365 Days of Coffee

This is an essay I was asked to write to accompany Monique Martin’s art exhibition entitled ‘365 Days of Coffee’, which will tour Saskatchewan art galleries later this year with the OSAC. For more details, see Monique’s site: http://moniqueart.com/365daysofcoffee/365daysofcoffee.html

Monique Martin’s exhibition explores our daily rituals of coffee drinking and how coffee travels with us as an otherwise unremarked on part of everyday life. We clutch our travel mugs and make sure we have enough caffeine to face the day, but few of us truly consider the process involved in getting us our daily fix. Also unnoticed is the epic journey the little beans take before we even see it. Coffee beans travel from remote mountainous regions and tropical cloudforest along the equator, during which it is stripped of its fruit, dried in the sun for days, hand-sorted by meticulous plantation workers, measured, weighed, graded, bagged and transported around the globe, roasted in giant fiery ovens by expert artisans then moving off again to meet their fate in coffee shops before finally making it into our mugs. The coffee production process employs over 125 million people across the world, and this often brutal journey means that over 2.25 billion cups of coffee can be enjoyed each day.

Tasting gourmet coffee can transport you from your daily routine and familiar surroundings into a whole other world of exotic flavours and aromas. The old but favoured mug you grab from the kitchen each morning looks and feels familiar, but its contents can be evocative of strange and faraway places well beyond the daily grind. Every cup tells a story; fragrant coffee in souvenir mugs from tropical holidays may allow you to relive past adventures (such as in Martin’s piece “Mexico”) or you might find that coffee tastes so much sweeter in a cup that was a gift from a loved one (“Sweetheart”).

Presenting coffee to gourmet standards has become an art form in its own right. There are baristas who swear you can only get ‘a perfect pour’ in ceramic mugs (much like Martin’s piece entitled “Froth”), The skills required by the barista to pour milk onto espresso just so, to create intricate patterns as ‘latte art’ has become a global phenomenon. Latte art is visually beautiful, but so too is what it represents: the culmination of so many artisans – farmers, quality graders, roasters, baristas – all connected by the little beans that are so well-travelled already. It’s no wonder that taking a few moments out of a busy day to enjoy this little luxury in a cup is so welcomed by so many people.

But we don’t just drink it for the taste. Coffee also connects people. The Fair Trade movement and trends towards ethical consumerism have made coffee drinkers more aware of coffee farmers. The turn towards quality over convenience coupled with people’s increasing knowledge and appreciation for coffee has meant that coffee lovers are now more likely to know of the local small business who roasts their beans. Early morning conversations with your friendly barista can start the day in a positive and sociable way. And then there’s the discussions to be had on ‘coffee row’, or in the line-up as you wait, or
between office colleagues taking as much time away from their desks as possible while on the morning coffee run. Coffee is as much a small break from routine as it is a routine in itself.

The caffeine in your drink is not physically addictive, but its effects can be psychologically so, and the daily coffee ritual is certainly habit-forming. Monique Martin’s work on the ‘365 Days of Coffee’ explores just how deeply entrenched our coffee rituals are in our everyday lives. We go out for coffee as a break from work. We arrange dates with friends around it, or we feel compelled to make it in the mornings as preparation before leaving the house. We carry it around with us constantly– and as the exhibition shows, the receptacles that we do this in are very significant. Our mugs are a little piece of personal identity in a corporate work environment, they can evoke the familiar comfort of home, or act as the catalyst for daydreaming and escapism. They are decorated, well-worn and well-loved, almost fetishized objects, always comfortingly by our side as our precious coffee accompanies us through life, every day, the whole world over.

 

Buying a better world?

Due to a random series of events involving storytelling and poetry last September (long story!) I was invited to do a talk at a “Gathering of Global Minds” event organised by the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation. This happened on 23rd January at a very nice cafe bar here in Regina. I was honestly not expecting there to be as many people in the audience as there were, so it was quite scary – especially given the subject matter. “Buying a better world?” Or, more simply, Fairtrade! Again! And they wanted me to critique it! Again! And I was told in advance: “The people coming to the event will range from moderate to radical supporters [of Fairtrade]”. Woopedoo! I was more than a little worried about getting harrassed by the Traidcraft mafia again like last time…..

Anyway, I was sharing the panel with Alicia from a shop called 10,000 Villages that sells artisan, Fairtrade crafts, and Nathan, who’d been working with Fairtrade cocoa farmers in Ghana. It proved to be a really interesting night; our separate talks actually had a lot in common and the audience engaged really well, asked a lot of questions and didn’t take any offence at Nathan and I pointing out some of the problems with the fairtrade system!

My critique was, as normal, mainly based on economics. Alicia’s emotive talk about how Fairtrade helps impoverish communities and empowers women and preserves traditional crafts etc was spot on – the system does do a lot of good and I am not denying that for a minute. Neither can I fault the original intention of the Fairtrade movement. My issues are just with the execution of that idea.

I’ve already posted on this blog about how the Fairtrade minimum price for coffee ($1.36 per pound) was just half the price of coffee on the New York Commodity Exchange in the last few years (which reached a 35 year high of over $3 per pound in 2010) – and whatever the bigger coffee companies claim, it is very naive to think any large importing company would volunteer to pay more than they actually had to for the commodity. Case to point, in 2010 when the commodity exchange price for coffee was at its highest and the fairtrade minimum was less that half that price, Starbucks and McDonalds both suddenly switched their entire coffee range to Fairtrade in the UK. Now call me cynical, but I’m fairly confident that this wasn’t because they’d magically become ethically aware over night. Nevertheless, (also as pointed out on this blog) the Fairtrade Foundation did react eventually, and by August 2011, had altered the rule and now said that buyers should pay the fairtrade price or the normal market price, whichever was higher. . This meant that farmers would get the same higher prices and benefit from the global market, but those in Fairtrade-certified cooperatives would also get the social premium and the benefits of all the Fairtrade community development projects as well. All very well and good, but it was a very long time coming – and I’d argue, too little, too late.

My main concern though, is still with Quality. Regardless of the new rules regarding the Fairtrade price, the demands of capitalism mean that the highest prices will still be paid for the highest quality coffee, regardless of its fairtrade status or lack of. I had workers at the cooperatives in Nicaragua telling me as a statement of fact that coffee which achieves 85 or more points on the cupping scale is sold off as ‘specialty’ coffee for the highest prices, then the crops that fall into the 65-85 points range are sold to Fairtrade buyers for a lower price. This means not only that the fairtrade price is still lower, it also means that stuff sold with the Fairtrade logo could actually be much lower quality than the stuff sold outside of the Fairtrade system. But when we buy it, we can’t tell! The Fairtrade logo tells the consumer nothing about what the coffee tastes like, but too often those who try to shop ethically automatically make the link between “ethically good” and “tastes good” – which may not be the case at all.

