Specialty Coffee, and the People We Serve

I’ve worked in specialty coffee for 16 years, and a lot has changed. The quality of green coffee, roasting techniques and the tools we use to brew have all come a long way. There’s always something new to learn, and that’s one of the reasons I still enjoy this work.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about whether our service has come as far as our coffee.

Before getting into that, what does “specialty coffee” mean?

The Specialty Coffee Association describes it as coffee, or a coffee experience, whose distinctive qualities give it extra value. That can include its flavour, where it comes from, how it was produced and the people behind it.

There are a lot of those people.

Someone grows and cares for the coffee trees. Others pick the cherries, process and dry the coffee, sort it and prepare it for export. Then there are the people who transport it, taste it and roast it. Each step takes work and affects the coffee we eventually drink.

At the cafe, our baristas continue that work. They taste the coffee, adjust the grinder and check their brewing throughout the day.

By the time we hand you a cup, many people have helped make it what it is. I believe our job includes helping you understand and enjoy the value of that work.

But I’ve been asking myself what that actually looks like.

As an industry, we spend a lot of time discussing how to roast and brew better coffee. We measure more, understand more and have better equipment than ever. I wonder if, sometimes, we get so caught up in those details that we forget to talk to the person drinking it.

I’ve probably been guilty of that myself.

Knowing a lot about coffee doesn’t always mean we’re good at making people feel comfortable with it. We can explain the origin, the process and the tasting notes, but have we listened to what the customer thinks? Have we made it easy for them to say they don’t understand, or that they simply don’t enjoy it?

I want those conversations to feel normal.

If we recommend a coffee, I’d love to hear how it tasted at home. If you enjoyed something at another cafe, tell us about it. If you couldn’t taste the notes on the bag, you should feel comfortable saying so. That gives us something to talk about and learn from together.

You don’t need to know the right words. Enjoying coffee is enough.

That’s what I want Cloudline to become, in the cafe and on our website. Somewhere we can share what we know and hear what you have to say. Somewhere a shared interest in coffee can turn into a conversation, and sometimes a friendship.

To me, that’s a big part of Australian cafe culture. You find a place you like, get to know the people and eventually feel at home there. The coffee brings you in, and the way you’re looked after becomes part of why you return.

We want to do the everyday things well, then pay attention to where we can do a little more. Remembering a conversation. Asking how those coffee worked out. Taking the time to help with a brewing problem. Sometimes doing more than you would expect from a cafe, simply because we care about your experience.

We’re still building this at Cloudline. I’m writing it here because it’s something I want us to keep working on, and something I want our customers to help shape.

For 16 years, I’ve watched coffee keep getting better. I want to put the same effort into how we look after the people who drink it.

I hope that, over time, people will leave us thinking, “This is what I love about Australian cafes. This is what specialty coffee should feel like.”

Further reading: What is Specialty Coffee? — Specialty Coffee Association