What’s up DOC?

Authenticity is the next big chapter for our industry

Our industry is in an interesting inflection point, we’re likely the most open and transparent we’ve ever been, due to modern day technology, willingness for peer-to-peer learning and overall excitement for what the specialty coffee industry is becoming. At the same time, we’re in a position where nothing is truly defined, all sorts of different language is utilized to describe the same action, process or variety, and there is rarely a clear path available… with that, we cause confusion, discrepancy and controversy within the industry. It’s the wild wild west out here…

In a cafe setting, something simple, like a cappuccino is different all over the world.

In a roasting operation, there’s no alignment on roast colour. My dark might be your light.

In a producing country, there’s no protections on branding or marketing of a certain region or terroir.

This week is a practice of thinking out loud and we’d love to hear from you about your thoughts, experiences or any sort of insights on the matter.

Let’s begin from the perspective of a producing country. Sit down at your local cafe, order yourself a cappuccino, light or dark roast, whatever you want to call it…

We’ve all heard of or tried the famous Kona coffee? Well this is a fascinating example to zoom in on as Kona has a DOC – a Denomination of Origin Control.

If you’re not familiar with the idea of a protected Denomination of Origin, the world of wine is very common to explore working examples, suchas Champagne AOC, Chianti DOCG, Prädikatswein, and many, many others – locally created to protect the reputation and the style of the region, generally with different tiers and badges of merit within a certain system. These systems exist in spirits, like scotch, ‘Tequila’ is a denomination of origin, whisky/whiskey, in cheese, in beer and many, many other craft consumables.

So let’s look at Kona, a powerful brand name in the world of coffee. You might be surprised that as of today, products are allowed to be exported from Hawai’i as “Kona coffee” if as little as 10% Kona beans are in the package, with the remainder sourced from other regions globally, which happens to be mostly low price point Brazilian blenders… This practice obviously has misled consumers and heavily deflated the once prestigious value of authentic Kona coffee. In response, Hawaiʻi lawmakers recently introduced Senate Bill 2298, which mandates that roasted, instant, or ready-to-drink coffee marketed as “locally sourced Kona” must contain at least 51% local coffee and this will go into effect July 1, 2027.

That leads me to question, when I purchase a bag of coffee—roasted or green—how do I actually know if the product in that bag is the same as the product on the label of that bag, which I think I purchased? Well, this is something I think about more often than the average consumer.

I love the reference of wine and spirits here—I know a lot of people don’t like to compare our industries, because “they’re different”, well, they’re parallel too—in wine and spirits, the product is completed by the same people who produce it. When I buy a bottle, I have very high certainty that it’s authentic as it appears. On the other hand, the complexity in the trade of coffee, is the producer sells to a roaster, that then sells to a cafe or consumer and therefore many things are bound to get lost in translation… Rare does a producer go direct to consumer.

You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve sat down in a well known, not at all well known, cafe and ordered something that immediately I know is not. Same with the purchase of beans from roasters or, the same from coffee producers. Sadly, in coffee competitions this is a prevalent practice, where competitors speak a narrative of one coffee, yet they serve a different coffee that they think better fits the scoresheet, and personally I think all of the above should be penalized. The lacking transparency is becoming more and more difficult to deal with and the damage it does to our industry is yet to truly be revealed.

In the world of wine, these local protections became more and more prominent through history due to producers moving grapes or juice from other regions and labelling them as their premium product – all the sudden having yields from single houses far exceed that of the entire region. This led to a depreciation of the brand value and local government to step in and create laws, designated zones, Premier Crus, Grand Crus and other sort of areas.

Let’s say I purchase a Geisha from a producer in Panama, how do I know that I’m getting a Geisha from their farm in Panama? I don’t receive a certificate of authenticity, I don’t have any paperwork from a local governing body that gives me certainty that this product is what it says it is, I simply have trust. No different to if I purchase a coffee from Yirgacheffe, or Burundi, or Guatemala—how do I know with certainty that these products are what they say they are? It’s common in Northern Guatemala and Southern Mexico to move coffee over the border where local receiving stations pay higher prices, same thing between Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. So how do we know what we’re getting? and, does it really matter?

Recently I had an experience seeing one of the most expensive coffees ever sold in the World listed on a menu, and I was shocked to see the price point that the company was selling it for was lower than the price they paid. They just paid that prices a few months ago, and now they’re selling it for a loss? This lead me to believe that this coffee they’re selling might not actually be the coffee they’re advertising, and rather, they’ve decided to purchase the marketing narrative and sell a cheaper product into that because simply, we won’t know.

I love our industry and the exciting crossroads that we continue to find ourselves in. We’ve come a long way and we’ve got a long way to go.

We’d love to hear from you on your experiences with authenticity in the World of coffee. Are there systems or platforms that you’ve seen in other industries that we can look to borrow or utilize? Are we at a point that we need to create localized denominations of origin and protect the authenticity of product? Can we find ways to ensure that the product in a bag is truly the product in a bag? What if coffee producers cut out roasters and just started roasting and shipping direct to consumer themselves—would this eliminate the need for all of the above?

If this stirred up any thoughts, you can respond to this email, message us through social media, or localize your conversation amongst your friends and colleagues.

Reading: The EU Commission recently delayed the enforcement of its deforestation-free regulations for certain commodities. While the goal is to protect forests, this delay raises questions about its impact on global supply chains and whether it will effectively curb deforestation. For more context, revisit our earlier newsletter, where we give our personal takes on the issue.

Watching: SpaceX’s Starship took to the skies, and we couldn’t help but watch in awe. There’s something deeply inspiring about seeing humanity push boundaries on such a massive scale. With milestones like in-space engine ignition and advanced heat protection, this flight brought us closer to a future beyond our atmosphere. Maybe next time they’re roasting authentic DOC protected coffee in the starship? Watch the launch here.

Listening: Well this week is a double watching… This documentary, Sour Grapes, is super fascinating and delves deep into the world of fraudulent wine and highlights the genius of the man who single-handedly is responsible for creating what is now a multi-billion dollar industry, and the multitude of authenticity systems that have now been put in effect to try to slow down this beast…

Brewing: This weekend was spent in Montreal for the Canadian Brewers Cup Championship and we’d like to shout out Ply Pasarj as the 2025 Canadian Brewers Cup Champion. Ontop of that, shoutout to Le Grand Cormoran for the delicious Freddo Espresso and geeky coffee conversation.

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. Two people ran marathons this week, big ups to them. Help us push a few more kilometers through this week?

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward

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!