I also tried to explain the cupping process and issues with knowledge inequality. In very simplistic terms, cupping coffee is a very skilled job and one that takes years to perfect. The vast majority of these skilled cuppers (who have a huge influence over the price the farmer receives for his crop) are employed by the large roasting and importing companies. They visit the cooperatives, sample the coffee and grade it, (the points system described previously) and then “negotiate” a price for the coffee based on their assessment of its quality. The problem is that it is rare to find the equivalent cupper employed by the cooperative. A cupper from a multinational importing company can go to the cooperative, pronouce the coffee to be only of average quality, and then refuse to pay a high price for it, yet the farmers or the cooperative workers have very little means to argue against that decision. It proves to be a very unequal negotiation, just because the farmers in the producing countries often cannot share in the same understanding of coffee quality and knowledge of cupping that the rich, educated and trained cuppers possess. This situation isn’t likely to change without some serious investment in training at the cooperatives – maybe this is what those coveted Fairtrade social premiums could be used for?

At the end of this talk (all 7 minutes of it) I had to sum up and give my “recommendations”. I know it is a very lame admission but despite all my criticisms, I don’t have many plausible recommendations as alternatives to Fairtrade, and I do still see the need for the concept’s existence. I advocate direct trade – small coffee companies going directly to the point of origin and buying directly from the farmers, and therefore cutting out the middle men. However, this is just not practical on a large scale. So few business can afford those trips on a regular basis and those that can are the multinationals I’d like to get rid of. From an economic viewpoint, I think the Fairtrade minimum price should track just above the global market price, but doing this for every single commodity they certify, in every country they operate I imagine would just be impossible. Of course, it would be far nicer for everyone if Fairtrade didn’t have to exist at all – if ALL trade was fair all of the time. But then, we live in a capitalist world and therefore that isn’t going to happen.

I’ve said it before repeatedly on this blog… as a consumer, be aware of not just what you are buying, but what you are buying in to. And then buy what you like the taste of, and (in as far as possible) what you are comfortable with investing in. Easier said than done, I know!

The audience, all ready and enthused to fire questions at me.
(Photo stolen from Jenn Bergen’s twitter – thank you!)

 

Happy Baristas

Or,

What makes a coffee shop, part 2.

 

In the last ten years, I’ve worked in seven different cafe/bar/restaurant/coffee shop type places, both independent and at branches of the big chains – everything from Caffe Nero, to my own coffee shop and previously, my little coffee van in the UK, to the most recent move to this vegetarian restaurant/coffee house here in Saskatchewan. I’ve also spent a lot of time, and an eye-watering amount of money, hanging around in coffee shops all over the world. I think this has given me a fairly good idea of what makes a good one!

I posted previously asking my loyal follower(s) to say what makes a place worth visiting to them. After good coffee, most answers seemed to revolve around the idea of “comfort” – ie: “no metal chairs!!” “big squashy sofas” and “free wifi”. I agree. To me, what makes a good coffee shop is as much about atmosphere and environment, as it is about the coffee. I’ve worked in, and spent time in places where the coffee is not that great. but everyone in there were so friendly and fun that attendance was habit forming. Conversely, I’ve visited places (typically, in the posh parts of London but also significantly in Darlington and one here in Regina) where the coffee itself was exceptional and expertly crafted, but the places themselves felt at best sterile and at worst, pretentious and actively hostile.

Coffee can be sold by image. Some places are just Fashionable: if you can make the coffee look pretty, and if you are in the right location (for example, in the city centre where people with a lot of money reside or work) and build up a popular brand image, then people will pay for it regardless of whether or not the coffee itself is any good. The same is true of ethical branding – serve fair trade/organic/bird friendly/rainforest alliance/ 30% raw/gluten-free/anti-oxident-packed GRIT in recycled cups with 10% going to charity in a ‘social enterprise’ café and position yourself in the midst of the hipster part of town, and that burnt grit could make your fortune.

I am not trying to say that all coffee shop customers are gullible fools – they are not, and consumers are getting more and more demanding of higher quality coffee, hence the increasing preference for independent places over the chains in the UK. Happily, people are starting to appreciate what they are drinking more, and becoming more discerning. My point is really that it is not just the coffee that makes a good coffee shop. People visit for other reasons.

In my experience, creating the right atmosphere is heavily based on personality – that of the staff and of the business owners/designers. Friendly, chatty, informal people who don’t treat customers like they are just walking ATMs. The chain coffee shops attempt to artificially create this atmosphere by effectively scripting their staff, and designing the branches so that baristas can never actually sit down visibly, so that we constantly looked busy and active but never relaxed! Unsurprisingly, this approach usually failed, and gave rise to the chain store baristas being called “robots” “button monkeys” or “drones in green aprons”! (all real quotes from my customer focus groups).

Baristas have to enjoy what they are doing to be good at their job, and should be given the opportunity to showcase their creativity and individuality – coffee and creativity always go hand in hand! A huge amount of Coffee Shop Success is based on personality; particularly in small businesses, it is as much about selling your personality as it is selling coffee. Community is also important, as an article in our local paper showed the other day:

Fully 71 per cent like to support owners who live in their community, and 68 per cent like the personalized service from small businesses.

That’s no surprise to Craigen, who said people note her firm’s visibility in community events and tell her, “we’re going to support you because you support us.”

“People like businesses that participate in the community, their ‘nearness’ and the fact that they get to know the owners,” agrees RBC’s Mike Michell

Read more: http://www.leaderpost.com/business/Consumers+loyal+local+businesses/7041277/story.html#ixzz22v6Ya4kn”

So there you have it: good coffee shops need good coffee, great, personable, happy staff, a sense of community and big squashy sofas. You heard it here first!

 

What makes a good coffee shop?

My wonderful husband gave me an Idea this morning when we were chatting online. This Idea is growing and evolving already.

Also, my friend pointed this out to me: http://www.thegridto.com/life/food-drink/playful-grounds/

But first, a little research. Please help me out here and answer me this:
What, in your opinion/experience as a customer makes a good coffee shop?

 

I’ve posted the same question on google+ and twitter, and here are some of the responses so far:

Aside from the obvious, (good coffee) lots of nice sofas, always dissapointed when I can’t get a comfy seat,friendly staff too 🙂

clean, free wi-fi, good food and coffee and open early in the morning

aside from good, straughtforward coffee… Comfy armchairs. Newspapers. Nice cake.

open way freaking late. like 2am or 24 hours. There have been a few coffee shops locally that tried to do this. I liked having somewhere to go and get feen’d up and hack on stuff in the wee hours. Baristas that know a good mix when they taste it, and can reliably reproduce a tasty treat. I like it when baristas have a drink that’s distinctly their own. Obviously, I prefer they not be the type that’d correct someone who asks for a “medium” latte.

