Everyday Beans vs. Specialty Coffee Culture

In this episode, I share my thoughts and experiences after attending the recent Coffee Expo in Houston. I reflect on the disconnect between the specialty coffee industry and everyday coffee drinkers, examining how the event, while impressive in many ways, primarily catered to professionals and enthusiasts rather than the average coffee consumer.

I discuss my observations about the prevalence of light roast coffees at the expo, the high costs of attendance, and the industry's focus on specialized brewing methods despite statistical evidence showing most people prefer traditional brewing methods and medium to dark roasts. Through my analysis, I offer insights on how the specialty coffee world could better bridge the gap with everyday coffee lovers while maintaining high standards. By sharing both criticism and appreciation for the Specialty Coffee Association's efforts, I explore how the industry can evolve to be more inclusive while continuing to elevate coffee quality globally.

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:41 The Disconnect: Coffee Pros vs. Average Drinkers
• 8:08 Expo Experience and Coffee Sampling
• 9:04 Price Barrier to Entry
• 12:10 SCA's Purpose, Vision and Mission
• 13:24 The Importance of Coffee Standards
• 19:38 10 Coffee Industry Insights
• 23:40 Cup of Excellence Experience
• 27:05 Helping Everyday Coffee Drinkers
• 29:10 Final Thoughts and Looking Forward

Transcript

[00:00:00] Today is April 30th, 2025, and we're doing pretty good right now. I hope that you're doing pretty good right now. It's been a couple days past the Coffee Expo in Houston, and I had a good time. I really did. Again, it's one of those things or experiences that it's hard to talk about until you experience it, and you kind of want it all the time. I see people go every year to this thing, and this is a sober talk about the whole expo. And like I said, I had a good time. No real complaints, met some people, kept in contact with and all that good stuff. But this is time to get real about a couple things as we talk about the Specialty Coffee Association or the specialty coffee existence.

[00:01:14] I know they're about to change the name and all that good stuff, and I just wanted to talk freely about things that I saw, things that I witnessed, and things that I got from other people. I do have a couple notes that I want to talk to to make sure that I don't lose anything. It's a little different type of podcast, a little bit more prepared, I guess, but it's still more so off the cuff.

[00:01:41] So here we go. One thing that I realized about the whole Specialty Coffee Association, the event and everything, was that it's for professionals, it's for enthusiasts. It should be for people who love coffee. It should be, but it's for a select group of people. And when you set up things or give people a reason to go to things, that's what they expect. And I am a loner. I know people probably say, "Well, I keep saying that." I am a loner, I am a loner, and I think that's very critical into what I'm trying to say here. I went to the expo by myself. I did reach out to a couple friends.

[00:02:27] They said no, some of them were avid coffee drinkers. Some of them aren't, but they know how geeky and loving that I love, that I care about coffee. It's something that I didn't know that I was gonna fall in love with this magical beverage. And the beauty of all of it really is, is that we get to experience it with people.

[00:02:40] And as I was planning out my week for this whole expo, I just kept on thinking, why isn't there more everyday type of people here? Why isn't there just people who just love coffee in general? They might not know what the varietals are. They may not know which coffee and tasty notes that they're drinking. They just know that they drink it every day and they love it for whatever reason that they love it for.

[00:03:10] And what I saw at the expo was really cool, but it was also telling. The reason why is because everything that I've seen online is just amped up even more so. Again, I didn't really experience it the way normal everyday expo people were experiencing it, meaning that there's parties, there's conventions, there's things to do all the time. And that sounds amazing to me. I do think I missed out on that piece of it.

[00:03:35] And they had runs, they had walks, they had cuppings, they had parties, they had latte arts, they had competitions, they had all this stuff around town. They had roasting competitions, they had roasting teaching and all that stuff. They had all this stuff around town and people were making deals and everything. And that's what it's supposed to be, it's a convention.

[00:04:00] That's what people do at conventions, they talk to people, it gives them an opportunity to reconnect, rejuvenate their year and to see it forward. But again, where was the everyday coffee drinker? I think I just read a post when I just woke up just now and somebody said they didn't even know that it was in town. So it could be better about advertising it.

[00:04:20] But again, it is what it is. If you are into this type of stuff, you already knew about it. If you kind of knew about it, or know that you like coffee and you just didn't realize that there's some type of expo, like a national expo going on, it would just sweep you by. And there's a lot of disconnect here in their approach and the way people see things, analyze things and all that stuff.

