How Ireland has evolved from an instant coffee drinking nation
Java Republic Founder, David McKernan, has been involved in the Irish coffee industry for longer than he’d care to remember and here at Java Republic we’re always pushing him to chronicle the evolution of the Irish coffee industry as seen through his eyes. The below piece tell’s David’s story as well as bringing you through how Ireland has evolved from an instant coffee drinking nation into a country at the very cusp of coffees exciting evolution.
I’ve surfed the three waves of coffee. Now forty-seven years old, I’m one of the few people left, who has remained active in the Irish coffee industry for thirty years. In June, thousands of coffee professionals from all over the world descended on Dublin for World of Coffee in pursuit of the Third Wave – speciality coffee. The Third Wave has been driven by independent baristas, small Independent coffee roasters, small retailers and virtually anyone who either worked in the coffee Industry or better still didn’t, but wanted to make it better through an injection of real passion and attention to detail and quality.
I’ve always believed that coffee brings people together. It breaks barriers, softens tension and allows negotiations and apologies to flow easier. What I never realised until very recently is how coffee has become the soul of a meeting. Coffee has become the central point for many gatherings, business ideas & even just to gossip. The obsession and passion with which coffee is produced, roasted, sold and served is sparking a revolution amongst consumers. A similar passion is found in other products, for instance in my home; our beer, chocolate, honey, oats, meat, jam and wine is sourced only from producers who are passionate about their produce. The difference between these products and coffee though is that as we enter the Fourth Wave, we are teaching the coffee farmers to develop and grow using technology.
Even though the large roasters, suppliers and coffee’s new investors have made enormous profits from coffee’s new reputation as the sexiest artisan drink, it is the Super Barista who has emerged as the new kings of coffee in the Third Wave. They have driven the demand for new independent roasters and retailers. A good barista earns their reputation. There are no short cuts, whether they have a degree or not, the barista is judged on their coffee, knowledge and passion. A good professional barista is worth their weight in Kopi Luwak coffee (now barred in most coffee companies) for returning customers and revenue in a low margin retail sector. Mainstream coffee companies are being populated with Super Baristas as trainers, Q-Graders and Sales People.
In order to understand the importance of the third wave, you will need a brief lesson in how the first and second wave emerged in the US and Europe, and how Ireland, an island off an island off the mainland, battling the wild waves of the Atlantic ocean evolved to offer the best of both continents but has constantly leaned West to the US for inspiration.
Ireland was late to the first wave. Our tastes rarely extended beyond instant coffee. We were a long way away from embracing roast and ground coffee, and for once we can’t blame our lack of progress on the Brits. Their taste in coffee was equally shite.
Their experience in France, Spain, and Portugal, where traditional espresso machines dominated was probably, at times, worse than our instant junk due to the crappy cheap beans they used. Italy was the last chance Europe had to save its coffee credentials, but the Italians’ focus on quality was hazy at best. They bought cheap coffee, and tradition eventually strangled all innovation. Italy will simply never recover their right to lead the market.
However even in spite of our national palate there were still a few famous shops in Ireland selling roast and ground coffee. In the early 70s and 80s you could get a white milky coffee in a couple of spots in Dublin. Grafton Street hosted Robert Robert’s best shop and Bewley’s flagship oriental café. The new McDonald’s, also on Grafton Street, opened in 1977, offered strong filter coffee, which soon became a favourite haunt amongst Trinity students. Around the corner on South Anne Street you could find the Coffee Inn, run by a guy named Dave. However, whether it was the coffee or customer’s light drug use that secured its favour amongst its patrons, I can’t say.