Comfortable and clean. Non-wobbly tables and non-scrapey chairs. Not echoey. I hate having to hear scraping chairs and wobbling tables banging about or loud people from the front of the shop as though they were right beside me. NO METAL CHAIRS! They’re not comfortable to sit in, clang, and are bloody cold in winter.

More to come I hope! Please feel free to add your comments below too! all appreciated.

 

An “expert panel”.

One thing I do appreciate about being a relative “underling” in academic circles still, is that my supervisors tend to fob things off on to me. I presented at a conference about Fairtrade and upset a lot of people because one supervisor didn’t have time to go. I wrote a magazine article on coffee waste because the other supervisor couldn’t be bothered. And this week, one of the examiners from my viva passed on an invitation to go on an ‘expert panel’ hosted by an “innovation consultancy” for an unnamed “major coffee company.” This was the first time I’ve ever done this sort of thing and it was a truly bizarre experience.

As far as I could tell from the enigmatic and brief email invitatiion, I had to go to London Bridge, all expenses covered, be given “drinks and canapes” and be paid to talk “about coffee vending” for two hours. So I did. I made it down there, got on the right tube line but promptly walked the wrong way out of Borough tube station and got a bit lost, finally presented myself at the reception of this huge, posh looking office/studio building, where I was wordlessly handed a white envelope with £150 in cash in it!! I could get used to this!!

I actually really enjoyed the evening, and not just because of the Free Wine and Free Sushi. (I noted they didn’t even attempt to serve us coffee!). I was definitely the Token Academic, but the rest were all from different backgrounds – advertising and marketing people, restauranters, a nutritionist, a trade journal editor and a coffee historian. Given the location and the words “Future Panel” and “innovation consultancy” on the invite, I was fully prepared for an evening of playing Bullshit Bingo. However, I needn’t have feared! It was all very interesting and most of the other panelists were refreshingly cynical, especially for advertising folks.

I have a feeling I talked too much. I hope I didn’t make a giant tit of myself. I did get very, very involved.This tends to happen when I am Interested in something. I hope they realised this.

The discussion was mainly about the Future of Coffee Vending Machines – specifically the self-service ones, with no barista involved like you get at motorway service stations. The “major coffee company” who commissioned this remains nameless but I’m sure informed readers can make a good guess! Although there were at least three unashamed Nespresso machine fans, the overriding impression we had about vending machines was that they were notoriously shit. Not even just the taste of the low quality, cheap coffee that is usually found in them, but the mistrust that they will just swallow your money or give you chicken soup by accident or something. No one thought anyone in this country would be willing to spend serious money in vending machines.This is true. There are lots of different coffee markets to my mind: there are ‘gourmet’ coffee snobs like me who want the best quality and want to see it handmade. People who are willing to pay for, and wait for, espresso. Then there are people who work out of coffee shops who come in for the free wifi and to get out of the house and don’t really care about what they’re drinking. Then there is the social element – friends meeting somewhere that has fewer negative social connotations than a pub or is more family-orientated for example. There are people who have no choice – those dying for “refreshment” whilst stuck on trains or the motorways and are forced to pay for whatever crap is available in a very restricted environment. Finally there are caffeine addicts who just want a hot, wet fix for minimal cost. At the moment, vending machines only cater for the last two groups. But we were asked to think about how they could be developed to access the other sorts of markets.

By this point I had got talking to the guy next to me, a historian and magazine editor from California with a passion for coffee who has spent years writing a book on the history of coffee. VERY interesting guy. We were asked to pair up and try to design The Coffee Vending Machine of the Future! Perhaps inevitably, we got sidetracked talking about the history of coffee houses…. To this end, my “made up off the top of my head” vending machine was STEAMPUNK! Only one person in the room knew what I meant by steampunk, and I am eternally grateful to him. Syphon-style coffee makers (like french presses, but sucking water up through the coffee rather than squashing it down) lend themselves to the imagined Victoriana style – all steaming glass tubes, hissing noises and brass plates. Big heavy machines. Mine would be a cylindrical tank with several glass syphons arranged around it, allowing several high quality single origin coffees to be served simultaneously but without the faffing about, waiting time or expensive of espresso. Brass robot arms would then add milk, sugar, cream, flavourings etc. The customer would pull a large lever to start the thing, and set a dial to Weak or Strong. The whole contraption would be encased in a glass booth, with a canopy over it and a small ledge all round it for people to lean on to drink their coffee. It could be a centre piece to any service station, or a talking point in an office block, fulfilling the same role as the water dispenser conversation point does now. Better still, the weirdness and clockwork/steam intricacy of the machine itself would provide the spectacle needed so that people part with quite a lot of money for the coffee it made. You would be paying for the thrill of seeing it in action as well as for the convenience of not having to make coffee yourself. However,  to avoid queues and to embrace modern technology, the machine would work via a barcode scanner. A complimentry phone app would allow you to design your favourite coffee – say “Strong, Costa Rican, no milk, two sugars, 12oz cup” which would then be represented as a barcode on your phone. You’d then find the machine, wave your phone at it, pull the lever, and your personalised, favourite coffee would be dispensed from the test-tube syphons by the robot arms and payment would be taken from your phone bill. Personally, I think this is the future.

More sensible ideas included using face recognition software to personalise your coffee (ie: if it measured large bags under your eyes then it would automatically give you extra caffeine!). Others wanted a machine that took payment only after it made the drink so you never lost money if the machine broke down and so on. However, the main thing to come out of the discussion was that if the company wants people to pay good money for vending machine coffee, the vending machine absolutely cannot look like or feel like a conventional vending machine. They just have too many negative connotations!

I really hope the ‘major coffee company’ take in board all our views, even if we/I did get a little sidetracked and carried away! I was thanked profusely for my contributions but I am never any good at telling whether people are just humouring me or not. But, if a major coffee brand introduces a range of huge brass steampunk contraptions into your office, please let me know!!

***

EDIT:

Someone has already come up with a similar machine!! I mean like this, but with at least 5 syphons and more arms.

Clicky the image for the artist's Deviant Art page

 

Coffee Shops

A little project looking at how coffee shops market themselves. What goes on the shop front? How is coffee marketed actually on the building? More tellingly though, what do coffee customers notice about the shop fronts? How much of an effect does the shop decor have on people’s decision to go there?

This is a work in progress – I would love to get people to send me a picture of their favourite coffee shop and give me a short sentence about why they like it. I will update this page as I receive more pictures. If you’d like to contribute, I’d be eternally grateful. Please email your pics to drcoffee@live.co.uk. I won’t publish anyone’s names if you don’t want me to, just say in your email if you want to stay anonymous.

Here’s a few I’ve received so far. Analysis will follow!

