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EDITOR LETTER competition & community I HAVE THIS VIVID MEMORY of being at one of my first Specialty Coffee Association of America conferences—must have been nine or 10 years ago—and I was chatting with some guys, all coffee roasters. One had a place in Seattle, another was based in Chicago, and the other one hailed from the Midwest. I whipped out my camera for a photo, and they happily slung their arms around each others' shoulders— these guys, after all, had known each other for ages. They were pals. And in those days, before specialty coffee roasters started crossing state lines, they didn't consider each other competition. Things change fast in this industry; the fact that bags of Intelligentsia Coffee sit on the shelves of Portland, Ore. cafés, and Portland- based Heart Coffee is served in Ypsilanti, Mich., is testament to perhaps the biggest change to rock the café side of the industry in the past few years: the feasibility of buying coffee from someone other than your neighborhood roaster. So now the guy in Chicago and the one in Seattle compete with each other as well as the roaster from the Midwest. Suddenly, everyone's a threat. Barista Magazine publisher Kenneth R. Olson attended a cool event here in Portland last night: a book launch for Hanna Neuschwander's new book, Left Coast Roast. Loads from the local coffee community turned out, and Ken regaled me with anecdotes from the night. One thing that stood out: competitors enjoying each others' company. A wholesaler from a Portland, Ore. roaster sharing a laugh with a wholesaler from Olympia, Washington. Baristas who had competed against each other playing Pop-A- Shot. Coffee may be the second most-traded commodity in the world, but the specialty coffee community is tiny. Infighting and backstabbing are toxic, and can seal one's fate in this industry. So even though you feel like that café down the street is stealing your business, the worst thing you can do is start bad-mouthing them to your customers. Instead, just work to be better, to be the best. Be the most inviting, friendly café in town—and of course, the one with the best- tasting drinks. The thing is, indie café owners really aren't each other's competition. The coffeehouse around the corner has a barista in an upcoming regional, and so does your café? That's awesome! 12 barista magazine You're both fighting the good fight for quality and consumer awareness. The real competitor, the real threat, isn't like-minded café owners. It's the companies spending tens of thousands of dollars on TV commercials and billboards with a message that coffee is just coffee; that it all tastes the same; that indies are fancy for the sake of being snobby, rather than in pursuit of quality. That message is the monster: It tells people not to care. It tries to convince them that they should never spend more than a dollar per cup—and that undermines us all. Business is business; I know it's hard to see the indie café two blocks down from yours have lines out the door, day after day. Rather than harbor bitterness about it, go introduce yourself. Check out what they're doing, taste their coffee. Be nice, and invite them to visit your café. That indie café isn't the enemy; you are on the same side. You're both trying to wow customers with quality, specialty coffee prepared by baristas who take pride in their work. You're both communicating the message of specialty, of sustainability, that the big chains try to trounce. Take Portland, Ore., for example. Still the most famous coffee roaster in town, Stumptown Coffee opened in the late 1990s, and was the reason people began referring to the Northwest as the place where good coffee was from, not just Seattle. But in the last few years, micro- roasters have held the spotlight, as have indie cafés that buck trends, or start their own. Portland is a more celebrated coffee city now than ever before—not because of one indie company, but due to the host of indies who together educate a population and convince it to accept nothing but the best, be it from Coava or Water Avenue or Stumptown. It's become a region known for specialty coffee, and all cafés and roasteries in the region benefit from that. So invite the baristas from your neighboring independent cafés to your shop for a throwdown or a cupping, or even just a game of kickball. Take a cue from proactive baristas around the country who realized that they were stronger together, and formed groups like the Providence Coffee Society in Rhode Island, and the Washington Barista Community. We're partners and colleagues, and we can communicate the message of specialty coffee best when we work together. Contributors Michelle Foster Nathan "Lenny" Howes Mike Marquard Bruce Milletto Matt Milletto Kristina Morris Heredia Andrew Mulder Noah Namowicz Sabrina Scott Emelyne Smith Chad Trewick Editorial Advisory Board Christopher Nicely Abel Alameda, Handsome Coffee Roasters Joshua Boyt, Metronome Coffee Lemuel Butler, Counter Culture Coffee Trevor Corlett, MadCap Coffee Company Roukiat Delrue, WBC Sonja Grant, Kaffismiðja Íslands Gerra Harrigan, New Harvest Coffee Roasters Heath Henley, Dose Coffee & Tea Jannicke M. Johansen, Mocca & Java Rita Kaminsky, The Albina Press Troels Poulsen, Kontra Coffee Dan Streetman, Irving Farm Coffee Colin Whitcomb, MadCap Coffee Company Barista Magazine 4345 NE 72nd Ave. Portland, OR 97218 phone: 800.296.9108 fax: 971.223.3659 email: info@baristamagazine.com www.baristamagazine.com Barista Magazine is published bi-monthly by the Barista Magazine Company, LLP. Subscriptions are $20 in the United States, $40 US in Canada/Mexico, and $50 US for the rest of the world. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Postmaster please send address corrections to: Barista Magazine, 4345 NE 72nd Ave., Portland, OR 97218. ISSN: 1944-3544 Copyright 2012 Barista Magazine. All rights reserved. BARISTA MAGAZINE Publisher Kenneth R. Olson Editor Sarah Allen Art Direction Demitri Fregosi Photographer Keith Price Business Manager Cheryl Lueder Copy Editor Erin Meister Advertising Sales Sarah Allen 800.296.9108