Most of us our familiar with specialty coffee in some way or another, even if you don’t know it. Ask anyone and their definition of it may be when you get a pretty design in your latte, or when they have to pay more than $5 dollars for it. What most people don’t know is that specialty coffee, and coffee in general, is a massive industry. And there’s a lot more to it than your barista pulling shots of espresso. What if I told you there were benefits to heading to your local coffee shop, and dare I say spending a dollar or two more on your morning cup? Let’s take a look at some reasons to reevaluate your daily morning drive-thru routine.
Support Coffee Farmers
How many times have you thought about how the coffee that is in your cup came to be? The reality of it is that regardless of whether you are drinking specialty or commodity coffee, many hands were involved in the process of getting it to its final form. The difference is how were those hands treated along the way?
A huge priority throughout the specialty coffee industry is supporting the farms, many of which are small family businesses. Currently, many coffee farmers live in poverty, receiving very little for their tedious crops, which only have one harvest. Specialty coffee is fighting to pay coffee farmers what they deserve by building direct relationships with them. This cuts out the middlemen, known as “coyotes”, who typically will buy coffee at the cheapest price they can to resell for profit. While there are a few cases where middlemen may be beneficial to the farmers, direct trade relationships build trust and ensure quality through mutual education between farmers, buyers, and roasters.
Support Local and Small Businesses
Quite simply, help support the livelihood of your neighbors! Local coffee shops help create community and also help your local economy. By supporting these specialty shops, you are supporting the income of those who own it and work there, rather than giving another few bucks to a corporate chain who won’t know the difference.
Health Benefits
Specialty coffee shops pride themselves in their roasts and the excellent cups of coffee they produce. Baristas love it when they can introduce someone to a cup of black coffee that tastes great completely on its own. And guess what? Black coffee is practically calorie-less. That’s because black coffee is really 98% water.
However, not everyone is able to drink just coffee, and that’s okay. Many specialty shops focus on providing healthy options to spice your drink up. Most places include milk alternatives, such as oat or almond milk. And many shops you’ll go to make their own flavored syrups in house, which cuts out the preservatives in prepackaged syrups.
Support Sustainable Practices
Another priority among many in the specialty coffee industry is creating sustainable practices. Part of that is in what we previously mentioned, helping farmers and producers by building towards better livelihoods. There is also work being done to create sustainability on the farms to improve the environmental conditions in which the plants grow. Moving along the supply chain, many cafes around the world are working on ways to reduce their consumption of single use plastics. For example, at the cafe I work at, we have switched to all compostable to go cups and straws. We also partner with a few locals who take other compostable goods that are thrown away in store, such as napkins, leftover food, stir sticks, and also coffee grounds, which are great for fertilizing plants. There are other cafes around the US who have entirely dropped paper and plastic to go cups at all, and offer a reusable cup program.
Higher Quality = Better Taste!
Last but not least, once you taste specialty coffee, you will instantly realize the change in taste from store bought or fast food coffee. One of the biggest differences when it comes to coffee quality is between the two species of coffee plants: Arabica and Robusta. Many of the cheap brands of coffee in the supermarkets are made out of, or are some percentage of, Robusta. Due to its higher caffeine content, it is a much more durable plant than Arabica, and therefore can bought for a lot cheaper, but it is known for its bitter and unpleasant taste. Arabica, on the other hand, is what is known for its varying tasting notes, ranging from fruity, to nutty, to chocolaty or floral. But not only does the type of bean come into play. Roasting the bean is very important when it comes to caramelizing the sugars in coffee beans, bringing it to those sweet flavor notes, and avoiding the coffee being underdeveloped or burnt. When it comes to baristas, they have been trained on the process of “dialing in”, which is finding the best recipes to brew coffee whether it be a pour-over, french press, or espresso.
The coffee industry is huge, and there is even more (like, a lot more) to it than just mentioned here. The coffee industry is also still changing every day, and specialty is part of that wave. This is just a snippet of how one of our small, daily actions can have a larger affect on those around us. So whether you’re interested in just trying a better latte, helping to provide better incomes for coffee professionals, or taking a step to be more eco-friendly, I urge you to stop by your local coffee shop next time you need your caffeine fix!
Kelsey Makes Coffee 