[00:04:45] So I think I could say this very freely because I am not currently, I don't know when, if I will ever be a member of SCA. I don't think there's ill will towards the organization. I think they are trying to do the best that they can. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of things that probably are out of their control.

[00:05:05] You know, when I went to the expo and when I tasted coffee, there's a lot of innovations. There's a lot of gear out there, different pour overs, beyond the Hario V60, there's different methods. People having the little droplets for like tasting sweetness and aroma. I got a lot of high acidic coffees, light roasted coffees. There's probably one or two here and there that are actually a medium roast, a medium to light.

[00:05:35] But the coffees for the majority of the time, they tasted the same, very lightly roasted, very high acidity, barely if any, a sweetness in the coffees. Yeah, I said it, I said it because that's what I tasted. Was I impressed by the things that they're doing? Yes, especially the amount of coffee that they could just sling and get out there, especially with pour over.

[00:06:00] But something about the state of coffee of what I've noticed or realized for the very longest is that there's a lot heavily influenced in espresso based drinks, milk drinks. Meaning that if you're going to doctor your drink, there's gotta be an espresso, a cappuccino latte, macchiato, my favorite, but don't you dare put creamer in your drip coffee and it better be a pour over.

[00:06:25] Those are some of the things that I saw. Those are some of the things that I witnessed. And it was interesting, just walking around, eyes wide open and really trying to understand the whole essence, the whole allure of specialty. What does specialty really mean? Or let's ask this question. What does specialty really mean to the everyday coffee drinker?

[00:06:45] What does it mean to them? Do they get this excitement about tasting a 85 point score Kenyan coffee? What does that really mean to them? Especially if they're gonna put it in like a machine, like a Mr. Coffee machine. I didn't even see Mr. Coffee company or whatever out there. They know their lane. They know that, why would they go to an event like that when people will look down at them? Because they make coffee for everybody, not a select few people.

[00:08:08] And it's interesting just to kinda see what everybody's about. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time there. But now that I've had a couple of days to really kinda analyze the situation for what it is and understanding it from probably other people's point of view, I'm trying, I have this mixed feeling about the state of coffee.

[00:08:30] I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just a person talking about coffee, making videos about coffee, roasting coffee, trying to sell things in the coffee world. So I can't really talk. But I do have an opinion. And I've been doing this long enough to realize that if you have something on your mind, just say it. If somebody feels offended by it, whatever. It is what it is.

[00:09:04] But let me go ahead and bring up a message from a friend who I was trying to get to go with me. He says, "Man, I'm looking at the expo website right now. Do you have to have a letter of invitation? And it's $400 for the weekend, $220 for Friday or Saturday, $110 for Sunday. The expo coffee drinkers are richy rich. I can see it for a brewer and entrepreneur, but for regular attendees, they're gonna tempt them with a complimentary French press."

[00:09:33] And he also talked about how that's crazy because they go to the convention all the time and they use the pain, regional prices for different events that they go to. And that's just one person. And I'm sure if I talk to more people about trying to enter somebody in an inner place for $110 or $200 and think about it, nobody except for me, because I'm a geek and a loner, will go there by themselves.

[00:10:00] So they have to like convince another friend or person to go with them. So $220, truthfully, even $400 in your town or anywhere else, I think that's a great deal because you get to taste all these different types of coffees. Yes, I did say most of the light roast coffees did taste the same.

[00:10:20] You do, you will get a funky, crazy anaerobic. That'll be good for an afternoon on a Saturday, like it was to really see how people were pushing the whole processing and technology in coffee. But there's a lot of that. And there's a couple coffees that just shined in that light.

[00:10:35] But would I wanna have it every day? No, not at all. I wouldn't wanna have it probably once a week, if that. And those are some of the things that I think about quite a bit when it comes to just coffee in general and how and where it's going.

[00:10:50] Not so much for specialty type of coffee folks, because at the end of the day, here's the thing. Let's go ahead and look at the whole thing with SCA, the role of the specialty coffee association. This is from their website. Purpose, to foster a global coffee community and support activities to make specialty coffee a thriving, equitable, and sustainable activity for the entire value chain.

[00:11:20] I was okay with most of that today said specialty coffee. Why can we just say coffee? I understand everybody has their own standards and everything and the big boys usually just try to sell it for as cheaply as possible, not care about the farmers and all that. I get that.

[00:11:35] But why can't it just be for coffee in general? Because that's the thing we're talking about everyday, coffee drinkers. Vision, to create an effective, authentic, and dynamic organization to give voice and substance to the possibilities for specialty coffee worldwide.