Esquires, Durham: "Spiced Apple punch = nom nom. They also have free newspapers!" - Richard, Durham

Gusto Italiano, Sheffield. "There are two reasons why I go here: the coffee and the service. Both very good." - (Ol, Sheffield)

Beckett's, Skinner Street, Whitby. "We looked everywhere for a coffee shop that delivered a proper espresso - bingo! The service was friendly with smiles and faultless." (J.C., Whitby)

Afternoon Tease, Parkgate, Darlington. "I like the tea, hot chocolate, and soup, and the fantastically friendly atmosphere combined with their love of books and writing." (Chelle, Hartlepool) "It frakkin' ROCKS!!" (Dave, Darlington)

 

The Great Coffee Taste Test

… was absolutely exhausting. Which is my excuse for only getting round to writing about it now.

The Premise?

Get two coffees, one “good quality”, one less so. Get as many people as possible to try them. Find out if people preferred the high quality or not.

The Venue?

Last week, taking over what currently passes for the ‘Cafe’ on C-floor of the Geography Department, University of Sheffield.

The  partipants?

Simon from Pollards Coffee Company and I, manning the espresso machine, and over 100 willing participants from the (mainly geography) students and staff. Not exactly coffee gourmets, but certainly plenty of addicts (I quote: “I’d be on drip if I could plug it in”)

If only it were that simple!!

This experiment was not a full-proof design anyway, but a few things ‘distracted’ from the scientific precision, shall we say.

The New C floor "cafe". Ahem.

The venue served us pretty well once Simon had lugged the Fraccino espresso machine up in the lift and plugged everything in. There (as yet) is no furniture in the cafe, so there was very little for our participants to sit on, let alone write out our reply slips on whilst holding two cups of coffee…. but not the end of the world. However, although I had arranged to hold the taste test on Tuesday and Wednesday several weeks ago, it was left until Monday until someone informed us that there was a department open day on the Wednesday, who also wanted to use the space. Great! I thought. More people! Sadly, no, they all appeared at 4pm, just as we were packing up. A few rather lost looking parents-of-prospective-students appeared though, looking for the department cafe… and only found us. We were of course, happy to oblige but methinks for the sake of the geography department in general, it would have been wise to build and furnish the cafe first, and then put the signs up to it…. And I can suggest someone very willing to take over the space and run it as a cafe properly, by the way... hint hint.

But ANYWAY.

In terms of research design, we had tried to keep the experiment as simple as possible. We gave our participants the sort of coffees they asked for,  cappuccinos, americanos, etc. because we wanted to test the average coffee drinker, drinking what they normal would in a coffee shop. We hoped this would give a more accurate picture of how people taste coffee – the differences should still be apparent even with added milk and sugar etc. If they are not, this is still significant because it implies that it would not matter what sort of coffee goes into a cappuccino, if people are just drinking them for the milky flavours. Also, we were likely to get far more participants this way, than if we forced them all to drink espressos. However, it does leave it open to flaws in the consistancy of our drink construction though – we may well have added more milk or foamed one better than the other or screwed up the espresso at times etc etc etc. Not a highly accurate test in this sense!

Simon setting up.

The biggest test for us though, was how to define ‘quality’ in the first place. A very large proportion of my whole thesis revolves around this issue! Simon helped a great deal here by basically using his knowledge of roasting and then absolving us of responsibility for defining quality. He chose three coffees for an espresso blend, that had all rated very highly on the Speciality Coffee Association of American’s cupping scale. Then, he got three more lots of beans from farms very close by to these first three, but had not been rated by the SCAA. Another factor was the price. The SCAA-rated blend would have cost £12 a kilo, the other, £3 a kilo. Was the ‘higher quality’ one really four times better? Pollards people roasted both sets of beans identically and on the same day, so there was as little variation in the roast as possible. All was set!

We both did this test blind – the beans arrived in bags marked A and B, and we had two grinders, also marked similarly. We then marked all the cups before giving them to our guinea-pigs.  Neither of us knew which blend was which as we made the coffees (although Simon worked it out pretty quickly!), so we couldn’t unconsciously make one coffee better than the other and so on. This is a further issue regarding quality. Quality is not just an inherent characteristic of the green bean – it also depends on the roast and the skills of the barista (amongst other things). We could just about controi these variables, so hopefully all we were testing were the difference in quality of the beans themselves. Complicated, though!

Moi as experimental barista and bemused guinea-pig

More caffeinated guinea pigs.

The Results?

Pretty evenly split!!!

This is a fascinating result and is already causing controversy at Pollards and with Simon’s suppliers. I am not going to put the exact figures on here – I am still waiting for some responses anyway, but mainly because we want to put together a proper paper about this for academic and hopefully some trade journals. For simplicity’s sake, there was no significant difference between the number of people preferring Coffee A to Coffee B. There were a very few people who couldn’t tell the difference at all, but not nearly as many of these as I had thought there might be. If anything, there was a very very tiny skew towards a preference for A, but not enough to make definite assertations.

B was the SCAA rated, high quality blend, worth four times the price of A.

I’ll let Simon explain the origins of Coffee B:

“The El Salvador is La Avila Estate, which came 5th in the 2009 Cup of Excellence awards with a score of 89.43. It is a fantastic cup on its own in a filter of cafetiere but is it worth 4 times more than the standard SHG from the farm next door?
The Brazil was a Daterra Special reserve coming in with a score of 85.5 last year. It is the Catuai varietal and again is fantastic on its own in a filter. But again is it worth the extra?
The monsoon was specially prepared for me by a neighbours estate, Ratnagiri, in Chikmagalur. It costs just the same , but, unlike me he is very good at producing exceptional quality green coffee. This does not carrry an SCAA rating but does have the indian coffee boards gold medal for last year…. “

Coffee A came from neighbouring farms in El Salvador, Brazil and India, but did not have these accolades (a fact which could be used to advocate the idea of ‘terroir coffee’ and geographical indicators… but that is a whole other chapter!).

And roughly half our participants (including me, to my surprise) preferred the cheaper, unrated Coffee A.

What does this actually mean?

Because it was such an even split, I can’t conclude that people actually prefer cheaper, supposedly lower quality coffee, because an equal number did prefer the high quality one. Judging by the comments on the day though, no-one really thought that B was worth four times as much as A.  The overriding conclusion, however, is that Quality and Preference are NOT the same thing. In short, and within reasonable parameters, (ie: not mouldy, not stale, not burnt) the quality of the beans is not a real factor in coffee preference. Take away the price (a major factor for consideration amongst students!), the marketing, the certifications and accolades on the beans, and the comfy pulls of coffee shops and their fashionable social spaces, and really, any coffee seems to be useable – and drinkable.

