Since starting my first cafe in 2002, I’ve been able to observe a few major trends in the specialty coffee industry both here in the US, and worldwide. None, however, seems more significant than the focus on green (raw) coffee quality as the single most important factor in specialty coffee. Frankly, I believe this has been a problem.
Don’t get me wrong, green coffee is really important. Before the specialty coffee movement, coffee was indeed primarily a commodity good until industry pioneers (starting as early as the 60’s and 70’s) started to really push the idea of a quality-focused specialty product. Standing on the shoulders of those giants, specialty coffee roasters in the 2000’s and onward have been able to, together with enterprising coffee producers, exporters, and importers, pull back the shroud of commodification to reveal a deep and rich kaleidoscope of dimensions in coffee.
For me, the green-coffee-centric paradigm is really capsulated by this idea: One cannot increase the quality of a coffee, one can only diminish or preserve the quality of coffee, and we can only hope to preserve the quality through the chain, all the way to the cup.
Image from GeorgeHowellCoffee.com. George is a champion (if not the author) of this doctrine.
Let's call this "The Green Coffee Doctrine." Another way to say this is that the inherent qualities to the coffee fruit will either be preserved through each step of the value chain (picking, processing, freight, roasting, brewing, etc.), or they will diminish in quality by flaws or mistakes at each and any step in the chain. What you cannot do, no matter where you are in the value chain, is make the coffee better than the quality was when you received it. Preserving quality is the best we can do, and it’s the best we can strive for. In fact, preserving that green coffee quality is our mission.
In case there’s any confusion, I believe that this is a great thought! I also think it’s highly problematic.
In any case, it’s become a very popular idea throughout the specialty coffee industry worldwide, and for very good reason. We need to approach coffee with humility, and with the heart of a steward. Coffee is not ours to mold to our whims, instead there are flavor and aroma experiences inherent to each coffee that the roaster and barista must be caretakers of, carefully coaxing the best of what the coffee has to offer. It’s the qualities when it is green, when it was fresh green, that are our duty to protect and reveal, never ruin with roasting mistakes or poor brewing.
In response to this call to action, roasting has gotten lighter and lighter as roasters appear to be afraid of ruining the coffee with the slightest hint of ‘roastiness’ (whatever that means), which in turn has affected brewing and extraction as baristas work to produce the best beverage they can out of the beans they’re given. So the focus is ultimately on the green coffee, and the qualities within. Everything else at times seems like a necessary evil.
Yes, this has become a very, very popular idea. But for a moment, set that idea aside, and let me present a different doctrine. Let’s call it “The Barista Doctrine,” and let me start with this idea: Green coffee is worthless.
Yes, even the finest, rarest green coffee. "Sacrilege!" you may think. But really, why is it worth anything? Is it a piece of art that you put on the wall? Is it valuable as a trophy, to carry around and show off to your friends? Do you swallow it and enjoy medicinal effects? Do you put it in storage and enjoy an increase in value over the course of many years? Of course not. Why is it of value? Because you or someone else has tasted the coffee and decided it was special enough to be of high monetary value.
But how did they taste it? Or more specifically, what form of the coffee did they taste? The green beans? The roasted beans? The ground coffee beans? Obviously the answer is: the extracted beverage from the ground, whole-bean roasted coffee beans. That beverage, is the thing that is of value.
"But with poor quality green coffee, you can never have a good beverage!" the apologists have argued. Yes, that’s true. That does not make green coffee quality a superior factor than brewing. It merely comes before.
And before it’s brewed, the practical value of that coffee exists in the form of potential value, and potential alone. Without brewing, that coffee is effectively worthless. Brewing is the point of transformation, when all of the potential is actualized. Brewing is where the value of any coffee is realized.
So who cares? Is this just a pedantic splitting of hairs? Green Coffee Doctrine vs. Barista Doctrine–I believe that which doctrine you subscribe to can have a significant impact on how you approach your particular role as a coffee professional, and how a roasting company approaches its work.
By the Green Coffee Doctrine, each step downstream from the newly dry-milled green coffee bean comes with the directive, "Don't ruin it." In roasting, roasters seek to exert as little of their own influence as possible. In brewing, baristas work to honor the work of everyone upstream by revealing the quality conveyed through that work.
In my perspective, the perspective of the Barista Doctrine, every step in the value chain is about supporting the brewing in producing the most delicious beverage possible. Roasting is not about the green coffee, the roasting is about preparing the coffee for brewing, to maximize the potential for quality brewing. In fact, you could look at roasting as not actually being a separate process, rather the first stage of transformation into the beverage.
The green coffee too, does not enjoy value in its current form. A quality coffee beverage comes from green coffee that is best suited for transformation into a quality beverage. That is, best for roasting and brewing. The green coffee has no value until it's brewed, therefore the most valuable green coffee should be that which can be best transformed into a delicious beverage.
In more practical terms, coffee professionals have been mostly focused on the idea of transforming solubles, when thinking about coffee flavor and quality. Roasting is about developing and transforming solubles in the green coffee. Brewing is about extracting those solubles from the roasted coffee. But as we know, about two-thirds of roasted coffee is insoluble cellulose, comprising the cell wall structure of the coffee (and the chaff). When we brew, efficient penetration of the cell structure by water is directly correlated with extraction rates. When we're focused on protecting the green coffee's qualities, we lean towards light roasting, to minimize too much caramelization and Maillardization, and preventing any carbonization. When we're focused on the brewing, we realize that efficient brewing means a cell structure that promotes efficient diffusion and osmosis.
In fact, when you pull that idea apart, the idea that a roaster does not and can not add value to the coffee is false humility. Roasting does more than change the solubles, it establishes the reality of the structure and chemistry that greets the water during brewing. The Green Coffee Doctrine adherents will argue, "But the roaster cannot add value... they cannot make the coffee more delicious than it is." Really? More delicious than what? Than inedible, unbrewable green coffee? Can one roaster roast the coffee to a higher quality than another roaster can? Yes. Emphatically, yes. It's not just about roast degree, it's about temperature profiles over time, airflow, heat application, etc. It's not that roasters don't add value, it's some people are choosing not to acknowledge the added value. I believe that this is counterproductive and is holding the craft of roasting back.
Once everything's handed off to the barista, it's indeed their job to tune the variables at their disposal to take the water and coffee and transform them into a delicious beverage. The better suited for brewing the roasting and green coffee are, the better the result can be. But put the focus on something else, like the idea that you should roast it as lightly as possible, leaving that barista to do what they can to eke something good out of those beans, and you've set everyone up for something less than you're probably capable of.
Green Coffee Doctrine vs. Barista Doctrine. Obviously neither of these doctrines is mutually exclusive, but I think it's useful to contemplate a counterpoint to the prevailing paradigm. I love to say that so much of coffee is reflective of the human condition, and there are few absolute truths for either. Finding balance, wrestling with seemingly contradictory factors, and questioning everything, is how you get closer to truth.