading the rules and just figured they’d walk in and win. A bit of arrogance there. I try not to let all of that color my opinion, although it’s always in the background. I think Todd has some important things to say (and his work in Haiti is greatly appreciated).
Now that I’m more a civilian than a soldier in specialty, I have more appreciation for outliers as well as greater ability to take a broader view on the necessity of supporting a wider variety of coffees, not just the 85+ ones. I’ve arrived at a point where if we could just teach people to buy Eight O’Clock whole bean and brew it to SCAA standards, I’d be pretty happy.
Thanks for the thoughtful post, Rich. Funny thing is I could totally see La Colombe doing that five years ago. With coffee as with most other things, a little self-promotion is necessary and controversy sells readership. The net effect being hopefully a positive one.
I completely agree that coverage of quality coffee helps the overall awareness, and that’s a good thing. But there’s a difference between getting coverage in a broader publication — such as TIME or The Wall Street Journal — and one supposedly dedicated to the culinary arts and their enjoyment.
By calling your publication “Serious Eats”, it is as if drinks such as coffee were superfluous trivialities that were never worth top billing on the name of the show. If the name of your publication can’t respect the subject matter, how can I respect your treatment of it?
Your coffee-in-restaurants example is case-and-point. Coffee will never earn the respect it deserves if it continues to be treated as a asterisk or afterthought — as many restaurants have treated it for decades. A publication calling itself “Serious Eats”, or awards called the “Good Food Awards”, effectively re-enforce the second-class status of coffee in the deliberate choice of their names — i.e., coffee remains an asterisk or afterthought.
You do not eat coffee, unless you like the flavor of crunchy, semi-bitter chards of seeds in your mouth. Coffee is not food: a coffee diet will kill you from absolute malnourishment. Ethiopia is the motherland of coffee, and yet Westerners associate the country with abject starvation.
Unlike the more mainstream channels who are less clued in, these examples should know enough about quality coffee to know better not to exclude it in their very names.
Just so we’re clear: in the photo you captioned, I’m tying my shoe.
Oh, we’re definitely clear, Oliver. The sequence had to be implied, because (perhaps fortunately) the Internet has a dearth of photos of you trying on pants.
You didn’t look hard enough.
By calling your publication “Serious Eats”, it is as if drinks such as coffee were superfluous trivialities that were never worth top billing on the name of the show. If the name of your publication can’t respect the subject matter, how can I respect your treatment of it?
Your coffee-in-restaurants example is case-and-point. Coffee will never earn the respect it deserves if it continues to be treated as a asterisk or afterthought
dear the shot : What would you want coffee to be? Your a lover a coffee,,maybe even obcessed, so much is clear. But can you really expect the rest of the world to follow?
Coffee, like it or not IS an after thought. Its a little something after the meal, its not the meal.
In restaurants, do you go for food or for coffee? So why are you suprised its treated like an after thought, when thats exactly what it is.
For you, the shot , to become a good spokes person for coffee, you are gonna have to broaden your horizon and stop thinking like a coffee freak. Stop the self importance. Although nothing wrong with beeing one, main stream doesnt like to be patronized by specialist geeks who know it all and are now gonna tell you whats best and where to get it.
If you keep being insulted and suprised by people not treating coffee like you, and judging them arrogantly like above, your not advertising coffee or helping it but your keeping it down.
Because who really loves a know it all?
It’s quite amusing how electronic communications lead people to the leap-of-faith conclusion that the Internet is inhabited by curmudgeons sitting in smoky backrooms, preoccupied with their own demented manifestos while fumbling with their hypertension medications, fuming and taking insult with anything said online that doesn’t fit their obsessively slanted view of the universe.
I assure you, I feel no way “insulted” or care to be considered a “know it all”. If anything, the more I learn in life, the more I realize I am clueless. And I certainly know I’m not in the business of getting people to like me. Who am I? Sen. Al Franken playing Stuart Smalley?
That said, coffee is certainly an afterthought compared to a restaurant meal. But whoever named Serious Eats wanted their cake and wanted to eat it too. So they speak out of both sides of their mouth: i.e., we’re named “Eats”, but we also want to be perceived as credible experts on “drinks” (see: their sub-named “Serious Drinks” red-headed stepchild). They’re like a neighborhood savings & loan that puts “African-American” in their name to appeal to blacks, but then goes on a campaign to drum up business with all their Vietnamese neighbors saying, “Oh, but we’re the Asian-American bank too!”
Now take publications like Epicurean or Gourmet. Those are both thoughtfully named publications that possessed the correct vision that good food and good drink go together. Because when we talk about Serious Eats‘ exclusion-by-name here, it’s not just coffee — it includes craft beers, wine, tea, cocktails, the homemade soda fad, etc. All things they are also trying to make money from as experts, and many of the things required to keep most high-end restaurants solvent.
Point being if you’re going to pretend you actually give a damn about drinks, if you actually think that drinks are worthy of a quality of respect, and if you’re actually going to sell advertising to drink purveyors to reach drink consumers, why are you completely dissing on the entire market by deliberately choosing such a myopic and alienating name for your identity to begin with? You’re only hurting your own supposed cause. I simply cannot respect your coverage if you cannot do the basics to respect the subject matter.
I never drank coffee in the past. It always smelled good but tasted too bitter for my taste. Then I discovered specialty coffee at Central Market where I could purchase a small amount to taste. That’s when I started thinking coffee. I knew the red can coffee’s weren’t the best and that’s probably why I never took a hankering to them. I prefer imported or specialty micro brewed beer and feel the same about my teas. So I guess it stands to reason if I ever found a coffee that I liked, it would have to be something special, hard to find and have a unique taste. I learned a lot about tea by watching a documentary about the tea guy, who is a lot like Todd Carmichael, and now I have learned a lot more than I ever knew about coffee. Thanks Todd Carmichael and Dangerous Grounds. My pick of coffee is headed my way to try and I can’t wait for it to arrive.