Understanding Consumer Preferences in Brewed Coffee

The SCA has a history of doing consumer research on the topic of specialty coffee consumption, including focus groups, consumer surveys, and self-described narratives of specialty coffee consumption. These have been valuable, and have led to insights about consumer behavior, especially the existence of the ‘Specialty Adopter’ and ‘Super Specialty’ consumer segments. However, no research so far has been done on the flavor preferences of these specialty coffee consumers, using sensory descriptive, preference mapping, or other sensory and consumer research techniques. We seek to gather objective consumer preference data to inform our understanding of the specialty coffee consumer, and help coffee producers, roasters, and retailers better design products for these consumers.

The specialty coffee industry has built a strong identity around ‘flavor descriptors’, those words that describe the sensory experience of drinking specialty coffee. Industry tools reflect this identity: the Coffee Tasters Flavor wheel- a source for many of these descriptors- is seen as both an important tool and a symbol for the sensory experience of drinking coffee itself. Many of these sensory descriptors- such as ‘sweet’ and ‘vanilla’ are seen as unambiguously positive, whereas others such as ‘acrid’ or ‘rubber’ maybe seen as unambiguously negative. A third category, attributes like ‘floral’, ‘winey’, ‘smoky’, etc. may be seen as positive to one consumer group and negative to another. Meanwhile, we don’t know how coffee experts’ ratings- those who are responsible for assigning value to the coffee- correspond to consumer preferences.

We are seeking a funding partner, or partners, willing to underwrite this work and serve as a research partner, helping perfect the research question, research design, and participate in dissemination of research findings. Get in touch with us to participate.