How we inadvertently gatekeep specialty coffee from new consumers!

How we inadvertently gatekeep specialty coffee from new consumers!

By: Estella Zuleta Carmona
Head of Coffee and Trainer

Ever wonder why regardless of how much we try to engange with consumers and share all things coffee with customers, friends and even our family somehow specialty coffee consumers doesnt seem to go in a raise? And big chains continue to expand and reach broaders audiences

Perhaps the reason lies in the way we are communicating specialty coffee, a field and expertise that want it or not has a complex nature and that many of us, coffee professionals, want it to be valued and appreciated for its value, worth, and all the deep and hard labour behind it, regardless, we forget that in the same way we appreciate some things and ignore others, we cannot force people to enjoy the same hobbies or pleasures that we do.

We need to make it approachable, simple and easy to enjoy, but how can we achieve this out of an expertise that implies so many variables and complexities?

Maybe, the reason why its so difficult for regular consumers to engage with high quality specialty coffee is the result of us, the professionals constantly giving a greater importance to techniques, brewing styles, equipments and all the buzzing and confusing terms that newcomers barely understand, and that, contrarily, might aswell make them feel not involved, interested or fall for the intimidation of the snobbism that this brings along. Perhaps we are oversharing, overcomplicating the simpleness of drinking and enjoying good quality coffee with unnecessary details and this way gatekeeping the joys of the world of coffee for the enthusiasts and the coffee lovers.

I still remember an anecdote from a post i read sometime ago in a forum: there was a person explaining his mother was visiting him for vacations and was staying at his place. As a coffee professional he had all sort of tools and at first encounter his mother was incredibly surprised with all the equipments and toys in his kitchen.

One morning his mother asked him if he wanted some coffee and as he sat on the living room he could hear his mother doing different tasks, one of them, grinding coffee in his automatic machine but to his realization he forgot he never taught her how to operate it.

His mother started talking from the distance and complimenting him about how amazing was the coffee he had in his shelves, explaining how she ground a full cup of coffee and then filled the basket and pressed the button up to 4 times till she filled the entirety of the cups she was preparing for the both of them.

It was the best coffee she ever had, regardless of preparation, fancy techniques, knowledge or recipes. Just water and coffee.

Sometimes we forget that in the end, coffee is just coffee, and everybody display a different set of preferences and inclination towards specific flavours or sensations aswell as not everyone is capable of sensing and perceiving as many complexities we do in coffee, not even us professionals can perceive the different qualities of coffee at the same level, some of us display greater skills while others have it more complicated.

But something is certain, we need to make it simple, and perhaps, the best way we can approach to simplify the complex is by actually trying to understand it deeply, moving away from the snobbism and trying to enjoy all the different qualities of specialty coffee that origin has to offer us.

The greater we understand about it, the better we will be able to simplify, share and make it approachableWe should probably start with the flavours we can find in coffee, where does flavour originate? What influences flavour?

Understand the different degrees of enjoyable and non-ejoyable flavours.

Last week i held a class consisting on the defects that we can find in green coffee, most of us in the industry know theoretically and in practice how most of these can impart sensations and affect the quality of the coffee we drink. More specifically we spoke about the primary and the secondary groups of defects. The practice consisted of tasting these defects, becoming familiar with them. What are the predominant notes on a coffee presenting partial blacks, sours, insect damage or quakers?

Does any of these defect truly make the cup undesirable? Do we think other consumers could find these cups enjoyable? As the kids of the washed arabica standards we were taught standards when it comes to green quality standards, we were taught about defects and how green coffee should look like in order to present pleasant sensations. But in my personal experience i have encounter coffees that physically look bad, rugged, and sometimes even showcase partial or “pseudo quakers” regardless, sometimes the most ugly coffee is the tastiest on the table.

Sometimes we as professionals are bias and forget most of what we like and think is “correct” in coffee comes from learning standards, training and calibrating our palate with other professionals that, redundantly, were also taught standards on what taste good and what tastes bad.

