What is boutique coffee? Definition and Standard of Fine Coffee

Boutique coffee (specialty coffee) was first proposed by Erna Knustsen, the godmother of boutique coffee, in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal monthly in 1974, when she was a coffee purchasing expert at B.C. Ireland in San Francisco and coined the new word "specialty coffee" based on professional knowledge. It shows that only in the most favorable micro-season and soil and water can high-quality coffee with unique flavor be cultivated. Knudsen has always been opposed to the coffee industry blindly pursuing the invariance and monotonicity of flavor with cheap formula beans, ignoring the uniqueness of coffee produced by different soil and water conditions.

Terroir: this word means regional flavor, that is, different soil, variety, climate and soil and water make different flavor of coffee. It is the soul of boutique coffee, without the unique taste of coffee, it is not boutique coffee, but ordinary commercial beans or canned coffee (large canned coffee beans or powder).

When Knudsen first put forward the new term "boutique coffee", he paid more attention to the relationship between the upstream planting environment and the quality of coffee. Today, the American Fine Coffee Association redefines it as: carefully selecting the most suitable variety, planting it in the altitude, climate, soil and water environment that is most conducive to the development of coffee flavor, careful washing and sun processing, and selecting the most advanced raw beans without defects. Zero defects in the process of transportation, delivered to customers. After the superb craftsmanship of the roaster, it leads to the richest regional flavor, and then brews delicious coffee according to the recognized extraction standard. Thus it can be seen that high-quality coffee begins with the flawless top raw beans, and finally has a distinctive regional flavor in the cup, not only to drink smoothly, but also to be mellow, such as jade liquid, which suddenly feels sweet and moisturizes the throat before it is qualified to be called boutique coffee.

Commodity beans are monotonous, slightly bitter and must be sweetened to taste, while boutique beans have a distinct regional flavor, sour and mellow, with sugar or cream as if they were wild.

Boutique coffee emphasizes the regional flavor of each producing area or manor, so it is mainly individual, with more emphasis on fresh roasting and the courage to mark the baking date to replace the stale canned coffee.

(this article is reproduced)