At the time Robert Roberts’ shops were losing money and closed with a gentleman’s agreement with Bewleys not to step on its toes in the growing wholesale tea and coffee market. The market for ground filtered/drip coffee, processed through the Bulk Blickman US coffee machine was exploding. Naturally the agreement disintegrated sometime in the mid-eighties. Bewleys watched closely as the Scottish coffee company Matthew Algie grew, using US-made bulk brewing equipment from Bunnomatic. The Scots ensured their success by offering a ‘free loaning’ scheme provided people accepted a sole supply and contract binding agreement to use their coffee. Bewleys adopted Mathew Algies’ business model, and due to its size within Ireland soon assumed a monopoly position in the Irish coffee scene. It’s former competitors simply couldn’t fund the free equipment for each site.
The First Wave
The Second World War sparked the First Wave. American G.I.s wanted a cup of Joe out on the fields of Europe and down in the Pacific, so Nestlé developed instant coffee to fit in their ration packs. Maxwell House (1930) were another important innovator in this field. Folgers Coffee (1850) came up with vacuum packaging (huge innovation at that time) and from that point every household in the US now had access to relatively fresh roast and ground coffee and basic domestic drip Coffee machines. The market grew very fast. Bulk filtered/ Drip equipment was developed and soon dominated the coffee industry. Nearly every café, hotel, restaurant and office in the US and Canada used the technology. The UK and Ireland soon followed suit but unlike a lot of the US establishments never had the numbers of coffee drinkers or the famous “top ups” the US Dinners gave customers as part of the price.
Great filter coffee is truly beautiful when fresh and absolutely shocking when not. The door was left open for the development of Vacuum Systems (no direct heat to stew coffee) and eventually single serve filters. However the damage had been done, and after thirty years coffee was ready for the second wave
The rest of Southern Europe developed in the opposite direction and remained committed to espresso based coffees using traditional machines. The Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians pretty much developed their own tastes for drip filtered and crema based black coffee using fully automatic machines. Fully automatic coffee machines were developed by the Swiss, Germans and Italians. Today the Swiss effectively own the automatic coffee machine industry having patented all the best technology. No matter how hard the Italians tried they couldn’t improve on the Swiss innovations for automatic milk steaming and self-cleaning machines. My own belief (and I stand to be corrected) is that the Italian Business person would rather lose their Business and their kids before paying a royalty to a foreign company.
Dublin
I joined Bewley’s straight from school just before turning eighteen in September 1987. Before my interview I had only ever had one cup of Bewley’s coffee in their Westmoreland St. shop. When asked ‘what I knew about Bewley’s’ I proceeded to tell them it was disgusting and at 50p a mug, too expensive. Fortunately, an American who was the front runner for the job turned it down based on the £5,000 a year salary and I ended up joining Bewley’s in the Sales dept. with virtually no training. The First Wave for me involved selling fresh ground coffee to food service outlets using ‘instant junk’ (as I liked to call it). It was exhilarating and the two to three years of phenomenal growth passed in a blur. I quickly fell in love with Bewleys, coffee and the wider industry. The market was full of extraordinary personalities, from chefs to publicans. All the businesses were completely independent and mostly run by their owners. It was incredible fun. I was part of a family and was allowed huge freedom.
At the time there were only two espresso machines in Dublin. One in the Coffee Inn on South Anne St. and the other in Nico’s of Dame Street. The fresh ground coffee market grew quickly in Ireland, driven as much by the customers as the very healthy margins for retailers. However traditional espresso based coffees still posed a threat. Bewley’s did all it could to reduce the demand for them. Traditional espresso machines cost five to six times more than the filtered machines, and were in constant need of professional servicing/expensive parts, not to mention the need to train baristas to use them. However, the Second Wave was coming like a tsunami.
Irish businesses were witnessing the emergence of coffee’s future in the US and it was based on espresso based drinks. Peets’ and Starbucks were developing the Second Wave with Speciality Roasts, new coffee lingo and decent marketing. There is no question about it, the US created the Culture of Speciality Coffee. They had the vision to start the SCAA (Speciality Coffee Association of America) in 1982, whose values and collective idealism drove the development of the industry. They published reading materials (way before the invention of the internet) and encouraged business investments worldwide as well as inspiring consumer interest in speciality coffee.
