A More Special Specialty
What’s so special about Specialty Coffee?
Maybe you’ve heard the term “Specialty Coffee” thrown around before. Sometimes it’s used to describe coffee based on technical terms or quality, sometimes it’s used to let people know a shop has pourovers or coffees from different origins, and unfortunately sometimes it’s used to mean moody baristas and long wait times. While we’ve written a little bit about specialty coffee in the past, we felt that in light of our temporary closure, it would be a good time to open up the world of coffee a little bit and highlight some things that make our industry so much fun, while also bringing to attention some very real issues our industry has to overcome.
We’re firm believers that the definition of a good cup of coffee is a coffee you like to drink. There seems to be as many roasters — and definitely as many coffee offerings — as there are taste preferences. We believe in the importance of care shown throughout every step in the process. If the family or farm worker cares for the cherries they pick, the roaster spends time finding how to best accentuate the best characteristics of a specific offering, and a brewer is excited, intentional, and interested in making great coffee, you’re going to have a great cup! But is taste the only thing we should be interested in when we talk about coffee?
People First
We love making people happy. In fact, it’s literally our mission statement! More than making and serving coffee, hosting events, working on drink specials or researching new ways to brew better at home, the highlight of our day is getting to see our friends and regulars throughout the day, getting to introduce guests to our coffees and specials, our neighborhood, or the city, and getting hundreds of opportunities to make someone’s day!
While our cafe is decidedly people first, when we look back through the supply chain and the history of our industry, “profit first” has ruled the day. Ric Rhinehart, Former Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association, presents the inequity plainly, here:
“In many cases coffee has simply chased low cost labor and make no mistake the system was set up to do that - this idea of a colonial trading system that takes advantage of nearly free land and nearly free labor to deliver a nearly free product to people who can commercialize it. This is the description not only of the coffee, cocoa and a dozen other tropical commodities.”
— Ric Rhinehart, Re:Co Symposium 2019
So what does it mean to be people first in an industry established by colonialism? There’s probably not just one answer. At an industry level the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has launched the Price Crisis Response Initiative to “understand and address the price crisis affecting coffee and publish a report with recommendations for the coffee industry.” Closer to home, we’ve seen coffees like Congo Mpumbi Micro Station, KLLR’s current Small Batch come from cooperatives owned by small holder farmers, which make up a larger percentage of specialty coffee farms, so they’re able to get a fair price for their coffee and protect themselves against market instability, where prices have dipped recently as low as half the average cost to produce per pound, and climate change, where changing weather patterns affect growing seasons and leave varieties prone to major diseases.
Coffee with a story
We have a regular who reminds us often that even with great coffee at home, a coffee made for you by someone who cares tastes even better. But maybe it’s time to begin to look past the barista or roaster and to the producers and farm workers who do all of the hard work of growing, harvesting, and processing the wonderful coffees we get to experience every day.
Next time you get a coffee from us, ask us about who produced it or where it came from! The coffees we serve have been cared for by skilled laborers every step of the way and have been processed with the utmost quality and care for you to enjoy! Here’s to making your next cup, just a little bit better!
