AM PM Magazine Trends

What is Real Speciality Coffee ? . . asks Hugh Gilmartin, AM PM’s resident coffee guru ….

Specialty coffee should be coffee that is defined by taste, and origin. Quality levels start with blended coffee at the bottom and progress to single origin coffee – Colombian or Kenyan for example - to the most distinguished, single estate coffee such as Ethiopian Limu, Sidamo or Yirgarcheffe. In size it resembles bulk commodities like sugar or coal but the difference is that real coffee requires skilled cup tasting ability to be traded properly.

Cup tasting is to coffee what swirling, sniffing and spitting are to wine . . and Coffee needs to mirror that Wine revolution. Although we know coffee takes more preparation and needs additional serving skills it is equally as interesting, complex, varied, and stimulating (although admittedly not alcoholic). Good supplier partnerships will help train your staff and it’s one of the highest margin products you can sell.

The problem all of us who care passionately about coffee have to face up to is the insistence on instant consumption at home. Multinational Instant Coffee Brand Advertising has had an enormous impact and you just have to look at import figures, 85% of which are for instant coffee, to realise that there is a long way to go before we catch up with the rest of the world. My ideal is that in the not too distant future Irish coffee drinkers can associate directly with the estate the coffee has come from in the way that you can now associate a bottle of wine with the vineyard. Time will tell.

I acknowledge the kick start Starbucks and the Coffee.com culture have given to coffee consumption but it’s not coffee so much as a lifestyle that they sell. There will always be good and bad products in everything. Wine has been truly innovative in its attempt to inform, educate, illustrate, and market a vast variety and quality at reasonable prices. The pioneers of this change were probably considered as misguided in their time, as the coffee pioneers of today. Commodity grade coffee is getting worse and the gap between specialty estate grade is becoming more apparent.

The seeds of growth have been sown by the Paul O’Toole’s of this world who are buying top quality coffee at sustainable prices for the discerning consumer. With accurate media coverage we can work towards an improved understanding of the price for quality balance that will raise everybody’s expectation. After all, life is too short for bad coffee.