The Second Wave was causing ripples in the Irish market. I remember distinctly a really nasty meeting when my MD, Service Manager & I met with the folks from Marco Beverage Systems, the same innovative company now owned and run by Drury Pearson, whose origins were in making water boilers.
At the time, I was pushing for the company to try match the Italian style of roasting and coffee origin mix rather than focusing on mild filtered coffees. Marco and its owner/founder Martin Coughlan were trying to sell us a filtered drip system with a steam wand for milk. Frustrated with the three of them I told him to “f*&k off” and walked out. I think I was the only one in the meeting who was not aware that a deal may have already been struck. I refused to apologise and continued to push for genuine Italian style espresso based drinks. Instinctively I knew we were moving too slowly (and so did my boss) but at the time I lacked the skill and maturity to persuade the company. To be fair to them, I was ignoring the financial implications for an already very profitable business model.
Twelve months on from the meeting the Irish market for espresso based coffee exploded, pioneered by the likes of Chris Terry of Galway. Chris invited me down to Café Du Journal on Key Street in 1989/1989. We shared an espresso and brandy and I will never forget the impact or vision he had, straight from the US .I was also around for Brody Sweeney opening the first and second O’Briens in 1988. This was before he switched to Robert Roberts and created the leading Grab & Go Coffee culture in Ireland.
Over the next two or three years London was beginning its own coffee story. At the time, a poor cup of Costa coffee was the only choice. Although to be fair it did have a lot of shops in London. I was tempted to work for Bewley’s in London but wasn’t entirely convinced about its set-up or its feasibility relying too heavily on expats working in the Industry. The guy I was supposed to work with took me to the Savoy for a Martini in a white tux and pink dickie-bow and I couldn’t understand why he or both of us weren’t beaten up. Around this time Café Nero came onto the scene followed by the Seattle Coffee Company. Both were led by serious American entrepreneurs aping the Starbucks model. When Starbucks bought out Svenson’s for £1 million per store and £50 million in total including the roasting plant of Torz & Macatonia, the coffee world was shocked. Coffee was becoming a premium commodity and huge interest was generated. However whilst London had always been a focus point for coffee entrepreneurs Dublin was quicker to adopt US bred coffee concepts.
The Second Wave
The invention of Starbucks by Peets’ Coffee & Tea .
The pioneer of the coffee business was Alfred Peet, and not meeting him is one of my all-time regrets. Peets set up Peets’ Coffee, Tea & Spices in Berkeley, California in 1966. Peets’ model was selling medium/dark roast coffee beans and it inspired three very bright college buddies Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Baker to set up Starbucks in 1971. They had massive respect for Alfred Peet and a passion for coffee. They bought virtually all their beans and ancillaries from Peets until they found the confidence to start buying their own beans directly from Origin/ source. At the time Peets and Starbucks only sold coffee beans for home use. Coffee drinks would come two years later.
In 1979 Alfred Peet sold his business to Sal Bonavita a Coffee trader and good friend. It was Sal who opened 4 new stores, though I’m not sure why he sold out. Jerry Baldwin orchestrated the buyout of the four Peets’ outlets in 1984 and three years later sold Starbucks to Howard Schultz so as to focus on Peets, which he floated successfully in 2001.
The five big questions always asked about these events are the following:
- Why did the Italians not see the market opportunity?
- Why did Jerry Baldwin sell Starbucks and stick with Peets?
- What happened to the other two founders of Starbucks or should anybody care?
- How did Shultz see the market potential for Starbucks when Baldwin did not?
- Why is there so much confusion around who exactly came up with Starbucks name from Moby Dick?
In my view the three main people responsible for the Second Wave were Shultz (Starbucks ) Schomer (Espresso Vivace ) and Baldwin (Starbucks & Peets) and they were backed all the way by the SCAA.