[00:12:10] They're not gonna let specialty coffee get out of this whole thing, which is fine, because you have to have standards. That's one of the things I really do love about the coffee association, the specialty coffee association. Missions and then I'll talk about my personal insights.

[00:12:27] Engage, inspire, expand a sustainable, global, special coffee community through leadership, events, education, and research. They did that this weekend. They do that all the time, which is awesome. And they're on their mission. They have so many different events. They have specializations in roasting and cue grading, because that stuff matters.

[00:12:50] It does matter, because at the end of the day, you're trying to give somebody the best product that they can actually have. And that's one of the biggest insights that I do love about specialty coffee, setting the bar, because at the end of the day, if you don't set the bar for anything, everybody's gonna be the same. I know I just said that all the coffees tasted the same, most of them, but whatever, that's besides the point. Setting the bar with light roast, whatever.

[00:13:24] We have to set the bar here. At the end of the day, we have to give a shit about things that we do, especially something that we have pride over. And if you don't have the right standards to do something, then what are we really doing here?

[00:13:40] Because at the end of the day, that's also really about how much do you care? All the people that I talk to there, they have different gadgets, they have different tools, they have mini roasters in order to make sure their profiles was right. They cared about customer service, they cared about how they poured the coffee, they engaged people, most of them. Some of them are still kinda weird, but whatever, that's people in general.

[00:14:05] So this is not a special coffee association issue, that's just people in general. But you have to give a shit about what you're doing. And I don't take that away from nobody. And what that does, it just starts to elevate everybody else in this whole thing. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:14:25] And if you don't have standards, high standards about what you do each and every day, then go mess yourself. But I guess what I'm saying here, I don't want this to be too long. I just wanna talk about really about the disconnect, where we're at with this whole thing.

[00:14:45] Because this event to me, at $400, if I went the whole weekend, I went Friday, and I went Sunday. So I spent $300. So I saved a little bit of money. The peak day supposedly is Saturday, everybody was there. They still made a lot of money, which is fine, I'm not mad about that.

[00:15:05] But I guess the disconnect as I saw, looked through the list of things to do, because I would have taken a class. I think the classes themselves are $200 or $300 separately. I don't know if I read it right, for different various things, or upstairs in different rooms and all that stuff.

[00:15:25] I didn't care about that, which is kind of cool actually, that you can still have a really good time geeking out about gear, coffee, and all that stuff for $400. To me, since I love coffee, I love it, love it, love it. You love it too, right? We love coffee, I love coffee, you love coffee.

[00:15:45] If we do anything with coffee, we'll spend $30 for a small bag of coffee. $400 is a great deal. You get to go in there, you get to buy gear if you wanted to. You can make connections with the actual distributors and all that stuff, get their contact information.

[00:16:00] You can taste so many different coffees. Yes, I did say most of them were light roast, but some are really interesting, I'm not gonna lie. When would you get a chance to taste like the pioneer's coffee that started cafes literally around the world and see her right there with one of the roasters?

[00:16:20] Smell that floral note, drink that coffee, even shake their hands, or just look at them like, "Whoa, hey, thank you." Because again, it's the whole elevation of the whole thing, right? It's like we are really trying to elevate the whole coffee scene.

[00:16:35] So then when you do drink your not-so-great cup of coffee from whoever, from wherever that you're accustomed to doing, if you just drink coffee, like an everyday person, you probably realize that your coffee's probably just a little bit better because they have to give a shit.

[00:16:55] But again, where's the disconnect here? The disconnect here is that when you talk to an everyday person, everyday coffee person, will they dare spend $400 by themselves to go to an all weekend event? Probably not, probably Sunday, but then when they go Sunday, spend $100, $110, and they get there on time, and they realize that they have been there for like two and a half, three hours, and the event is almost over.

[00:17:25] They're kicking themselves because they realize that they just missed something. They missed the opportunity because this thing's about to close down, it's about to end early. All the vendors and all the people who call themselves, especially coffee people, are about to go away.

[00:17:40] They're about to end the event. They probably had something Sunday here and there, but I know they had parties Friday, Saturday, different places and all that. And they're gonna start kicking themselves because they realize that they missed out on something.

[00:17:55] They missed out on the opportunity, and I don't know whose fault is that. It's their fault because they're adults that they can actually go ahead and look online and see what's going on in their own city or not in their city.