Where does that leave the idea of “quality” amongst coffee producers and retailers then? For the producers, all the highly skilled techniques employed to enhance the quality of the green beans are not necessarily demanded by the average consumer. However, since producers do not deal directly with consumers, if the buyers and importers are still willing to pay the farmers more for what they consider to be high quality, then it is still in the interest of the farmers to keep the quality as high as possible.

For retailers, however, this does appear to give businesses the perfect excuse to buy in cheaper, low quality coffees, and still sell them to consumers for the same price. Why would any coffee shop want to pay £12 a kilo for coffee, when half their customers are quite happy to drink stuff that costs just £3 per kilo? Quality in this case is very much constructed by the retailers: packaging, exoticism of the country of origin, certifications and labels, cafe branding, presentation of the drink (Simon is going to do another test looking at people’s perception of quality between coffees served with latte art and those without) – and also, price. If coffee costs more, the general assumption is that is must be better quality. Are we naive in this view? It is self-perpetuating – it is thought to be high quality because it costs more, and it costs more because people think it is high quality.

I was reprimanded last week for calling the SCAA’s scale, and various certifications ‘meaningless’ in my thesis chapter. As my supervisor rightly points out, the certifications and quality assurances are not in themselves meaningless, but the meanings they actually represent are not necessarily the most obvious – or what the customer believes them to be. In this case, the SCAA scale is not actually meaningless, but instead of the ratings meaning that the El Salvadorean beans are in the top 15% of all the beans tested, it means that a handful of the self-appointed experts at the SCAA liked the taste of them enough to give the coffee a high score – and in doing so, also gave retailers and importers the leave to charge four times as much for those beans than those from a neighbouring farm. However, this is NOT a quality rating; the points simply show an SCAA taste preference. If, like half of our participants, you happen to agree with the SCAA, then that coffee will be high quality to you. If you prefer the other blend, then so be it; personal preference is, after all, personal, and as our test seemed to show, “quality” is entirely subjective as well!

 

Starbucks Via and why I should have done a Physics degree

I am sitting in Starbucks again, contemplating the two cardboard cups in front of me.

I am here wearing my metaphorical “suffering academic” hat; this is all in the name of research. Somewhere along the line I have gotten myself on the Starbucks UK mailing list, and lo and behold, I received an invite to the Starbucks Via Taste Test. They are launching their new product, called Via, which although has no mention of being “instant” coffee, comes in single-cup satchets and is completely soluable. Yep, they are figuratively – and literally – scraping the bottom of the barrel and selling instant coffee. Three sticks of the stuff will set you back £1.20 (at the introductory rate, £1.45 in a few weeks’ time.), and I am assured it is made from “100% natural roasted arabica beans – the same high quality as all our coffee.” Now, we can “never be without great coffee” thanks to Via Ready Brew – as if I am going to carry sticks of instant “coffee” around in my bag, like tampons or something.

Starbucks “believe Via tastes as delicious as our fresh filter coffee. But don’t take our word for it. Try it yourself.” they beg. The Taste Challenge involved being given two free ‘tall’ cups (that is code for ‘small’ in here, or “not-served-in-a-bucket” to everyone this side of the Atlantic). One contains their Colombian single origin filter coffee, and the other this Via stuff which is apparently made from the same Colombian beans. Could I tell the difference?
Well yes, of course I could.

The whole ‘blind’ test idea was rendered obsolete as soon as the poor barista had to stir the soluable stuff for me, but even if I had attempted this blindfolded, the differences were immediately obvious.
I can’t be sure on this, but I am fairly confident that the process employed to make coffee soluable results in the loss of any natural fragrance and aroma of the brewed drink, and certainly a great deal of the flavour. Consequently, as I mentioned in my recent rant about Nescafe, any aromas that are present in instant coffee must therefore be chemically added back in afterwards. This is exactly how Starbucks Via smells – artificial. My nose maybe going in to overdrive at the moment with pregnancy hormones, but I could smell coffee candles – that artificially sweet scent with vanilla and malt that makes up most coffee-esque air fresheners and scented candles. As it cooled, I swear I could smell powdered vegetable soup as well. Definitely not natural. On the other hand, the filter smelled extremely citrussy and mildly alcoholic, like dry white wine – to my (limited) knowledge of cupping, that implies overly acidic coffee and possibly over-fermented beans where the cherries have been left on too long.
On tasting it, the Via taste liked instant coffee. There are few other ways of describing it. Flat. Smooth. Not incredibly bitter, almost waxy, if that means anything. And no aftertaste at all – it doesn’t linger in the mouth. The Colombian filter tasted very very bitter in contrast – stronger tasting all round, but with an acrid aftertaste – like the flavour you get in your mouth when you smell burning rubber. It also tasted very “thin” which to my mind, most single origins do. But the overwhelming flavour and smell was just BURNT. In my opinion, Starbucks burn their coffee anyway – that is the way they can guarantee the same flavour in every batch of coffee in every shop in the world. They bake the coffee to effectively flatten any nuances in the beans, to keep the flavours consistant. But even so, the filter was especially burnt – the roast was far, far too dark for filter coffee.

I have to admit I am now feeling bad about not liking this. Whatever else I can say about this place, the staff are lovely and I kinda feel obliged to enjoy my Third Place experience, or something….Yes, I am weak.
One barista has just said she can’t tell the difference between the Via and the filter!!! I am keenly following other people’s views on this on the Starbucks Facebook page too. There are many, already, who “failed” the taste challenge, and couldn’t tell the difference. This actually frightens me. However, after experiences in Sheffield over the past few days, I am now rekindling my interest in what non-coffee-geek people actually think. I have always tried to avoid customers’ opinions throughout my PhD research because they are just messy, most of the time, and so much has been written on coffee shop culture already. Yet, if I am going to look at ideas of quality, I need to find out if that quality is recognised, appreciated and demanded by consumers. The basic premise of my thesis was that in order to produce high quality coffee, more has to be wasted in the process. But if customers do not actually recognise ‘quality’ and don’t necessarily demand it, then the waste cannot be justified and the extra effort that goes into improving the quality is also wasted. And then we are back to my (now infamous) question at the Ohio conference: Why not let them drink crap if they want to?

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to get invited to see Pollards coffee roasters in Sheffield (actually thanks to a throw-away comment on this blog! yay!). Simon, the owner, seems to be a kindred spirit – ie: equally cynical about many aspects of the coffee industry and proved very very interesting to talk to. The roasting is done on a very hands-on basis still, using roasting machines which are “partially” computer controlled. The computer monitored the time, temperature and energy consumption of the roasting beans, and the roast profile for that particular batch was neatly plotted on a graph on the screen in a neat curve. As the beans roasted, the computer plotted another line showing the actual temperatures of the beans – it was pretty close, although with a few extra wobbles – thanks to the proportion of the blend that came from Honduras, apparently. I asked Simon how he had learned to roast, and all the intricacies that go with it (he had also designed a roaster machine that could potentially run off vegetable oil, and made an ingenious contraption out of plastic piping and a hoover to move the roasted beans around the workshop without breaking any – and saved himself £25,000 in the process). He said most of his knowledge was as a result of his physics degree!! NOW I know where I’ve been going wrong, messing around with arts and social sciences for all these years…..