Starbucks is virtually always credited with the entire Second Wave. Its staggering growth (opening a cafe a day in the early 90’s) and its relentless ambition outside of the US made it a great deal easier for many of us new coffee companies to break into a closed-off coffee roasting industry. Not only did it introduce a whole host of new consumers to a different way of drinking coffee it also decommodified coffee for millions of younger consumers, paving the way to new markets.
Today it’s interesting to see how they’re navigating the Third Wave. They’ve thrown $400 million into a new strategy to keep the cool new guys at bay. The new Reserve Roastery in Seattle (using traditional machines and grinders) is their first public facing Roastery and it looks incredible.
More flagship stores are planned; one in New York, another in London & two in China. After that, a further eleven stores in capital cities in which the brand thrives. They have finally accepted that a Roastery Store is important for giving consumers the perception that all their coffee is roasted in an ‘artisan’ settings. Their existing stores are compromised, having opted for speed by using fully/semi-automatic coffee machines (made to look traditional) which, extinguishes the passion and soul that every other chain & independent coffee shop has.
However despite this misdemeanor (the company believes, as do I, that it could hit a market cap of $100 billion). Schultz will, or should go down in history as the most stunning coffee entrepreneur to grace the coffee industry with his ruthless passion. As well as amassing massive fortunes for a large number of people, and the little Schultz’s, he has also pushed for a focus on coffee bean quality which most of the Industry finds hard to admit. I have seen at Origin just how committed they are.
I’ve often wondered just how many people and families have benefited from his drive and I’m not a great fan of their coffee (Ireland’s Starbucks coffee is roasted outside Amsterdam for tax reasons ) so ‘fresh’ my arse, but millions of coffee families and workers have directly benefited from Schultz’s vision , commitment and traceability. I would even go so far as to suggest that he has done more for farmers in the long term than Fairtrade and the other more questionable ethical brands. And it’s not just the farmers who have benefited. He has battled against the horrific minimum wage culture in the US and pushed for health benefits, employee rewards & education programs. In my eyes he is right up there with the best of the business leaders and activists. If he can steer Starbucks back towards soulful, barista made coffee his legacy will be cemented for another ten waves.
Starbucks, Costa and Nero will probably open up 400+ more stores/concessions in our relatively small Island over the next 3 years. Based solely on Ethical grounds and obviously being tax compliant, it’s better for the farmer that Starbucks wins gold in Ireland.
However Schultz and Starbucks were not the sole drivers of the Second Wave. David Schomer of Espresso Vivace must also be credited with helping the Second Wave to emerge. I had followed him for a few years through his articles in US coffee magazines and had pored over his revolutionary book Espresso Techniques. David, a Boeing trained measurement engineer, believed ‘coffee never tasted as good as it smelled.’ In the late eighties he traveled to Italy (like Shultz) and experienced first-hand the Italian Ristretto (short espresso) and the steamed milk used for breakfast coffees, each with their own individual design, which we now know as latte art. However whilst the Italians were integral to modernising how we drink coffee today they still knew very little about the importance of adjusting the coffee grind and managing the water temperature. To be fair though, at the time most people ignored these aspects of coffee entirely.
In the early nineties I persuaded Bewleys to bring him to Dublin to launch a new Italian Coffee Brand, Caffe La Scala, which I had developed to fight the imports from Italy as an important sub-brand. We offered to bring him and his family over and put them up whilst also committing to ‘making our coffee the best it could be.’
David and I got off to a poor start. I brought him to Ryan’s of Queen Street where there was a pool table, because we both enjoyed a game. He hated the Guinness, the size of the pool balls and table and was driven ballistic by the regulars’ incessant smoking. He stormed out of the bar, expecting me to follow him. I played three more games and shared a few more pints with the locals as he fumed outside. We departed with a few choice words being exchanged. The following morning our service manager Robbie Boyd strolled into my office and informed me that my ‘career was f&%ked’, his usual deadpan grin plastered across his face.
