Counter Culture Workshop

I first participated in this workshop because the organizer was accidentally labeled as coming from Cooperative Coffees, and not Counter culture.  I wanted to ensure that CoopCoffees values were well represented.  However, I believe that it was well worth stopping by.

The purpose of the workshop was to get students to see how important it is to know one's product in order to successfully sell it in a competitive market place.  This was exemplified through a simple activity featuring a marble.

We were each given a marble, and told to pair up into smaller teams.  Each of us had to "sell" our marble to the other, attempting to show that ours was of better value.   We focused on the colours, the reflections, its superior spherical shape for optimal rolling precision, to make our case.  Next, we were handed a "mystery marble" wrapped in paper, and told to perform the same exercise.  This time was clearly much more difficult as we lacked the physical characteristics on which to base on pitch.

The purpose was to show that from the point of view of a coffee producer, it is much more effective to know a lot about the coffee that one is producing, its profile, the types of uses that it is ideal for, in order to find an appropriate market for it, as well as a fair price.  Kim thus showed the importance of quality training programs for producers, where cupping and quality skills are improved.  Its much easier to sell a coffee one knows a lot about, than when the coffee is covered up to us in mystery.

This workshop was particularly interesting to me due to the discussion that followed.  One student asked how they were supposed to know if one roaster, café was better than another.  Who was more pure, who was most fair? they asked.  We then launched into a more elaborate discussion that I will not relate here, but whose points I go into in my report.