On the subject of academic research, however, Simon is very keen to do the Quality Test. That is, to get a goodly sized sample of coffee drinkers together, and do a taste challenge a la Starbucks, only offering one very high quality coffee and one low quality (based on price of the beans involved from origin – he will do the roasting and it’ll all be espresso based.). Basically, we want people to tell us which one tastes better to them. This should tell us once and for all, if your average coffee consumer actually notices and prefers “high quality”. This could be EXTREMELY handy for me too – not just for my research, but also for the Doc Coffee van. All being well, I could print posters like Costa’s – 80% of people prefer high quality (Costa advertise the fact 7 out of 10 “coffee lovers” prefer Costa. Tested on 174 people. In Glasgow.). And if the cheaper blend is preferred, I shall jack it all in and buy up loads of Starbucks Via for the van…. ye gads I hope not!!! To this end, I am planning on getting something together at the uni – I’ll hire a room there, Pollards will supply the coffees and the espresso machine, I can bring cups and round up coffee drinking students and university staff. We’ll do this over two days, and it would be great to get over 100 people. I’ll be plugging this as much as possible when we’ve decided a time so if you’re at all interested and fancy a couple of free coffees then pleeeeeeeeeease get in touch, come along, and give us your opinions!

On that note, if you’ve done the Starbucks Via Taste Challenge, PLEASE give your views on here! I’d be really interested to hear from you. Thanks all!

 

Royal Geographical Society Conference – AcKnowledging Ethical Economies

Last week I arrived in Manchester, dripping wet and freezing, to present my (unrehearsed, over-long) paper at the Royal Geographical Society conference, whilst wearing bike leathers. I think I made myself memorable! The conference was pretty interesting, but I ended up exhausted by the time it came to the equally cold but spectacular ride home across the Snake pass back to Sheffield. I didn’t die. This is good. There were four sessions per day, all with at least four papers in them. It was a lot to take in, and annoyingly, several sessions which I would have liked to go to, clashed with each other. What I did see though, was all useful stuff.

My paper was called “Creating the Quality market – the ethics of Direct Trade in the Central American  Coffee Industry” and was in the very interesting ‘Acknowledging Ethical Economies” section. It was difficult to judge how relevant mine was; my topic did seem to fit nicely with the original call for papers, as did all the other papers, but they were all very different. Coffee, ethical consumption as opposed to consuming ethically, Pampers nappies, and how business schools approach business ethics and corporate responsibilty. Nice to know human/economic geography is such a varied subject really.This paper was going a little bit off on a tangent from most of my thesis right now, but in all honesty, it was a bit more interesting to me that most of the stuff I am supposed to be writing at the minute and a good excuse for a subtly disguised rant. It wasn’t the best presentation I’ve ever done, so I’m trying to tidy it up a bit here, and hopefully something will be salvageable from it to go in the seemingly unending quality chapter I’m supposed to do for the thesis in… about a week. Gulp.

I do think that this ‘quality market’ is very relevant though – and the ethics of it are my main concern on a personal level, if not an academic one. I have written about quality so often, and there are so many ways of defining what ‘quality coffee’ actually is. A huge range of factors affect the coffee’s quality – from human skill in picking the berries without damaging the plants and processing it correctly, to maintaining the crop between harvests and so on; to non-human agents, the weather, the altitude, the temperature, the machinery used in processing.

Interestingly translated cupping form - I love "Not acceptable for Happiness"!

For the sake of simplicity in the paper, I used the SCAA’s definition of ‘speciality coffee’ – that is, everything that achieves more than 80 points on their cupping scale. Speciality coffee is sold with the in-built assumption that it is better quality – it is the quality that differentiates it from conventional grade coffee that only gets 60-67 points on the SCAA scale. It is how those points are awarded that is the area of concern here.

Coffee quality is tested and analysed by ‘cupping’ it – essentially, tasting it, and the process is very similar to wine-tasting. Some parts of the cupping process are as standardized as possible – same weight of coffee grounds in the same amount of water at the same temperature, same roast level etc. Cupping laboratories are virtually identical the world over. Most cupping is also done ‘blind’ – that is, the cuppers are not given the name of the producers or the region the coffee is from before tasting, to avoid bias. However, the fact remains that the analysis is still conducted using only the cupper’s sense of taste. Cuppers are specially trained, and able to pick out the subtlties and nuances of different coffees, but their taste perception is still subjective, and extremely variable. Taste can be affected by anything from the cupper having a mild cold, to eating spicy food the night before, or even something as indirect as using fragranced cleaning sprays in the cupping laboratories. However, there are few alternative methods of analysis which would provide useful information. An analysis of the chemical compostion of the beans, for example, wouldn’t really be meaningful to the consumer. Instead, the cupper tests the coffee and grades it on acidity, body, fragrance and aroma, flavour and aftertaste, and overall balance, and gives it a grade out of 100.

This grading is then used to set the price of the coffee. Although the general global price of coffee is set on the New York stock exchange, this is not always an absolute, and there is plenty of scope for negotiation, particularly when coffee is sold by Direct Trade. As explained before on this blog, Direct Trade is an alternative trade model that, in effect, shortens the commodity chain by reducing the number of actors involved – basically cutting out the middlemen. Coffee roasters/retailers go directly to the producing cooperatives to purchase their coffee. This allows the farmers to not only receive a larger share of the final price, but also provides an opportunity for knowledge sharing. Cuppers can share their expert knowledge of the coffee’s flavours, and in turn, the quality, with the producers, helping the farmers learn how to improve their crop. This can be as simple as the cuppers claiming the coffee is overly sweet, for instance, meaning the farmers should not let the beans ferment for so long. It is often the case that within cooperatives who do not employ cuppers themselves, the farmers are effectively working ‘blind’. Most, particularly in Nicaragua, do not drink their own coffee, and so have no idea what it actually tastes like.

Nicaraguan farmers separate good beans from the bad on farms - in this photo, they would sell the coffee on the bottom but drink the bad stuff separated into the basket on the top.