Schomer had turned up downstairs as promised, and was drilling a hole in the group head of a £7000 pound brand new three group Cimbali Espresso machine which he declared was ‘total shit’. A couple of days later at the launch, Schomer nailed the best espresso coffees we had ever tasted and poured latte art (just milk) we could not believe. The flavour of the coffee and the way he worked the silky milk with no bubbles and wet chiffon foam left us all in awe.
I have visited his stores twice since and in early 2005 I sent one of our trainers Gerry out to him. No one makes latte art or trains baristas better than Schomer. Latte art or milk texturing was essential to make coffee and milk dance. It brought so many old consumers back to coffee and so many new young consumers to coffee. If a cafe cares they will strive to present your coffee beautifully. At the moment, single varietal in every manner of infusion without milk is trendy, but milky coffee reigns supreme and Schomer invented these key areas that influenced the entire world with only three shops.
No doubt David and I never really got on which was a pity as I’m sure I would have gained more from the visits. He was moody and different. You did it his way or you f&*kd off. He was the Steve Jobs of coffee and like Jobs his impact and vision were enormous. He had extreme focus which I had never seen and I was just too fluffy to work with.
Of course whilst we’re talking about the Second Wave we must mention Jerry Baldwin, as one of the three founders of Starbucks. Often it’s difficult to discuss Baldwin without mentioning Schultz. Though I’ve always figured he was the lead partner in Starbucks, played all the cards but never wrote the origins book. If we summarise his career, what he did though was float Peets’, opened a couple of hundred coffee shops, drove quality at the SCAA and other coffee bodies and never compromised on his mission in coffee. He has been involved for years in helping to educate coffee farmers trapped in poverty through his work at Technoserve, a truly brilliant NGO. He’s well retired from coffee now (I think?) and has directed his attention towards wine in the Napa valley. His Zinfandel is difficult to get in Ireland but I’m not giving up!! He also supported Howard Schultz financially at times but they seem to be as different as an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and a micro lot Colombian AAA.
Ultimately his strategic choices changed the face of coffee forever. However no one should believe that Schultz couldn’t have grown another super brand around the retail coffee model without Baldwin. Schultz and Baldwin disagreed over which direction Starbucks should take. Schultz favoured pursuing and serving espresso based coffee whilst Baldwin felt that was something only restaurants could and should do. I had the same problem as Schultz in Bewley’s and I admire him not only for having the balls to leave and set up Il Giornale but also because he was prepared to leave his baby and buy Starbucks back from Baldwin two years later for $4m. Schultz was an ingenious and relentless entrepreneur. He didn’t just buy Starbucks back, he also sold it so successfully to the markets that there’s now a Starbucks café on the best corners of nearly every street in the world. They have a right to fight for a share of the new coffee movement but this millennial consumer is a different beast and it will take total transparency and baring the vulnerable soul of Starbucks and nothing less to succeed.
Back to Dublin – Java Republic, 1998
The US had enormous influence on my coffee experience. I traveled first to Florida in 1990 and much to the annoyance of my great pal Donal spent a lot of time in retail coffee shops and small Roasterys. I frequently traveled to Europe, and in particular Italy, but it was the US marketing genius and quality that the Italians were never going to get. There were several trips that defined my future in coffee: San Francisco in 1995, my first SCAA (Speciality Coffee Association of America) show in Minneapolis in 1996, my visit to Caribou’s first store and later two more SCAA shows in Boston and New Orleans. The only other country to leave an equally lasting impression on me was a three week rough trip to India in October 1996. The people, the food, clean dirt, the smells and hope in hopeless situations will always be an outstanding experience of my life at that time. Coffee Origin trips, such as my trip to Narino in Colombia this past May, are probably the main reason I stay in coffee.
In January 1998 I decided I would set up a coffee wholesale business. Nine months later I left Bewleys after twelve great years. One year later, in September 1999, Java Republic started trading. I have been asked too many times; how hard was it? Was your house on the line? How close to bust were you? Did you ever not have the money to pay wages? The truth is we sailed very close to the edge and I never wanted to ask but the risk never really worried me as I couldn’t work it out .We worked hard though and earned some great luck. What I’ll never forget are the number of publicans, chefs, café owners, hotel owners and retailers who believed in what we promised.
