#What's a good cup of coffee #Know the coffee in your heart

In recent years, boutique coffee has been hung in the mouth of many Chinese people, saying the word boutique coffee with a little arrogance and confidence. Some guests always ask me whether your shop is "boutique coffee / manor coffee" or "commercial coffee". In fact, as long as I ask, "excuse me, which belongs to boutique coffee / manor coffee, which belongs to commercial coffee?" Usually guests will say, "boutique coffee is good quality coffee, taste good, there is designated manor coffee, commercial coffee is large-scale commercial coffee." So, from this point of view, boutique coffee is not made for business? Is it for the public good? In addition, does commercial coffee have to be excessive coffee? I think sometimes Chinese people are too "radical" and too "swallowed". For many people who are new to coffee, they do not understand fine coffee at all, but just imitate others. Or want to show their "insight" through such professional words, I am not going to satirize these guests, first of all, it is worth affirming that they use such words. It shows that they are interested in quality coffee enough, and they are willing to taste it, which is the reason why you are motivated to finish reading this article. Next, I would like to briefly talk about the boutique coffee under my understanding. I would also like to declare that this is only my own long-term experience of drinking, roasting and making coffee. It is the feeling of contact with the coffee industry, not authority. I just hope to share some of my own understanding and feelings with you. If you have different opinions, you can also share them with us.

All right, let's get back to business. Let's talk about the boutique coffee I know. When it comes to boutique coffee, we have to say the source of the Chinese word. Our so-called boutique coffee is actually the translation of English specialty coffee. Needless to say, Coffee means coffee and can be translated literally. As for this specialty, the word is a noun, and its prototype is the adjective special, which means something special, something different and usually good. Turning into a noun, that is, specialty, refers to having some special attributes or characteristics, which, of course, refers to distinctive characteristics. Before 1974, the proper term specialty coffee did not exist in the coffee industry. This term was first used by Ms. Erna Knutsen in an article by Tea & Coffee Trade Journal to describe coffee with a unique flavor and grown in a special microenvironment. Since then, the word specialty coffee has been widely used. In fact, there is also a big background, that is, in the American coffee market, low-cost excessive coffee is widespread in the world, and people can not drink good coffee, let alone coffee with unique flavor. Therefore, specialty coffee is specially used to distinguish between cheap and excessive coffee in the past. In this way, specialty coffee is closely associated with being "different" from birth. The translation of Chinese into "fine works" is not only not inappropriate, but also very appropriate, and it is also catchy.

In fact, the definition of SCAE does not give us an answer, and in the end, it does not make it clear what fine coffee is, and judging from its words, it uses humbly, which is very similar to our Chinese word for "only." It shows that SCAE himself does not hold a very absolute view of this definition. But there is one thing that is clearly stated, that is, planting "in a specific area", that is, what we call microenvironment / climate (microclimate), and what we call "traceability", that is, traceability in English. However, it is not clear how small this "source" goes back to, and to what category this micro-environment is "micro". There is no standard for whether it is a mountain top, an acre of land, or a mountain depression.

Let's take a look at another boutique coffee authority, SCAA, how it is defined. SCAA defines as long as coffee exceeds 80 points (out of 100) in the evaluation as specialty. Americans seem to be smarter, and they make effective use of their evaluation rights, so if they want to define it as a boutique, it must first be evaluated by them or their authorized personnel. Although specialty coffee is proposed and promoted by Americans, it is definitely not available only to Americans. If there is no coffee given to them for evaluation, is it necessarily not fine coffee? I think this must be against the concept of boutique coffee.

Well, it seems that the high-quality and unique flavor of boutique coffee has been accepted by the vast number of coffee drinkers, but there is still no clear watershed on how to define boutique coffee, at least these authorities have not yet given a universal line.

Some guests told me that boutique coffee is manor coffee, which is a little more vague. What is manor coffee? I think the concept comes from wine. It is true that some coffee comes from specific families or farms, such as CASA RUZI,Clinfton Mount Estate,Hacienda Esmeralda, these are relatively independent, historical, background family-run estates, they are world-famous for their high-quality coffee beans, their coffee beans also directly participate in international auctions, or have direct ways to sell, or roasters come to buy. But such coffee farms are after all one of the few. Most of the coffee is grown by scattered farmers in some areas and then purchased by purchasers and sent to processing plants for processing and re-export. For example, Hacienda la Minita is a Costa Rican farming and processing farm that produces its own high-quality coffee, which, needless to say, belongs to what we call manor coffee. However, due to Raminita's reputation, the industry is getting bigger and bigger. You can see that many coffees not grown in Costa Rica are also marked with Laminita's logo. For example, recently, the well-known Manchester coffee Aceh Gold marks Laminita. In fact, this is coffee grown by small farmers in Aceh, Sumatra. It is acquired and refined, but the production process is supervised by Laminita. To meet the product standards of Raminita, we can see that the sign says "Quality Certified", that is, quality certification. So the gold of Aceh, is this bean a manor bean? Yes, no, no.

In fact, in addition to these specific farms, we often see some signs on the Internet, as well as coffee sacks, such as sertinsa, P.T. Vol kopi, MPC, trabocca and so on. These are neither small farmers nor farms, but coffee importers and exporters who will appear in coffee producing areas of different countries, purchase coffee, supervise the production of coffee, and then sell it to roasters, whether these coffee belong to manor coffee. Or boutique coffee?

By now, some friends may understand that some friends may be completely confused, and those who understand may understand that boutique coffee is an idea, while confused friends may be confused about what is brilliant coffee.

In my opinion, refined and unrefined, in fact, is a kind of relative, this kind of relative itself does not have an absolute boundary. The original intention of boutique coffee is to pay more attention to the quality of coffee, so that our cup is filled with a cup of coffee, rather than a cup of muddy bitterness. For the majority of coffee drinkers, a cup of coffee that makes you satisfied is your boutique coffee. Of course, if you can find the source of the coffee in your cup, it will add more cultural color to your coffee cup, and you can imagine how the beans brewing this cup of coffee bask in the sun on that land, absorb nutrients, and then be picked. After layers of processing and baking and packaging by local roasters, it finally comes to your cup. But if you don't know this, or if the background of this cup of coffee is not clear, there is nothing to lose for you who drink coffee.

Boutique coffee to pass on to us is a concept, a pursuit of excellence, feel the quality of the idea and belief, this is the final concept of the essence of Erna Knutsen, we do not need to go to the "boutique" and go to the boutique, abandon miscellaneous thoughts, to feel the simple beauty of a cup of coffee.

China Coffee Trading Network: www.gafei.com