Specialty shops, back in the 60's
© 1991 Stuart Daw
Originally published in Tea & Coffee
Trade Journal, October 1991
We bought our first specialty store before
the term "specialty" was even invented, from a character who had,
along with his predecessor, run the business since the 1920's. It was in a
far-off suburb of Toronto and was the first of three we would operate before
selling them all in the 1970's, on the premise that it was tough to make any
money with them. What foresight!
This first store had a Deere roaster, a
product of the predecessor of the old John Deere farm implement company. The
proprietor roasted peanuts as well as coffee in it. The peanuts would go
through an old hand-run meat grinder into dishpans on a display counter. The
resulting material was known as peanut butter, which we sold for 19 cents a
pint.
I had been providing the previous owner with
three kinds of green coffee prior to 1964. But noticing that he had at least
14 bins of coffee named by exotic points of origin, I asked him how he worked
this particular magic.
"You know that, I know that, but they
don't know that," was essentially his answer. And I witnessed his
witchcraft as applied to a few of his customers over a period of time.
Typically, Lady Elegance would enter the store from a chauffeur-driven
limousine. In a whisper she would ask to see the manager in person, as if the
upcoming transaction was too important to be left to a mere clerk.
On seeing him she would, in a conspiratorial
way, ask for a half-pound of Lady Elegance's private blend. He, her
co-conspirator, would take a metal file box from a shelf and pull out Lady
Elegance's formula card containing her blend composition. Then, scoop in hand,
he would expertly measure out portions of beans from four or five bins and
slide them into a small white gusset bag. Lady Elegance would slip him the
$4.00 price for the carefully folded bag. (This part always floored me, for he
was paying me perhaps 60 cents per pound for the average of the three green
coffees. I had yet to understand the imperatives of specialty store pricing).
I imagined that Lady Elegance might
entertain her friends at the afternoon bridge party, and with a slightly
elevated head, sniff that what they were enjoying was her private blend,
exclusively hers for the entire city. Now, a few decades later, buyer
naivêté
is being replaced by cool customer questions such as "Is your Guat from
Huehuetennango, Antigua, or Coban?
Evolving to this state has been a good
thing. For specialty, in drawing public attention to the idea of quality
coffee just as the wine industry has done with that beverage, has had a
profound effect on all other segments of the coffee business. Restaurants,
coffee service operators, national brand roasters and many other segments of
the coffee market now cannot ignore the public pressure for a better deal
after decades of product degradation.
If specialty coffee can maintain its present
course toward real quality and integrity, some 20 million people the world
over who depend on coffee for their livelihood will owe it a real debt of
gratitude.
© 1991 Stuart Daw
