Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/609699
maybe almost as much as he thinks about coffee (and beer). "Intentional language and tying certain flavors to certain things is to our benefit. It's definitely a more highbrow language, but it's still tying certain things to certain expectations," he says, contemplating the way coffee people use Inside Baseball sensory terms to appeal to customers' taste buds. "We're always behind because most people's expectation of coffee is that it tastes like coffee. So just throwing different flavors at them and not telling them why those flavors are there has been a huge obstacle for our industry." (Professor Noble touched on this point as well, discouraging "hedonic" terms which are personal but don't really express anything specific to the wine, such as saying a wine has a "lovely aroma.") "One of the greatest shortfalls that coffee has is that, in beer, we say, 'We used this kind of malt and it gives this kind of flavor, and we brewed it in this style, which will taste like this.' In coffee, we say, 'It has these things in it,' but we don't say why," Christopher says. "If you're talking about a dry-process coffee, instead of just having the fruitiness and the dry- process-thing separate, say, 'It has a fruitiness because of the dry process,' and then say, 'We roasted it to bring this or that out.' You're holding their hands to understand why it tastes that way, one, and two, you're saying you did something special to make it taste that way." Turning to craft beer as an example of how specialty coffee can progress in terms of developing an image better suited to appealing to consumers has another advantage, in that beer tends to be—or is at least perceived to be—more accessible than wine. "We want to elevate coffee [by describing it like wine] to the point where we're getting better prices for it. Frankly, in looking at the wine end of it and looking past beer, we're definitely missing one of our great advantages, which is that coffee is an everyperson drink," he says. "Of course we want to create more sustainability in the pricing structure of it, but it's still priced where almost anyone can experience some of the best in the world without necessarily breaking the bank. The fact that you can spend under $20 and take home nearly a pound of some of the world's finest coffees—that's huge. The same with beer, most people can afford to have some of the best beers in the world." Thinking of coffee as a food, too, can help inspire us to use more helpful and guiding (not to mention less intimidating) descriptive language when talking to customers and customers to-be. Elizabeth Casaus, senior sales director for Stumptown Coffee, and longtime bread-head with several years' experience in baking and customer service at Amy's Bread in New York City, tries to equate what a person feels with the coffee that might best fit their mood—just like you might suggest someone use a dynamic and savory sourdough for a heavy pastrami sandwich, and a yeasty baguette for a pungent cheese. "We need to learn what our customers value and speak to that— even if we are revolutionizing the industry or pushing the envelope. By this I [don't] mean stick to the status quo, just find a way to speak to tradition," Elizabeth says. "We can do this by building trust, (Countinued on page 73) 71 www.baristamagazine.com