Experiencing caffe culture Part B. Coffee Culture Trends
30 June 2010
In this article I want to skim over the major trends I saw at Caffe Culture 2010. This event is a great place to see what is up and coming within the international coffee and cafe market, and gave me a rare insight in many different areas of the industry.
Super automatics on the rise
This was a major trend that I saw at Caffe Culture, the rise in Super Automatic fresh bean fresh milk machines. The interesting thing is this is not so much targeted at the office and corporate sectors; these markets are already all about the Super automatic coffee machine, but much more at the café market, where the traditional espresso system currently reigns supreme.
The idea here is not so much to target the high end speciality coffee market and cafés where Baristas are more than over-passionate about every facet of their coffee and consumers are as picky, but more to general café population where there is a high level of staff and business and there is not the infrastructure or expenditure to train everyone to be a super barista. Many of the Super automatic machines are now being released with steam arms for use by the operator to steam and heat milk for separate pouring, so the operator can count on the machine to produce a consistent coffee extraction and then the operator can give the theatre element of the café with the pouring of milk. The Super Automatic machines themselves are also being more and more styled to fit in with the designer interior of the modern café. While the coffee aficionado would turn up their nose at the idea, many regular coffee drinkers would probably welcome it as it reduces their chances of a bad coffee at their local café.
Temperature stability in espresso systems
With speciality coffee becoming more and more popular internationally, the manufacturers of espresso systems are all now boasting superior temperature stability within their espresso systems, as a feature for a better and more consistent coffee extraction. It was interesting to note that this was the major selling point that brands at café culture were presenting. While it might be a little presumptuous I would like to note that Dalla Corte were the first and are still the best with temperature stability, but it seems the other brands are slowly sneaking up.
Filter coffee and Single Origin blends. The next big thing?
I noticed that with many of the coffee brands I encountered that single origin blends were a big selling point in their cache of products. And with the more cutting edge brands, like Mathew Algie, the introduction of filter coffees as their main tasting attraction shows their could be a shift in the speciality coffee market. Upon inspecting the stands I was then offered multiple ways of filtering the chosen single origin that were described to me as offering different highlights of the bean. The Siphon method of coffee extraction was also a new big ‘thing’ the brands were pushing, with several different models on display around the exhibition. I’m sure we will be seeing more and more filter coffee appearing in the speciality coffee market in the near future as well as single origin coffees offered by brands.
The prime example of this trend was the WBC 2010 feature ‘Brew Bar’ which allowed the Caffe Culture participants to experience the best of the brews featuring equipment like Aeropress, Chemex, Bodum Press Pots, Tru Bru brew rails with Hario V60’s and Siphon brewers alongside any single origins and several seasonal coffees from famous specialty micro roasters.
Green Green Green. Ethical Ethical Ethical.
These were the magical words this year at Café Culture. In the coffee bean department ethical certification reigned supreme. Most brands were promoting that their blends all contained multiple levels of certification and they purchased their coffee direct from the farmers so they had a personal relationship with the community. Ethical, sustainable and traceable were the key buzzwords on display. And In my opinion it seems the consumer has spoken on this one.
However, with major chain brands like Starbucks and McCafe picking up fairtrade and rainforest alliance certified coffee, the speciality market has also made an about turn and have also started educating their consumers on the other aspects of ethical coffee and quality coffee to remain above the bar here. It is important to note that if a coffee bean is certified ethical it doesn’t necessarily make it a quality bean, just an ethical bean, so the speciality brands were big on promoting the other ethical aspects that make their coffee both ethical and of the highest quality, such as traceability and building positive and long-term relationships with the growing communities. In the coffee machine playing field, the big contenders were recyclable materials and energy efficiency. It was positive to note that ABC’s major brands shaped up at the top in these fields, while it was also a positive that quite a few of the brands on display were following suite.