This lack of knowledge on the part of the producers provides ethical problems within the Direct Trade model. The coffee market is still very much skewed in the favour of the buyers. Coffee is produced in the third world and consumed predominantly in the first world, and so the power inequalities are obvious. Coffee is a cash crop; farmers often have no other income, and consequently are forced to sell their coffee for whatever price they can get. This fact, along with the lack of knowledge of the coffee’s quality, and also very little awareness of the global markets, the demand or the monetary value of their crop. Cuppers and buyers, on the other hand, are equipped not only with a vast knowledge of the coffee’s quality and value, and of the sorts of markets they intend eventually to sell to, but also with the advantage of choice. If they do not think a cooperative’s coffee is high quality, they are under no obligation to buy it. Therefore, the cuppers/buyers can effectively control the whole exchange, and effectively decide the incomes of all the farming families that have produced that coffee. This is not to say that all cuppers are determined to rip off, deceive and exploit the farmers, but simple economics dictates that it is never going to be in the interests of the buyers to pay more for the coffee than they actually have to.

Direct Trade does attempt to address this inequality by knowledge-sharing, as previously mentioned. There are farms and cooperatives in the producing countries, who have their own cupping laboratories and train and employ their own cuppers. Having someone from the cooperative with an equal knowledge of the coffee’s quality and value, who can also feed back this information to the farmers, is invaluable not only for improving the quality of all the cooperative’s coffee (assuming non-human, climatic agencies are also beneficial) but also as they provide the cooperative with more negotiating power when coffee is traded. This is starting to happen certainly within the bigger cooperatives but also on large, private plantations. There are some very obvious differences between Nicaraguan coffee production and Costa Rican here. In Costa Rica, more farms are privately owned, and the country is richer, meaning that most coffee farmers have access to better resources – such as the cupping lab. These farms sell their coffee to the first world buyers independently of the state-run cooperatives. As such, these plantation owners are trying to make a profit for themselves, rather than on behalf of a huge group of people – in a way, they have no choice but to learn about quality and the value of their crop in order to survive in the market. The cooperatives, particularly in Nicaragua, do much to protect the farmers and provide shared resources which farmers could not afford alone. But in some respects this also hinders them, because any profit made is shared out as well, and also detailed earlier, the quality of the coffee can vary so dramatically over a small region that no large cooperative can really hope to produce 100% high quality.

***

To complicate this situation further, there is the concept of consumer demand. I would argue that the vast majority of coffee consumers do not taste coffee and do not view its quality in the same way the cuppers do. We drink coffee for many reasons – the sociability of coffee shops, fashion, caffeine addiction and so on.

An iced 'coffee' with espresso, chilled milk, cherry syrup, cream and marshmallows. Good, but not really coffee flavoured!

Often, what we drink bears little resemblance to the simply brewed cups in the laboratory – an iced mocha frappe with syrup and cream on top does not leave much opportunity for the taste of the coffee to shine through! When we can taste it, we buy coffee for the flavours we prefer on a personal level, and excellent quality coffee does not necessarily mean that every consumer favours that taste.

We also have very different ideas of what ‘quality’ actually means. My favourite quotation from one of my consumer focus groups is still the response, when asked to define quality, “er.. it doesn’t taste like crap?”. Branding on bags of coffee in the supermarkets, and in coffee shops will always inform the consumer that this is High Quality stuff. But it rarely tells you why it is high quality, because from the consumers’ point of view, how long the beans fermented for, or how thoroughly they were washed is not only not meaningful, it is largely irrelevant. The only thing we have to go on is the price and personal preference. There is also the tricky aspect of ‘ethical consumption’, where coffee consumers are deliberately buying Fair Trade or Organic coffee, and may well be assuming that Fair Trade equals good quality. Although the Fair Trade Foundation do assure us that their coffee is excellent, all the mark on the bag actually tells you is that the buyer paid $1.26 or more for a pound of it, and this is not the same thing at all. In a sense, the buyers and retailers of coffee are not sharing their knowledge and expertise of the commodity with their consumers either, and still leaves me with the question (for which I made myself somewhat notorious at another conference:) Why not let them drink crap if that is what they want??

All this leads to a very odd situation where the buyers and cuppers are effectively creating their own market. The farmers struggle to produce constant, consistant high quality, the consumers cannot and do not demand something which they do not really have much knowledge of. This essentially leaves the buyers/retailers carefully manipulating the branding of coffee to produce a new market controlled by neither producers’ supply nor consumer demand, but by an artificial and highly complex desire for ‘quality’. Most significantly in terms of knowledge-sharing and ethics, it is also a market where both the producer and consumer are in need of ‘education’ in relation to coffee and its quality.

Direct Trade then, does go some way towards bringing the consumers more in touch with the commodity’s producers. It does allows the producers a larger share of the price, and when expert knowledge of quality is shared between cuppers working at the cooperatives and the farmers themselves, it can help reduce the power inequalities during trade negotiations, far more effectively than with similar initiatives within conventional trade models. However, it is not a complete solution. Cuppers/buyers still have an unfair influence over the prices of coffee as a result of their greater product knowledge and market awareness, often leaving the producers unable to challenge them. When these buyers are setting the price for coffee without sharing their knowledge of its quality or value with the producers, then this trade model cannot be the most ethical or egalitarian. Further still, when faced with the idea that the demand for this quality may not actually come from the consumers, it raises further ethical questions about the nature of the whole cupping process, and whether or not it is actually necessary at all.

 

The beginnings of the conclusions of the consumer focus groups…

I have been asking lots of people what they think “high quality” coffee is. The following quotes are from professional Baristas, coffee shop owners and other industry specialists from Barista Exchange.

“coffee made from a barista, so he can have the best blend but if he dont know how to grind and dose or he or she are overheating milk, whats the point of ‘best beans’?”

“For me everything start in the coffee bean. At least for my country coffee is an art. We want the best quality all the time, not every once or sometimes. For instance Bell I can have a SHB, and everything has been taking care as planned but if I do the handpicking a day after or a day before , the taste will be different. Or even when we roast the coffee, you can have a SHB or a specialty superb coffee, but if we mess up in the roasting, that’s it. An entire year of harvest to the garbage indeed.”

“1M: select green beans

2M: roast

3M: blend

4M: grind

5M: brewing

Nothing esprecial, but none of them can be missed.”

“Quality coffee goes along with quality buyers, and quality roasters, and quality shops with (more than likely) quality management and baristas. It’s almost safe to say it’s in good hands. But as with anything in coffee, it can EASILY be mishandled and ruined along annnny of those steps.”

“The greatness is in the bean already, I want only to present as much as possible of the bean’s potential in my customer’s cup. Not to understate the role of the barista – coaxing out this potential is not easy, and doing it well seems to be the exception, not the rule. I think if everybody in the chain, from the plant to the cup, shares the same philosophy, you’ll have true quality.”

“Making something drinkable from lousy ingredients does not strike me as “creating quality”. It is a useful skill to posses, but I don’t think you can create quality by artfully masking defects.”

That said, I have also been asking customers in both chain coffee shops (Caffe Nero, Esquires and Coffee Revolution) and independent shops (The Voodoo Cafe, Coffee@Elliots and Gusto Italiano) what their views on coffee quality are – and the differences are quite apparent!