The project needed three times the original cash I thought it would and the marketing budget quintupled. I bought the coffee roasting equipment in France in April of 1999 and it was commissioned in July of that year. The packaging was late and the accountant was screaming for his investors to see us in the market place. My one investor John Nagle was fantastic, though Hugh O’Regan, a potential investor had lost confidence back in December 1998. Hugh wanted retail stores under Java Republic and his vision to float the Business with the Thomas Read group I just didn’t get. My old man insisted in investing when we began to start sample roasting in late July 1999.I remember a private call from my Brother asking me not to take the money and I told him no problem that it wasn’t needed but you tell him.
I insisted that all the roasts were sent to Jerry Baldwin (yes the guy above) of Peet’s for approval. The FedEx costs were extortionately expensive and maybe on the third batch of dark roast beans, Jerry Baldwin whom I had never met said the coffee was perfect. Why I insisted on having Jerry Baldwin taste test the coffee, I can’t remember. It’s possible it was driven from my huge admiration for how he ran Peets’. Perhaps I wasn’t overly confident, but in truth we created some beautiful hand-roasted dark roast coffee. That dark roast style coffee built our business.
We were the first company to declare the grade /quality of the Arabica coffee beans we used and the price per lb we paid as well as the roast date of our coffees. We talked about our roasting process openly. We never added water like most of the big commercial guys do, to add weight. We roasted slowly. Our blends were made up of single varietals roasted separately then added together. We maintained the transparency levels we had promised ourselves when we began, but there was still an issue with how much we paid for our beans. Coffee prices dived to record lows in 1999 and stayed low for another three or four years. We started with seven bags of coffee, imported with the help of Clive McCabe (whose son Stephen now runs McCabe’s coffee).We were never really aware of the price of the coffee or its effect on the farmer and workers as these were heavily guarded secrets in Bewleys. Yet at 50p per pound we know now that we really screwed over the coffee farmers and their families for those few years. No doubt it prevented us from going bust and today it makes us more determined not to hold back when discussing any and all issues around sustainability, extreme poverty and the Coffee supply chain. I’ve recently written a separate piece about ethics in coffee that you can read HERE.
At the time in Ireland there were two main roasters, Bewleys and Robert Roberts, two small roasters in Waterford and Dundalk and one roaster in the North and a host of distributors. The existing players did not like our transparency or the super honest marketing. They played pretty dirty for the first few years, blocking suppliers and markets but I built a reputation for fighting back twice as hard.
We were very lucky also to have the support of David Williamson from Matthew Algie. He provided us with equipment when an existing Irish company blocked us. David passed away in April 2008. He was a spectacular character, with that very special sense of humour only the Scots have. If he was still around I have no doubt we’d still be working together, and he’d be right at the forefront of the fourth wave, unmatched by any of us.
The Business grew every year by 20%. In 2007 we planned the move to Ballycoolin. Unfortunately at the time Ireland was moving towards the catastrophic financial crisis of 2008 but we had already committed nearly €7m to the project. Crisis or not, I was building and finishing my Taj. The next three years were about surviving, changing the business, introducing new teas and developing nationwide. The recession deepened yet we refused to compromise on any of the values we had promised ourselves. Even still, I remember the recession years as the wasted years for Ireland. Little was learned, we burnt too much and destroyed a lot of good people and businesses of all sizes.
In 2014 we completely overhauled the brand. We changed radically the roasting profile and in the past eight months we have introduced some stunning new coffees. Export has become a key part of our future business model, with a focus on our new range of Hand-Stitched Silken Tea PIllows. The company has also successfully opened up 2 cafes to engage directly with consumers. We have remained independent so far despite offers from both decent companies and pure profit-driven vultures. The passion is still very much alive and also the drive to constantly evolve the business. No one ever leaves the coffee industry unless your dead.