So, the question that arises is: Are defects truly unplesant or we find them unpleasant because we were taught that way? Chances are, consumers and ours friends will probably not notice or even more, enjoy them.

On another hand, then we also have roasting and how this changes and transform the flavours we can find in our coffee. Overdevelopment? Underdevelopment, Fast roasts? Slow roast? Light, Medium, Dark roast? Colour? Humidity? Weightloss? Caramelisation? Highly complex or chemically simple coffees?

Understanding this can help us comprehend the result in our cups instead of blaming it on the method, the equipment, the extraction or any other variables, we might be capable of assessing and even appreciating the actual potential and quality of what we have in our hands while ignoring all the other factors that could have gone wrong, Just like a non professional or a regular consumer could enjoy a coffee without comprehension of all these peculiarities, they can perceive that the coffee they are drinking simply its better than any others.

Once we hace analysed and understood everything that has happened from seed and all the processes that were applied to the beans until the moment we got them in our cup, once we understood the quality of our green, once we understood all the processes going on during the roasting and how the flavours were modulated. Once we have moved away from our snobbism, judgement and learned preferences, theres only one thing left to do:Sip, share and enjoy.

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[:ar]Privacy Policy for qahwa world At qahwaworld, accessible from qahwaworld.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by qahwaworld and how we use it. If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us. This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in qahwaworld. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. Our Privacy Policy was created with the help of the Free Privacy Policy Generator. Consent By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms. 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Privacy Policy for Qahwa World

At Qahwa World, accessible from https://qahwaworld.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by Qahwa World and how we use it. If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us. This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in Qahwa World. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. Our Privacy Policy was created with the help of the Free Privacy Policy Generator.

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Third Party Privacy Policies

Qahwa World's Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options. You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to: Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers. Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected. Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

GDPR Data Protection Rights

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following: The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service. The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete. The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

Children's Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity. Qahwa World does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.[:ru]Privacy Policy for qahwa world At qahwaworld, accessible from qahwaworld.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by qahwaworld and how we use it. If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us. This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in qahwaworld. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. Our Privacy Policy was created with the help of the Free Privacy Policy Generator. Consent By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms. Information we collect The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information. If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide. When you register for an Account, we may ask for your contact information, including items such as name, company name, address, email address, and telephone number. How we use your information We use the information we collect in various ways, including to: Provide, operate, and maintain our website Improve, personalize, and expand our website Understand and analyze how you use our website Develop new products, services, features, and functionality Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the website, and for marketing and promotional purposes Send you emails Find and prevent fraud Log Files qahwaworld follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services' analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users' movement on the website, and gathering demographic information. Cookies and Web Beacons Like any other website, qahwaworld uses 'cookies'. These cookies are used to store information including visitors' preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users' experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors' browser type and/or other information. For more general information on cookies, please read the Cookies article on Generate Privacy Policy website. Google DoubleClick DART Cookie Google is one of a third-party vendor on our site. It also uses cookies, known as DART cookies, to serve ads to our site visitors based upon their visit to www.website.com and other sites on the internet. However, visitors may choose to decline the use of DART cookies by visiting the Google ad and content network Privacy Policy at the following URL – https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads Our Advertising Partners Some of advertisers on our site may use cookies and web beacons. Our advertising partners are listed below. Each of our advertising partners has their own Privacy Policy for their policies on user data. For easier access, we hyperlinked to their Privacy Policies below. Google https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads Advertising Partners Privacy Policies You may consult this list to find the Privacy Policy for each of the advertising partners of qahwaworld. Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on qahwaworld, which are sent directly to users' browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit. Note that qahwaworld has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers. Third Party Privacy Policies qahwaworld's Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options. You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers' respective websites. CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information) Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to: Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers. Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected. Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us. GDPR Data Protection Rights We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following: The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service. The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete. The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions. The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us. Children's Information Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity. qahwaworld does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.[:]
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