This post was inspired by recent Twitter conversations with other local coffee professionals. The catalyst was this tweet, linking to an interview on Eater.com;

@marcushundley @_Dylan_Evans Check out this interview: goo.gl/pNCP5 – Do you think about your customers this much? Should we?

— Simon Ouderkirk (@saouderkirk) March 26, 2012

If you haven’t read the interview, definitely do!

Out of the Twitter conversation came some questions that stick with me;

– Is there some responsibility to be placed on a customer during a service interaction? Put another way, is it possible for an interaction in a hospitality situation to go poorly, and the fault lies squarely on the customer? Do we (as coffee professionals) need customers to be in a certain mindset for our hospitality to take root? If so, what does that say about our industry?

– What does it mean to serve a customer? Does it mean to provide them exactly what they want, even if you dislike it? Does it mean to exercise expertise and provide them the best thing you can, even if their (perhaps uninformed) desires point elsewhere? How is it good service to sell something you’re not proud of? How is it good service to deny a customer’s desires? Where do good service and business acumen intersect?

– Do we put too much weight on the actual, personal interaction when we think about service? How positive does an interaction have to be to overcome a bad context? A dirty store? Does lovely latte art outweigh a sloppy barista?

 

 

The RG has announced their Coffees of the Year for 2012!

Two things jump out to me as surprising:

1.) Three of these coffees are from Hawaii and
2.) None of these coffees scored over an 89

First: huge congrats to Hawaiian coffee growers. 2011-12 has been a great year for them – right on the tail of Pete Licata winning the USBC, this is very good news. I had unfortunately overlooked Hawaiian coffee as a high level competitor on the specialty scene, and it is kind of nice to see them recognized. It’s probably time for me (and the rest of us!) to take another look. I think a trip to the islands is in order!

Second: What does it say about our scoring system that the winning coffees in this competition failed to break 90? It looks from the RG announcement that the scoring was done at least in part by Q-Graders, so I’m assuming that they used the SCAA form, which I am somewhat familiar with. It strikes me as surprising that a full half of the field is right around 86. With the bright line between specialty and non-specialty falling at 80 points, that 6 point spread between ‘non-specialty’ and ‘coffee of the year’ must house an awful lot of beans.