The Third Wave
The Third Wave is all about the coffee. I mean the First and Second Waves were too but where the Third Wave differs is how it approaches understanding coffee and improving everything that was wrong or very right with the First and Second Wave, especially with regards sustainability. It’s applied what the French wine industry did with Burgundy and the idea of the terroir, to coffee. It’s focused on the farm, the farmer, ethics and sustainability. Of course the new coffee folks must be wary of committing the same mistake as the French. Their arrogance regarding the terroir lead to their being throttled by the new kids in Australia and New Zealand. Coffee as in every industry already has its own assholes (with and without beards) and they mustn’t allow their arrogance to cost them their prime position in the Third Wave. I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into a Café and asked for a drink where the bearded, tattooed, barista looks me up and down to decide if I deserve his work of art.
The third Wave movement, as with the second Wave was attacked and brought under control by the existing dominant coffee players. Most of the good guys seem to have been bought out/sold, but this only leads to more and more players opening every day, maybe in the secret hope of the big payday after so many years of working too hard.
For me, the most important aspect of the Third Wave is how it puts the coffee farmer and their families first. After hundreds of years of being exploited, things are finally changing for the better. The quality of the coffee relies on the farmer’s attitude, the soil quality on his (virtually always his) little patch of land, the altitude of the farm, the temperature and shade available, water, how the coffee trees are grown, what type of coffee varietal suits the land, which fertilisers and herbicides are used, how the coffee cherry is picked, how it’s processed and dried, and making sure the whole affair isn’t rushed to bring in the very hard-earned cash early. The farmer needs to constantly invest in new coffee trees also. Unlike the grape vine the coffee trees produce decreases as it ages. The Third Wave’s commitment to the farmer and his coffee trees can’t be described any better than as terroir with a twist, involving a decent and fair price for the farmer.
Most coffee people who visit Origin understand that Typica, Bourbon, Catuai, Maragogype, Caturra, Geisha, Pacamara and Castillo are types /strains of coffee trees and at some stage in the future you’re going to be told that the Geisha coffee tree actually suits the water in Dublin and your high yielding Typica from your current supplier doesn’t. This will happen and hope I’m dead before that!
The Third Wave has also revolutionised the taste of coffee. Roast profiles now seem to reflect every flavour known to man. Small batch roasters using the latest technology are doing justice to the single varietal beans. Small roasters are creating more roast profiles than the big guys can handle or keep up with. While dark roasted beans are still hugely popular in milk based drinks, no one can suggest that ‘burnt’ roast profiles are the future of coffee yet most of the mainstream retailers sell very dark roasted beans. Originally, I was a major supporter of dark roast beans with milk but I have since turned over to the light side. Today I drink too many light espressos. I still hate Americano’s compared to a good clean crisp round sweet filtered coffee but as 83% of our coffee is sold as Americano’s my marketing dept. has told me not to say it too loud.
Now is also the time of the Super Barista. For too long ‘barista’ was considered a second-rate, part-time job taken up until your ‘chosen career’ became available. Now the barista is a superstar, and is getting the recognition they deserve. The barista community has become the new college, and social media has become their most important tool next to a coffee machine. Dedicated baristas are setting up their own cafes and micro-roasterys. They’re revolutionizing coffee, step by tiny individual step. Their skills are being honed constantly. Watching the Irish Barista Championships has become something akin to watching Wimbledon. The Barista is a coffee maestro, and in terms of esteem I would put them up there with any sports star, three-star chef, musician or artist.
The meteoric rise of the Super Barista started in the US. When the original guys (Intelligentsia and Stumptown) started selling out, the barista community rose up in arms. Charging them with Coffee Treason. The barista community is married to sincere passion as well as commitment, ownership and governance of your brand. Selling out for profit simply isn’t an option. If investors compromise too much, they suffer the wrath on social media. Europe, Scandinavia and Asia are following suit too. Coffee is roasted with passion and love and always with sustainability in mind, which ultimately means that the overall winner in the Third Wave is the farmer.
