A Geography of Taste: Coffee Quality and Spatialized Tag Clouds

Frank LaFone, Bradley Wilson, Trevor Harris Department of Geology and Geography West Virginia University

The $13 Cup of Coffee

•  “It’s very fruity, juicy, good mouth feel, [and] full bodied.“ Jay Caragay, Baltimore coffee shop Spro, selling a 12 ounce cup of for $13 • "The cup was very balanced, with slight orange notes. It had a clean finish… In the start and through the finish, in the aroma and in the taste, you can identify many different notes."“  Caroline Bell, Brooklyn coffee shop Café Grumpy selling a $9 cup of coffee • “How you brew isn't as important as what you brew…So it's all about the bean.”  Alan Kaiser of the National Coffee Association • “ $13 coffee worth the brew-haha?

” by John DeVore and Steven Stern, CNN April 7, 2010

Background: The Coffee Paradox

• Latte revolution - Dramatic changes in coffee procurement and retail marketing since 1980s • Buyer-driven trade dynamics - small, medium and large-scale roasters and retailers w/ increased control over value chain • A ‘coffee boom’ in consuming countries and a ‘coffee crisis’ in producing countries

Background: Existing Geographic Research

• Global Value Chains, Economic Restructuring, Crisis • Agro-Ecology of Farming Communities, Biodiversity Conservation, Livelihoods • Coffee Certifications, Market-based Development Initiatives • Ethical Consumerism, Alternative Trade Networks • What about Taste and Place?

Taste and Place

• Taste is subjective, personal, complex – yet taste is used to determine coffee quality and thus price • “special geographic microclimates produce beans with unique flavor profiles” (Knutsen) • Taste continues to trump other qualities (i.e. ethical, ecological values) – Sensory Evaluation = Buying Decision – Professional Coffee Quality Evaluators • Try to identify unique flavor profiles of coffee produced around the world • Enforce of quality standards

Defining Specialty Coffee

“Until the moment that the roasted coffee is brewed and transformed into a beverage, the concept of specialty coffee is locked up as a possibility, just a potentially wonderful gustatory experience. Starting at ground level, so to speak, we must limit specialty coffee to those that are drawn from the appropriate intersection of cultivar, microclimate, soil chemistry and husbandry.” - Ric Rhinehart www.scaa.org

Coffee Cupping

Cup of Excellence

• Quality Competition and Internet Auction • “The Oscars of Coffee” – “Highest Echelon” • Started Brazil 1999, Guatemala 2001 • 2010 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Rwanda – Most stringent coffee cupping standards and evaluation techniques – 300-500 competition entries /country /year

What makes an “excellent” cup of coffee?

• Sought to understand Cup of Excellence competition and auction outcomes • Spatial analysis of Central America results 2003-2009.

– Back link coffee evaluation from cup to crop • Explore environmental factors effecting taste - varietals, soils, climate, and farm practices, regional geographic location (terroir)

Database Development

• Barrier: No data stored in traditional database forms or formats • Recorded information on paper, translated into website ( http://www.cupofexcellence.org/ ) • Only “winners” scoring above 80 recorded • Information copied from the website and placed into an initial database for analysis

Cup of Excellence Winners By The Numbers

Countries Years Number of Winners Minimum Score Maximum Score Median Score Mean Score Minimum Price /lb.

Maximum Price /lb.

Median Price /lb.

Mean Price /lb.

Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala 2003 – 2009 756 80.25

95.76

85.95

86.70

$1.16 $68.17 $3.83 $4.61

Cup of Excellence Competition Data Description – Environmental Variables

Variable Range, Examples

Year 2003-2009 Country City Region Coffee Variety Processing Method Farm Name Farmer Farm Size Coffee Growing Area Altitude Certifications Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador Citalá, Jinotega, etc Corquin, San Juan Sacatepéquez, etc Bourbón, Caturra and Catuai Washed and sun dried, Conventional, etc Santa Elena II, Shangrilá, etc Julia Rosa Mena de Lima, Ernesto Lima Mena, etc Hectares Hectares Meters Fair Trade, Organic, etc

Cup of Excellence Competition Data Description – Competition Variables

Variable

Rank Score Lot Size Cupping Number Price 2003 Dollars Winning Bidder Descriptors

Range, Examples

1 - n (n differs by country/year) 80-100 Number of bags/boxes submitted Unique ID number USD in current year Derived from above World Coffee Co.,Ltd., The Rosterie Inc, etc.

Citrus, creamy, mellow, complex, chocolate, sweet, floral, melon, butterscotch, rich, orange, carrot, jasmine, honey, spicy, syrupy, licorice

Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Quantitative Approach

• No notable correlations for environmental factors (e.g. altitude vs. price).

• Notable correlation price (i.e. auction outcome) vs. rank (i.e. competition outcome) – Clear outliers – Variability in each rank – Why do certain entries get better auction when the get lesser rank?

– Does flavor (descriptors) drive price?

Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Qualitative Approach • Created Dictionary of Coffee Descriptors – Massaging the database • Flavor wheel too limiting • Descriptor groups by country/ rank/ price/ etc • Need for qualitative analysis – flavor descriptors influence the outcomes

Approach To Qualitative ESDA

• Visual tools can help the brain efficiently process complex ideas and relationships • Wordles – Created by Jonathan Feinberg of IBM – Owned and copyrighted by IBM – Display words in different sizes based upon word counts in a piece of text – Outputs are designed primarily to be an ‘artistic’ rendering, not scientific analytical – Can compare wordle outputs to see differences in word counts in two (or more) pieces of text

Wordles

Comparative Wordles

Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank

Comparative Wordles

Highest Dectile of Price Compared to Lowest Dectile of Price

El Salvador Comparative Wordles

Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank

El Salvador Comparative Wordles

Highest Dectile of Price Compared to Lowest Dectile of Price

Nicaragua/El Salvador Comparative Wordles By Rank

Future Directions

Conclusions

1.

2.

Environmental variables aren’t important – anyone can win Flavor wheel isn’t that important 3. Complex dictionary of descriptors  Semiotically rich 4. Difference in descriptors for rank and price 5. Differences between countries 6. Descriptors are non-random  they have notable outcomes

Questions? Comments? Thank You

Frank LaFone, Bradley Wilson, Trevor Harris Department of Geology and Geography West Virginia University

Nicaragua Comparative Wordles

Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank