Restaurants have a complex set of rituals, etiquette and laws governing the interaction between the establishment and the guest. Jeffrey Steingarten (and I wish I could quote it but my copy is out on loan) talks about how the best waiters are so good that they become invisible. Plates arrive, glasses are filled and the table is cleaned without any unnecessary interuption. This idea being that people come to restaurants for two reasons: for food and for company. If making sure each of these is as enjoyable as possible is the goal then you can work back and justify the seemingly curious rules and laws laid out in fine dining. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘consumer’
Opting In
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Thoughts after a public cupping
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
I’ve really enjoyed the discussion going on after this post. One comment that stuck in my mind was Aldo’s Fazenda Kaquend COE Vs Maxwell House experiment. It definitely affected some decisions I made when I was choosing coffees to take with me to a public cupping I did in East London as part of a charity fund raiser.
I knew I would have two separate groups, of between 10 and 20 people each time. I had agreed to do a cupping, rather than a tasting of brewed coffee (which I would prefer to do with the general public usually), because they were paying for a bit more of an experience.
Decaf
Monday, February 2nd, 2009Stumptown are the source of one of my most troubling coffee experiences, one that still haunts and nags at me today.
No one in the coffee industry really likes decaf. We excuse its taste, we get annoyed at how fast it stales, we treat it as a second rate coffee experience. I was in that camp too for a while. Coffee no good? Well, it is decaf…..
Morning coffee
Sunday, January 18th, 2009I have a confession to make: I used to, in a very snobbish way, hate the idea of a coffee being an “after dinner coffee” or a “morning cup”. I thought it was one of those really stupid ways of selling coffee – like how supermarkets use the word “strength” to communicate how dark a roast is. 1
In recent conversations someone has said to me that they love a certain coffee, but not first thing in the morning. Maybe mid-afternoon instead. Initially I didn’t get it. My very narrow mind assumed that good coffee was good coffee and that the rotation of the earth in relation to the sun shouldn’t have too much impact on how that coffee, my tongue and my brain all got along.
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- That still does make me angry, and a bit frustrated. It is probably the most common misconception – that the coffee itself has something to do with the strength of the cup. [↩]
The wine model doesn’t work
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009I think everyone in coffee knows deep down this is true. The wine model only works for wine, we can’t transplant it to coffee and expect some immediate understanding and increased sales of quality coffees.
First and foremost – we don’t drink coffee like we drink wine. Broadly speaking we buy wine in two different circumstances: to enjoy ourselves and to enjoy with others. Generally we spend more, buy better, buy more interesting when we are enjoying it with others. We want to know more, want a little story, want something worth discussing. Wine’s great success was making it culturally acceptable/desirable to discuss what you drank at some length. Coffee isn’t quite there yet. We drink coffee in different circumstances – mostly it is a solitary affair, though sometimes shared but rarely the focal point the way a stellar bottle of wine can be. We experience it in different environments, with different goals and different focus on the sensory experience.
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