In Ireland the trade and consumers are totally confused between what is speciality and what is artisan or commercial coffee. The comparison to the new Craft Beer Breweries has little merit as the supply chain is not rotten like coffees and the process is much simpler to finish once it’s bottled and (I’m afraid to say) canned.
In the early days of Java Republic I banned Kenyan coffee and virtually all other East African coffees with the exception of Ethiopian Sidamo because I thought they tasted like shite. I’ve just gotten back from Colombia having cupped possibly the best Speciality Coffees in the world. Recently in Java Republic we cupped some stunning Kenyan, Rwandan and Ethiopian coffees with Scandinavia’s most innovative green bean broker. My mind has changed. The Coffee World is changing and the rate of change is getting quicker. Virtual reality may just cut down on Origin farm visits but it will take some tech wizard to crack cupping.
Ireland was initially slow to embrace this sector as the costs and opportunities remain in both camps but the emphasis on stunning new varietals, incredible innovation in espresso machines and grinders makes us well placed to own our own part of the movement. Hosting the world’s biggest coffee event in Dublin in June 2016 came down to a small group of, brilliant, dedicated Irish Business people and recognition of the best former Irish coffee Barista champions.
How Speciality really Grows
The large commercial players can’t and won’t accept the need for a sustainable market, where coffee prices are disconnected from the New York C contract and the farmer receives a fair price. If the shareholder isn’t getting the grossly extravagant profit they demand, they don’t give a shit. The relentless acquisition of the smaller coffee players proves this, they’re frightened that the market is turning. The Third Wave is calling out for its own sustainability model that reinforces the need for transparency and full traceability. We need real honesty, less arrogance and more patience in the market place.
The real challenge here is to take a huge bite out of the 3 billion coffees sold a day and keep it independent.
I’m very proud of what we have done at Java Republic, my own very strong opinions about ethics and complete transparency and pretty much anything else. It’s being embraced by all of us at as we continue to nourish our company with fresh ideas and innovation.
The Fourth Wave is already beginning to break as technology and robotics becomes a larger part of our world and I believe as long as it works towards addressing transparency and gender balance at the origin it will go some way towards balancing out what we were all complicit in, the multi-generational exploitation of the coffee grower and workers . The companies that embrace change will always flourish.
You don’t have to go to origin to lead Speciality Coffee but you should want to, or at the very least declare the purchase price per lb.
I started my first day in coffee in September 1987, day unknown and hated the taste of coffee for weeks.
I had a vision in 1996 to build our own Roastery. Some great colleagues also believed. It’s 2016 and our Roastery is still so beautiful and having refitted the Cafe we have created the most beautiful coffee space in Europe. I admire all the new roasterys opening across the world, especially those in San Francisco (Sight Glass being my favourite) the Nordic’s, Japan and Korea.
Every day now feels like the first day at Java Republic and that fast changing pace or Wave feels great. I have no favourites left in coffee as every new coffee seems better than the last. We’re cupping more frequently and starting to understand the effort from the farmer in each final complex cup.
Every espresso shot contains about sixty-seven coffee beans. That means thirty-three cherries have to be picked, carried by hand to the mill before being processed, dried, shipped, roasted, packaged, ground, and then poured. A double shot is standard in most coffee drinks. That’s sixty-six cherries that had to be picked by hand. The sheer amount of physical effort that farmers and pickers expend to pick your cherries every day, so you can have you double-shot coffee is extraordinary. The next time you sit down to sip on your beautifully extracted double-shot macchiato, spare a thought for the farmer and his team of pickers.
The best advice I can offer from spending thirty years surfing the three waves of coffee – get to the Origin at least once.
If you’ve any questions on anything to do with any of the above I’d love to hear from you on Twitter, you’ll find me at @jrcoffee.
