Specialty Coffees Win!

Earlier in the year, a consumer study was released by Market Force Information, a "worldwide leader in customer intelligence solutions".  2,000 people were surveyed.  One focus was the coffee (and tea) sector and here's what it had to say:- Of 2,000 respondents, 82% of them said they drink coffee.  Most cited the bigger "mass" brands like Folgers as their regular choice.- But of those who regularly drink coffee from the bigger brands, specialty coffee enticed the majority (52%) to try a new brand that they hadn't tried before.- The #1 new brand tried by consumers was Starbucks.  They received approximately twice as many mentions as the #2 brand, Dunkin Donuts.What's it all mean?  For the record "specialty coffee" refers to any premium or gourmet coffee identified by and sourced from a specific source and climate.  For my own purposes, it's any coffee of quality that isn't one from one of the big grocery retail names.I might drink my coffee black, but I drank it "double-double" for most of my life.  I switched to black so I could appreciate subtle differences in the specialty coffees of different regions, but even in the content you'll find across this website, I won't admonish the non-purists who add cream or sugar to their coffee.  In fact, I still encourage it if that's how you best enjoy a coffee.When it comes to specialty coffees, there's an almost limitless number of varieties of how coffee can be enjoyed.  If it only came in black, there would probably be half as many people drinking it.  However, if coffee can become AN ingredient in a more complex or "specialty" drink, then I am happy for coffee to be able to play that part.  Coffee purists should relaaaax!  However people choose to enjoy their coffee is not only their business but a great opportunity to experiment.And it's these specialty coffees that have brought more coffee drinkers to the table.  I wouldn't personally buy a specialty coffee from Dunkin Donuts because they can't do it right.  They're introducing them simply to compete, not because they have a trained barista that knows how to properly prepare one.  If coffee was only available in black, I might never have come to enjoy it so much...but I got there gradually.Learn more about specialty coffees and what makes them great at Peet's Coffee and Tea and Starbucks Store.  These two sites have a lot of information and coffee expertise.