Not your Dad's coffee

The conversations seem out of place. People talk about floral notes, about hints of blueberry and juniper, about finishes and single origins. They're talking about fermentation and terroir. It's as if a wine tasting went awry and sent the tipsy wandering into the wrong convention.

But no, the conversations are decidedly, soberly -- boy, are they sober -- about coffee.

When the Specialty Coffee Association of America's international convention met in Minneapolis this month, more than 7,000 growers, roasters, exporters, baristas and coffeehouse owners from 40 countries were talking big business. Global consumption of coffee is approaching 120 million bags annually -- bags that weigh 132 pounds, more than 5 billion pounds of beans.

This is mostly good news. But being a hot commodity often means encountering a few weird twists, as if Folger's legendary Mrs. Olson began sporting a tattoo.

For coffee, that means being whipped into smoothies, sweetened with flavored syrups, turned into sauces and spiced with abandon. One booth offered coffees in "comfort flavors" inspired by old family recipe books: oatmeal cookie, pecan pie, devil's food cake and blueberry muffin.

"Blueberry muffin?" asked Juan Miguel Villegas, eyes widening in disbelief. Villegas is a coffee purist, an exporter from Colombia who was waiting to see how his beans from C.I. Racafe would place in the coveted Coffee of the Year competition. He said it makes perfect sense to think of drinking coffee with the sort of critical palates associated with wine. "I think we're definitely going down that path."

Yet a few minutes later, learning that his coffee had indeed taken top honors, all the talk of nuance and palate fell by the wayside. Asked to describe his brew, an ebullient Villegas simply said, "It's great!"

The chemistry of coffee

For many of us, "great" has become the starting place.

"People are simply not willing to drink bad coffee anymore," said Paul Songer, whose card says he's a "coffee specialist" from Boulder, Colo., but who was treated with rock-star status (albeit soberly) as head judge for the Coffee of the Year. "Coffee is no longer the cheapest caffeine-delivery system," he said. "Asking 'Is it acceptable?' is no longer enough."

The specialty coffees that fill our go-cups are the product of an intensive study of fragrance, aroma, taste, flavor, aftertaste and body. If fragrance and aroma, or taste and flavor sound like the same thing, well, that's why Songer is among the world's top coffee consultants.

But here's a glimpse at why beans and their roasting are so important: In a regular cup of coffee, Songer said, only 1.25 percent of it is actual "flavor solids." That's little enough substance to analyze chemically, and within that, "even one-tenth of a percent of sucrose can make a big difference." Some testers even use Brix meters normally associated with measuring the sucrose level of wine, further fueling the coffee-as-wine comparisons.

That's enough of a glimpse, OK?

Riding the third wave

Coffee has been around for 1,000 years, but the phrase "specialty coffee" was first used in a 1974 issue of the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal to describe deeply flavorful beans grown in distinctive microclimates, which then are expertly roasted and carefully brewed.

Thirty years ago, "all the coffee beans in the world were bought by 6-foot-3 Germans in blue suits who sniffed at the beans and if they didn't smell rotten, they bought them," said Price Peterson, the head of Panama's Specialty Coffee Association. That was the first wave.

Now, he said, the buyers are "25-year-olds wearing sandals, with two body piercings and an earring, and they're obsessed with cupping, or tasting, the coffee. They're crazy. Wonderful, but obsessed." That's the third wave.

And the second wave? All together now: Starbucks.

In 1971, Starbucks brought the concept of distinctively flavored, well-roasted coffee to Seattle. In 1987, it began to grow, opening 17 stores nationwide. The current count is more than 16,000 stores in 44 countries.

Peterson is a grand old man of specialty coffee. For an unprecedented three years, his Hacienda La Esmeralda earned the association's top honors. Described as having hints of bergamot oil, ginger, blackberry and ripe mango, the beans sold for a stunning $130 a pound during an online auction, which Peterson likened to a $1,000 bottle of wine.

No wonder so many conversations about coffee start to sound like tasting day at the local winery. "This is happening on the marketing level, too," Peterson said, as growers, roasters, brewers and baristas are learning that people -- Americans in particular -- love being on the inside track of the next big thing.

On to artisanal espresso

Umberto Urbano is the master roaster for Miscela d'Oro, a company in Sicily so small that he and his father have the only two keys. This was Urbano's first time at the convention, but it was a strategic decision. With the European coffee market flat and the American public's palate primed, it's time to talk espresso.

"Ten years ago, the American public was kind of starting to open their mind to the best coffee, to the more upscale," he said through an interpreter. "Americans have it in their DNA to reach for something better. Now our coffee hits the spot, as you put it."

Miscela d'Oro differentiates itself by flipping the roasting process. Most others roast, then blend. Urbano blends the green beans, believing that they influence each other in their natural state, then begins the roasting process. "We are a little blast of little people with big conviction," he said.

Just as boutique wineries have brought new wines (and far wittier labels) to liquor store shelves, such artisanal coffees may transform what goes into the Krups machine on your kitchen counter. And despite coffeehouses exploding from 500 in 1991 to more than 10,000 today -- despite cappuccino machines in truckstops -- the National Coffee Association reports that three of every four cups of coffee consumed in the United States are made at home.

Industry challenges

The ranks of coffee drinkers in the United States have risen by more than 8 million since 1999, to about 167 million, but that pace has leveled off, according to the National Coffee Association. In introducing its latest blend called Pike Place Roast, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz went so far as to note the company's goal of "transforming the in-store experience by restoring the connection our customers have with our coffee," acknowledging that the connection had suffered in recent years.

And like wine, its coffees now come with suggested food pairings: Pike Place with a toffee almond bar; its Sumatra-Peru blend with a vanilla caramel doughnut.

Even McDonald's has announced a new premium roast coffee, suggesting a pairing with McGriddles Sandwich. It's also accompanied by "better creamer packets."

"When McDonald's announces it's improved its coffee, others have to follow," said Songer, the master taster. "The younger generation has a different relationship with coffee, a coffeehouse culture. The generation that was cost-conscious about price is aging. Now there's a movement starting toward espresso."

In the span of three decades, coffee has moved from a means of waking up into something to wake up for.

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185