This was discovered in Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, and extracts are used by permission of the writer, Tim Castle, and the editor, Jane McCabe. A link to the full story is at the foot of the page.
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The buzz about coffee lately has been really about espresso. The problem with this espresso obsession is that the roaster and the farmer get lost in the chaff as the obsessives work on perfecting their grind, tamping, group temperatures, etc. There is nothing wrong with a great cup of espresso but all the hoopla about espresso is leaving someone in the dust - and that’s the farm.
It is symptomatic of the market and our industry’s approach to it and the simple coffee, once again, is not enough. People want to feel that great coffee needs a lot of fussing.
Much of the coffee market today can be defined in terms of who gets the value-added. Even consumers, those in love enough with espresso, are buying espresso machines and bringing them home to make their own “Three Dollar Lattes,” but they are often under spending on the coffee itself - chiefly because they don’t have enough knowledge about coffee to be able to at least eliminate a lot of the poor quality coffees that many “espresso aficionados” believe have “body” or “depth” or some other such malarkey. Some “cogno-espressistas” believe, for example, that any espresso blend from a particular country is inherently better. Others insist that espresso blends contain certain coffees of purposely-low quality to add certain mythical qualities (aside from a low cost) to an espresso blend.
What the espresso craze might really be about is that people are looking for something to master and control. With espresso, there are hundreds of details over which obsessive types can obsess about, and that is the whole point.
Tim Castle questioned players in the American speciality coffee industry over whether espresso really is a good thing. He found several who agreed with him.
Joseph John of Josuma Coffee in California had an interesting view on barista contests, which are often espresso-centred - he does not like contests that are judged on technique rather than on the resulting taste of the coffee.
John Rapinchuk of Knutsen Coffee has a similar view, believing that today's milk-based espresso drinks make the coffee ‘another step removed from the coffee farm. All parts of the espresso process become important, instead of in drip coffee, for example, where the focus is completely on the coffee’. He also feels there is ‘a lack of transparency’ in espresso blends.
Susie Spindler, of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, which runs the Cup of Excellence auctions, made the interesting comment that only drip-coffee people market their drinks with the same respect for origin that the wine trade has. "Espresso coffee drink drinkers are not coffee drinkers, they have no understanding of the unique qualities of the coffee itself - where it comes from, how the farmer tended the trees, even where the estate is located. Espresso-based drinks market the process of making the drink, and not the product. We all need to tell a better story.”
Mane' Alves, president, Coffee Lab International, is excited about the future of the coffee industry in regard to the espresso-based beverages.
"In reality espresso is one of the most dynamic areas of growth in specialty coffee and one that the youngest coffee drinkers are attracted to. We believe that this group, also known as ‘the third wave,’ is the future of specialty coffee. The question is, will this group have enough strength to carry the industry into the future? If they do, it will be an industry dramatically different from what we have now."
Alves agrees that selling espresso drinks as a single origin is tricky, but education is paramount. "Pulling a single origin espresso is not commonly done by coffee retailers in the U.S., as they are not equipped to do this type of sale. Single Estate espresso means having one grinder per single estate if a retailer wants to serve more than one farm at the time.
“The second problem is the coffee complexity. Not all-single estate coffees have enough complexity to be developed as an espresso. It is common to blend two or three single estates and have the barista educate the consumers about the blend and its sources.”
Doug Welsh, the director of coffee at Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Emeryville, California, pointed out that, espresso consumers are not learning about or connecting with the coffee itself.
“There is something fussy about the approach to espresso right now that doesn’t allow for a simple, beautiful cup of coffee. A cup of coffee should be accessible, simple and just plain great. This straightforward approach is more of something you see with brewed coffee and not espresso.”
When asked where espresso has taken us and the industry for the past several years Welsh posed two questions himself: “First of all, in assessing where we’re at as an industry, the common sense proposition you have to look at is this: ‘Where, in today’s marketplace, can today’s coffee drinker get a great cup of brewed coffee?'” It is also telling, Welsh asserted, to consider that, “In addition to the relative dearth of great brewed coffee it is also interesting to ask where else a roaster in the ‘specialty’ sector could use Robusta and not only get away with it, but in some cases be praised for doing so.”
Obviously, it is in no coffee lover’s interest to wish for the demise of espresso, or for the current popularity enjoyed by the many beverages made with it. Indeed, the very popularity of these drinks provides an opportunity to tell the story of the great taste of coffee, no matter how it is brewed, to a much wider audience than might otherwise be possible. This opportunity should be grasped, however, before the notoriously fickle consumer moves on to some other drink that contains no coffee at all.
Timothy J. Castle is the co-author (with Joan Nielsen) of The Great Coffee Book, recently published by Ten Speed Press. He may be reached at: qahwah@aol.com. The full feature in Tea and Coffee Journal can be read at: http://teaandcoffee.net/1103/retail.htm