[00:18:10] I don't know if it's especially coffee people's fault because they didn't do that good of a job to actually promote the event. I'm sure if you ask them, they probably did think that they promoted it very well because of the amount of attendance that they actually got, which is, hey, kudos, that's great, that's awesome.

[00:18:30] I'm trying to just see what is the fix here because everyday people, they could have probably done some other events around town. There's that first banking party. I did not go to too many people, 800, 900, 1,000 people at this place to mingle, drink coffee, to not even hear each other. That was free.

[00:18:55] You can probably pay a little bit here and there for things here and there, watch a lot of art, but there's a lot of free stuff. So before I leave off today, I just wanna have some interesting facts. I kinda just wanna read them off. I may say something, but I may go a little bit longer than what I wanted to, but here we go.

[00:19:15] 10 industry insights, 10 nuggets. I'm just gonna start saying them, okay? Let's just let you think about them. Global specialty coffee production. Only about 10% of coffee produced worldwide qualifies as specialty grade. 10%, okay? The whole world, okay?

[00:19:38] US specialty coffee consumption. Approximately 55% of US coffee drinkers consume specialty coffee regularly. That's pretty good. That's more than half. In the US, we're doing something. We have standards, right? It'd be cool to get that to 70, 80%. But 55, I know it was lower than that, so I know the association had a big part of that in how everybody's starting to give a shit, right? They care about what they drink. Home brewing prevalence.

[00:19:51] The average American brews coffee at home twice as often as purchasing it from the cafes. What does that tell you? We drink our coffee at home most of the time. We don't go to cafes, probably because it's a little bit more expensive or whatnot, I don't know, or the snobbery that we get sometimes when we ask for something that's not normal, I don't know.

[00:20:10] I think it's just probably just more so a comfort thing. Okay? So that's where we're gonna go with that, okay? Roast preferences. Light Roast constitute less than 15% of global consumer preferences.

[00:20:26] Less than 15% Light Roast, okay? With medium and dark roast remaining dominant. But whatever, we don't go, we don't even get to second crack, right? So we don't even know how delicious dark roast can be, but whatever. So 15%, remember that.

[00:20:45] Brewing methods. Over 67%, let's just say 70, global coffee consumption involves traditional methods like drip machines and instant coffee. So that Mr. Coffee Machine that's back there in the corner that I use all the time because it grounds me and it helps me realize that this is what mostly everybody uses.

[00:21:10] That's what they use each and every day. Not a pour over. I got like 15 pour overs. The king is a Hario V60. The oxo's coming in pretty strong here. I love pour overs. I will pour over everything if I can. I love that. I love third way water. I love deacon out half of a factometer.

[00:21:30] I have all the stuff that I need in order to make a really, really good cup of coffee. I love it. I don't care if it takes three, five minutes, whatever. I don't care if I stay there and just religiously just try to make this cup of coffee the best that it can be.

[00:21:45] And I sit there sometimes when it's not, I just get disappointed. But most people, they turn on that box over there, they push that button with the inconsistent temperatures and all that. Yeah, it's so inconsistent, but you can make a good cup of coffee, but they don't even care about that. They pour it in their cup, they drive to work, they put creamer on it. That's most people, 70%. That's the thing that they use.

[00:22:23] Competition focus. In barista competitions, espresso milk-based drinks comprise over 50% of required presentations. Yeah, that's the chocolate milk that the specialty coffee is okay with. Espresso-based milk drinks, cappuccino, macchiato, not even macchiato, that's too, probably just pour the milk in there.

[00:22:45] Some foam here and there, some latte art. That's okay, but that's what the competitions are. Don't get me wrong, Brewer's Cup, I think that's really, really cool. I would love to see an actual, I don't think they had it this time, they had the roasters competition, whatever.

[00:23:05] I think Brewer's Cup is where it's at. Kind of see what kind of pour over somebody's doing with this 89% coffee from Columbia or whatever. Anaerobic and other experimental processes account for less than 5% of specialty coffee production. Less than 5% of anaerobic. There's a lot of anaerobic. I'm not that much of a fan of them. I've talked about it here and there. What I'm a fan of is the Cup of Excellence coffee. Where's this hat? I got this hat, because I went to the event.

[00:23:40] This event was $20. I was wondering what I was going to taste. They had a couple of people that do Cup of Excellence winners. I kid you not. I understand what high standards are now. A lot of the coffees I tasted in the expo were not that. They're good, they're decent.

