⭐️ Buy The Drip to receive first Michelin Star ⭐️

a Michelin Guide for Specialty Coffee??

The Michelin Guide, along with the World’s 50 Best Restaurants and 50 Best Bars lists, has long been the gold standard for evaluating the top iterations of culinary excellence. Michelin stars bring prestige and recognition to the restaurants that earn them, marking them as places of the highest quality. Receiving a Michelin star or appearing on the 50 Best lists is not just about the food, service, and ambiance; it also serves as a powerful marketing tool, attracting diners from around the world, like the two of us, fascinated to experience the Best in any craft.

Restaurants that receive these honours often gain international visibility, a higher number of “bums-in-seats” or patrons of the business, a generally better brand reputation, which then could lead to partnerships, media features, and even celebrity endorsements. These restaurants become destinations for food tourism, generating interest on a global scale. Not to mention the prestige of the chef and the exponential career growth they often experience after making a list.

For the coffee industry, these models—whether Michelin stars or the 50 Best lists—offer a roadmap for recognizing excellence which as a community we haven’t really explored just yet. While coffee has competitions, like the World Barista Championship, there’s no ranking system that spotlights the best coffee shops or roasters. Creating such a system could raise the industry’s profile, helping the most innovative and quality-focused coffee businesses gain more recognition.

Should the specialty coffee industry have its own 50 Best? Gold Cups? “Best of ___” Or are these ranking systems flawed, perennially benefiting only a select few?

Dave’s Take;

Michelin star, World’s 50 Best lists, or a newly made up “Gold Cups” for the average consumer, these rankings provide a trusted and easy way to recognize which cafés or roasters are worth trying. Such accolades act as an endorsement of quality, making it easier for customers to navigate the growing and often overwhelming choices in the specialty coffee industry.
 
Incorporating such systems into the coffee world could not only elevate brands but also create a wider appreciation for high-quality coffee. For businesses, it’s an opportunity to set themselves apart in a crowded market and for consumers, a reliable guide to the best coffee experiences.

Cole’s Take;

I have friends that travel specifically to eat. Food tourism. They go with a schedule of meals, ready to explore an itinerary of the dingiest dives and the most prestigious, experiential dining establishments. Often these are found through the Michelin Guide. Usually if they’re exploring coffee, they don’t have such a resource to build a list—forced to utilize sources like Google, yelp, or word-of-mouth, which are all viable, important sources, though these are ranked by the community, not by the experts or “critics”.

It would be incredible to have a globalized, structured, annual “Best of Coffee”

Creating a public evaluation criteria, creates a concise mind in both the operator of the brand as well as the consumers, or food + coffee tourists, which might frequent this list.

I saw one list of Top 100 Roasters in the last year that I enjoyed reading through and understanding their scoring criteria, the judges involved in the process—then I looked further into it recently and saw they’re a subscription business, offering monthly deliveries of roasters… on the list, which to me makes the list no longer genuine. For the record, I think the List itself is fantastic and highlights so many of my personal favourite roasters, it introduced me to new ones and hey, I’m stoked and grateful that Rosso makes an appearance on the list as the highest Canadian roaster at #32. Then, I look further, and I see a lot of the relatively short list of judges are also on the list as roasters and well, now I feel it’s a bit self-perpetuating and hard to trust.

Is there someone reading this that’s ready to do a non-bias, Top 50 or Top 100?

Is that something we need as industry? Is there a way to objectively achieve it?

Would love to hear your thoughts! If you’d like to, respond to this email, or comment on the web version 

Reading: In “The Practice,” Seth Godin emphasizes that “The magic isn’t in the outcome. The magic is in the process of showing up and doing the work.” This perspective on consistent creativity has helped us in our business, newsletter, and even coffee competitions, guiding us to value the process.

Watching: In “A Day With a Barista in One of NYC’s Busiest Coffee Shops” The New York Times profiles Arnaldo Hernandez Mundo at Grand Central Station. The piece highlights his efficiency and skill, offering a glimpse into the demanding life of a barista in one of the city’s busiest locations. It’s excellent exposure for the coffee industry, showcasing the dedication required in such a high-pressure environment.

Listening: Listen to Colin Harmon, Founder of the renowned Dublin coffee chain 3fe, on the 5th Wave Podcast. He discusses his approach to long-term goals and the key metrics he tracks to enhance business performance. For more insights, check out his book, What I Know about Running Coffee Shops.

Brewing: We’ve been hosting a “Coffee Camp” with our team, focusing on different subjects and experiences in coffee, and this past week we were brewing a Roast Defect Kit from Taster’s Coffee in Taiwan. With the team, we explored a singular coffee, with eight roasting iterations, that had been categorized as baked, scorched, over-developed and under-developed, with two examples per, described as “barely” and “obviously”. Powerful insights and a reminder as to the importance of Roast Profiling.

this week, Cole used ChatGPT with a prompt; “significant and farfetched plants, with a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere. I hope this aligns with your vision of an imaginative and magical tropical coffee shop, maybe something you’d find in Changmai!”

This cafe sure knows how to grow it’s customer base

“We’re heavily rooted in the community”

I feel like they’ve been there forever and just starting to blossom

respond with a photo of your brew bar or get creative with an AI generated scene and we’ll feature and share in an upcoming week of BTD

Distance: Buy the Drip run club. Clocking some kilometers. This week, we covered the distance from Paris, France to Brussels, Belgium

as a group, we’re capable of covering a lot of distance

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start”

Want to join us as we hit the road? Let’s connect on Strava! or, join our Whoop group – just respond to the email and let’s grind together!