“erm, it doesn’t taste like crap?”

“and Elliots – I like it but its not really what I’d call quality coffee. It’s just put cup under, push button, there you go, there’s your coffee, no skill!”

“good service – so, politness, the coffee not overdone or whatever, not taking too long to be served. All that stuff. And, yeah to be in clean stuff and everything. That’s always nice. And, like, essential really.”

“Freshly roasted beans (of a good quality), properly brewed.”

“Low quality coffee is very acidic, it’s got things other than coffee in it. I’ve no idea of quality comparisons cos I don’t take much notice. I don’t know where this stuff comes from, but I like the way it’s made here.”

“Tasty. A certain thickness. It kinda warms me, warms the innermost caverns of your soul. It’s very beautiful. You must realise, I’m not the coffee aficionado, I’m very much the layman. Neophyte as it were. it’s just shy of £2 and yeah I enjoy it, it’s the coffee, it’s the environment, it’s happy associations.”

“You’ve gotta say Fair Trade haven’t you. I feel really guilty coming in here if it’s not fair trade. Organic would be good too.”

“It should have the consistency of mud. The best coffee I’ve ever tasted was Turkish coffee and you could practically turn it upside down without it pouring out. It’s really thick and you know you’re probably going to feel like a lie down afterwards. Until you’re actually lying down and you can feel your heart pounding.”

“A bit fluffy, but: it depends who makes it. You know it does make a difference.”

“I mean the thing with like, having this kind of a market where there are a lot of big chains, they are trying to advertise having the same thing at every one of their stores – there’s probably too much in who makes it to be able to say that. I mean, I don’t generally like African coffees, I much prefer Latin American ones and so I’ll notice the difference, and how well it’s been tamped and how strong it is and things like that, so you can’t really say, one shop over another.”

Since I am also posting this on Barista Exchange, I’m including some customer views on other aspects of coffee-shop life that the cafe owners and baristas may find interesting….

On Latte Art:

“It’s nice but it takes way longer for them to do it so I’m just ‘give me a drink, I want to sit down’ you know…”

“I don’t think much about presentation – it’s completely off the loop for me. If they put a pretty pattern on, then you’re only going to stir it up anyway before you start drinking it.”

“Yeah, the whole thing about foam – it belongs there but like, I only just feel like I’m messing something up. I like Ugly food, ugly drinks, you know,”

“it’s much more the taste I think.”

I don’t particularly care what it looks like – I don’t drink lattes so I don’t know about latte art. I’d rather they didn’t bother with the little chocolates on the side though! You can have it!”

“(Having just Googled it) I think it’s pretty mint. If it’s done right that is. I once went to get a coffee, and the guy who served me (who seems to think he’s the coffee king…) says “I’ve left you something on top.” So i looked at my fresh coffee, then back at him saying “You spat in my foam?!” I think it was meant to be modern art of some description, but it did look more like something from the recesses of his lungs.”

“I LOVE THEM. Haha, I went to Costa in Darlo once and they did this lovely star pattern in my mates Latte which was so nice. She didn’t even ask, he just did,it was niceeeee. I took a pic of it, they’re so cool. But erm, yeah I like them, it makes you feel like you’ve spent money on something good but once the pattern goes away you feel a bit sad.

“I’m not too bothered about that.”

It’s good, but I don’t really care if they don’t.”

On why they go to coffee shops:

“Mostly with coffee shops…it depends where I’m going. I go to Esquires for the coffee, I probably come here because other people wanted to come here, a lot of the time when I go to a coffee shop is determined by other people suggesting it more than my personal preference.”

“As a rule I don’t go to chain coffee shops for the coffee. Like in here, it’s not the coffee, I guess the atmosphere, but I mainly get pulled in by other people, and it’s in a convenient location.”

“Decent tea, nice food, nice people. I want somewhere I can sit, and enjoy myself even if I don’t know anyone there. It’s always nice.”

“I like the place to have a buzz about it – i hate silent coffee shops because i think they’re places for talking, and you can’t do that if the place is silent – it just feels oppressive.”

“I tend to go to Coffee @ Elliots cos they don’t pretend to be Italian and you can go in there and say “I’ll have a large black coffee please and you’ll get a Large Black Coffee. No bloody Frenchy americano or whatever it is.”

“It’s like a habit – it’s the going in and sitting down, not the coffee itself. I think I’m just lazy. By the time I’ve walked all the way in to town, I just want to sit down somewhere. Coffee just comes with it!”

“I go out to cafés fairly regularly, for good coffee. I come in here probably once a week at least, cos the coffee is very good. I avoid Starbucks and Costa, Starbucks cos it’s shit, Costa cos it’s too expensive.”

“I do go to coffee shops, for lunches generally, um, for Cake. Definitely Cake. I’m not sure beverages come in to it too much! I tend to go for more accessible places. Where in particular? Where my friends happen to be. Again, places located around where I live in Broomhill, or in the Union area. If I happen to be in town shopping then it might be that I’ll pop in somewhere and get a piece of cake. And a drink to go with that.”

And finally, on value for money:

“Total rip off.”

“It’s why I don’t usually go to chains, cos I find they generally charge more than like, more independent ones.”

“They don’t pay their staff that well either, as far as I know.”

“I assume you are buying the ceramic as well, so I usually take that with me!”

“The prices have gone up and the cups have got smaller!! This is now £1.95 and the cup is smaller than the ones you used to get for £1.60! It is smaller! I swear it!”

“They are just trying to sell you the brand though aren’t they? The atmosphere! You are paying for coffee but you’re also paying for a pleasant environment to sit in.”

“I think, in here you can expect it to be reasonably expensive, just by the appearance of the place, If you like that setting then you’d pay for it, I mean for me, I just like the sofas.”

“It’s probably about 10p isn’t it? The fact that they’re giving it away… I mean, you can’t buy ten cakes and get a free cake, can you? Or juice or anything, so it must be the cheapest thing.Well I’ve seen people in here give them away to their friends and so on so they can’t be that expensive.”

“You know, they say that, like, people don’t like things if they are cheap, like they think they’re not good. We’ve all had the wool pulled over on us, in that this is better than filter coffee or something.”

“It’s just marketing though, isn’t it?”

“i think that espressos are a rip-off, but i wouldn’t have it any other way. A coffee shop once tried to give me my money’s worth of a espresso – a cappuccino mug filled to the top with double espresso; but it just felt wrong.”

“I actually think they are [good value for money], cause they give you a variety of things and are very professional about it all – plus the service is nice and fast. It’s groovy.”

That will do for now – but there is plenty more. And I have another group scheduled for tomorrow. I will add my thoughts in soon when I’ve had a chance to digest it all. Until then, please feel free to add your comments and suggestions! All feedback very welcome!