[00:24:00] I can see the allure of these coffees beyond just the smell, but these Cup of Excellence coffees, amazing. And these were the rejects. They brought their hand-me-down rejects that they wouldn't even take to the Cup of Excellence. Taste the clarity. I'm telling you real clarity.

[00:24:20] I'm telling you that the smells just kept on going and going and going and going. Absolutely amazing. Intoxicating, really intoxicating. And the flavors were clear. Probably one or two notes, but you knew exactly what you were tasting.

[00:24:29] When it was drip, it wasn't cupping. It was just great. Yeah, forget anaerobic. Let's just get back to the basics of really giving the care about the process even more so. SCA, let's just give more attention to this. Let's just not try to manipulate a bean. I want to taste that bean before you do all that stuff. How good is it from the base? Whatever, that's me just talking about that. Listen, 5%. Growth and specialty coffee. Since 2015, specialty coffee consumption in the US has grown by more than 25%.

[00:25:11] Yet traditional drip coffee remains prevalent. So what does this tell us? We need to continue to see what we can do for the everyday person. So I'm okay with high-end drip machines. Like I'm thinking about getting a Wolf, a $400 drip machine. I don't know why. I just want to test it.

[00:25:30] See how it does with my coffee machine. I'm sure it's probably better in some way. Look, I got a Wolf toaster oven. It's pretty awesome. Whatever, just curious. But let's just see if we can get people to drink good coffee out of good machines or machines in general.

[00:25:50] Because I think people are sleeping on a Mr. Coffee machine. It's a couple of weeks, not crazy. You don't have to crazy mod it to make a good cup of coffee. Let's promote more drip coffee to people and let them realize that they can have fantastic coffee in a drip machine and move on with their day.

[00:26:07] So standard drip coffee maker remains the most popular device, yeah. Used by over 40% of consumers. I'm not gonna lie, some of these little percentages, but some of them, whatever, it is what it is. Primary motivation. The leading reason people drink coffee is for comfort in routine, surpassing flavor, complexity, caffeine needs, comfort in routine.

[00:26:35] I think we do have that too in specialty. We care about the routine. I'm about to make a cup of coffee. I'm gonna enjoy it. I'm gonna see what I make with this medium roast Brazilian that I'm still testing out. But it's for comfort, something they're used to.

[00:26:50] Routine, not complexity, not flavor. That's what I care about. But I think we can do all that stuff together. And then everybody rides together. Caffeine needs, whatever. So I guess what I'm saying here is that we just need to do better, be better, to help out the everyday coffee drinker.

[00:27:05] It's a different type of approach, I believe, but not that much different than almost anything. If we care about standards, we care about specialty coffee. I think we can figure out how we can get more everyday people into this whole thing. I'm gonna do my part. I'm gonna try.

[00:27:28] But at the end of the day, there's coffee for everybody. There's enough for everybody. And if we can make mostly everybody give a care, some way, somehow, I think that's where we can be.

[00:27:40] Because is it really expensive to go to this event? Yes, it is. I got lucky. I'm in Houston. I don't know if I go to the next one. I think I would like to. We'll see what happens. But I know that I'll be spending two, $3,000 to have a good time and to get accommodations and all that stuff and paying whatever price that it's gonna cost.

[00:27:55] But I think some of the things that they can do more of is probably more so like these private companies, these cafes can do a little bit more of it. It's just promoting more about events around town. That's probably more so what they should do.

[00:28:10] Because at the end of the day, the event can only do so much, right? SCA can only do so much. And those are some of the things that we have to understand because I'm just trying to state a problem, why I think it is and hopefully try to give a solution.

[00:28:25] Because again, at the end of the day, we're just trying to raise our standards. Everybody's just trying to raise our standards in all that we do. And I think that's the biggest takeaway in all this. SCA, we have to raise our standards in anything and everything that we do.

[00:28:40] Yeah, it was fluffy. It was nice. The whole purpose, mission, vision and all that stuff. Everybody has those. And you're doing a really good job mostly presenting that or what I can see from the outside. But there's still a lot of work to be done. And I wouldn't say shame on you.

[00:29:10] I would just say that there's still a lot of work. I need a lot of work. Everybody needs a lot of work. And I'm just somebody just talking about coffee. Because again, next week, what I'm gonna do, talk about coffee, talk about coffee. Then I'm gonna keep talking about coffee. Okay, so I'm here just talking right now. So this is me, OK at Everyday Beans.

[00:29:32] Signing out. Till next week, we'll be talking about coffee. Bye.