Jay & Nick in Timonium, MD again.
Discussion topics:
- Mid Atlantic Roasters' Group, June 2-4 in Blacksburg, VA.
- USBC recap part deux.
- What is Peter Giuliano Thinking About Today?
- Third Wave in the news and on the blogs...
- and we close the show out with a phone call to Howard Schultz from Starbucks Corporation. Yes, really.
2 hours, 10 minutes and 36 seconds
AAC format, 52.2 MB, MP3 format, 48.4 MB
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Damnit Nick and Jay,
ReplyDeleteNot only did Jay's Mac email sound come up again....I actually checked my email as you two were talking about how I fell for it a couple of shows ago- I heard a phone ringing in the background of Jay's Shave Ice that has the same sound of my home phone.
I was looking all around my living room for my phone thinking someone was calling.
Still listening to this episode. A few raw comments.
ReplyDeleteCH=Confederatio Helvetica = Switzerland = Suisse = Schweiz = Svizzera(says my passport)
Jaime at Simon's=Yeah! He's really very cool. An interesting CG poster, good guy with whom to talk coffee / espresso. Doing the good work of making sure people understand coffee.
Peter on ethical / quality coffee = Thanks! Some interesting issues, there. Seems like we're finally, as consumers, hearing about the actual issues instead of the kind of TransFair-bashing and other rants we typically get. Now, my naïve view of the situation.
Isn't CoE supposed to be pretty much what Peter has in mind as an ultra-Fair-Trade (above and beyond fair-trade pricing) for quality coffee? If not, what's missing?
On subpar coffee, isn't there a way to make sure that those in fact get, at a minimum, a fair-trade price? Now, how could this be done? Well, let's throw around some ideas, trying to be creative.
Use it for coffee extract? Coffee liqueur? Coffee-flavoured yogurt and ice cream? With good processing and co-branding, it might well work. Having said this, my very personal view is that there's a place for any kind of coffee, even robusta. It's all about context and creativity.
Again, very naïve, but can't a good roaster create something decent with those beans, as long as they've been processed appropriately throughout and don't contain too many impurities? Can't a dark French roast even out the beans to produce something which is good for diluted milk-based drinks?
There could even be some kind of tiered pricing. It's already done, in some ways, isn't it? After all, it'd be absurd to pay the same price for the typical blend and for a scarce CoE. Coffee enthusiasts would be willing to pay a bit more and some of the casual café-goers would be intrigued.
Again, all of this is very naïve and comes from a mere "consumer" of coffee. But still, it'd be interesting to connect all those threads on "treating the farmers fairly while getting the best-quality coffee possible." My reasons for going fair-trade are partly because of quality (still haven't had truly bad fair-trade coffee beans) and partly because of ethics. The next step isn't to choose quality over ethical or the reverse but to make sure we get the two.
Cheers!
Alexandre
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/
The 'revered' Nick Cho. Yeah, I got a chuckle out of that one also. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout about the Mid-Atlantic Roasters meeting. Jay, get here Friday afternoon and by the end of the beer tasting you will forget all about the long drive. Info is now up at http://www.coffeeslinger.com and pf.net fans who want to learn more about roasting are encouraged to attend. For those of you who only know me and the Rev from the parties, it's a rare opportunity to see us sober.
ReplyDeleteNick, you mentioned 9th St and Grumpy, but how could you forget Blue Spoon and Gimme? Those are both great shops in NYC.
ReplyDeleteGuys, your mp3 feed is broken. Anyone would be kind enough to fix it?
ReplyDeleteGreat Podcast... Long, but NNNNNIIIICCCEEEEE!!!!!.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, listening to the confusion between the two of you about "The Third Wave", got me thinking that this whole wave thing is becoming a conundrum, and unnecessarily so.
It seems that there are two "schools of thought" on what the these waves of coffee are. First, there is the one that Trish Skeie, Nick Cho, and Mark Prince have postulated. The proliferation of coffee (particularly in North America) can be viewed in three waves, points of view, or market segments:
First Wave -- Coffee is a commodity. It's a source of caffeine...rocket fuel!!! Get a cup, and add cream and sugar if you wish.
Second Wave -- Coffee is a food, with some variety. Just like there are Macintosh, Fuji, and Gala Apples; there is Columbian, Kona, Kenyan, Java, etc. Also, there are different ways to prepare/enjoy it. You have your capps, lattes, mochas, frapps, and Finch's mochachino.
Third Wave -- Coffee is...., well Coffee. It's like a fine wine. It has terroir. It's a finicky crop that requires proper handling, milling, washing, roasting, brewing, etc.
Then there's the "school of thought" based on a 1999 article in "tea&coffeeasia" written by Tim Castle and it describes the history of coffee as three waves:
First Wave-- Pre-Starbucks Coffee Houses (1960-1980)
Second Wave-- Starbucks and other large coffee chains (e.g. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Gloria Jean's) etc. (1980s-Present)
Third Wave-- The ABS crowd ("Anyone But The Second Wave" or "Anyone but Starbucks"). (1990s-Present)
I believe Nick is leaning towards the first school I mentioned, while Jay's thoughts seemed to be leaning more towards the second.
Now my two cents...
Stay away from the Castle's school of thought! While there are correlations between the two postulations, Trish's helps define the specialty coffee industry and allows all waves to "co-exist", while Tim's line thinking seems to promote this "we know more than the first wavers" attitude.
This "generational" attitude promoted in Tim's Article is what I believe is causing the backlash of the three-wave paradigm. Thoughts (quoting from Tim's article) like "Third-waver's understand the mistakes of the first-wavers [and] denounce the second-wavers for failing to live up to quality" definitely sounds pompous and overconfident to me.
There is a time and place for all waves of coffee in my life. First wave when I just need a caffeine fix in the middle of nowhere (think road trip, 3AM, and the thermos is empty), Second wave when I simply to tired or busy to be picky about my morning coffee (think McDonalds) and Third wave when I want to enjoy coffee for well, for mere admiration of it.
With that in mind, I'm going to go brew (press-pot) a cup of Tres Santos. I'm not sure what wave that would be...
I love this article.
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