Anna — Will add Cameron’s Coffee to the list :)

i’ll have… — The analogy Mark made prolly does work best for people who drink wine regularly, such as myself :) I love to try new coffees — just as many wine afficionados love to try new wine. But wine and coffee lovers often have their faves too — yes?

Here’s the link: http://www.maketradefair.com/assets/english/mugged.pdf

Has some interesting stuff if…

“cause-specific” coffees are wonderful and were a major driver for the growth of sustainable coffees in the US market. but while brand loyalty in the wine business is built on snobbery, cause loyalty in coffee is build on the strength of one’s ideals…

as for Mark’s perspective on coffee-perhaps being situated in the heart of the wine country is starting to blur his vision…yes, there is such a thing as brand and product loyalty in the coffee business, but the differences with the wine biz are many and profound. and i don’t think we want coffee to go the route that wine has in this country. considering how few people in the US drink wine and how many people drink coffee, drawing parrellels between the two is dangerous.
the specialty wine market is woefully stagnant. there has been a proliferation of boutique wineries with very little distinction between products-and they saturate a market followed by a very small number of consumers. we don’t want specialty coffee to have 0-growth niche markets that only pander to the affluent. coffee is also a perishable product that is grown in climates much more susceptible to drastic weather events than wine. because of this, people need to be open to trying new regions, new blends, and yes, even new certifications. strong brand loyalty can be a bad thing sometimes…

we should look not to the wine business in the US, but in Europe. there, wine is a traditional beverage that is drunk by a very large percentage of the population. wine is an everyday thing there-like coffee here-(but your average cheap bottle of cheap wine in Europe is much better than your average cheap can of coffee here.) the specialty coffee industry needs to grow and take over the coffee industry as a whole-not so everyone is forced to pay $15 for a 12 oz. bag of beans-but rather everyone has an opportunity to buy affordable sustainable coffee.

let the afficianados have their $30/lb Cup of Excellence micro lots, but what we need to see is good, sustainably grown, fair-trade coffee in every kitchen, breakroom, and cafe in the US…and that’s a model that many people don’t like-democratization of a product goes contrary to the idea of an afficianado’s market. fine. $150 bottles of Caymus Special Select Cab Sauv don’t put food on the table for the majority of California’s winery & farm workers. $7 bottles of Blackstone Merlot do…($9 bottles of organic Blackstone Merlot would be even better :-)