1. A Geography of Taste: Coffee Quality and Spatialized Tag Clouds
Frank LaFone, Bradley Wilson, Trevor Harris
Department of Geology and Geography
West Virginia University

2. The $13 Cup of Coffee
“It’s very fruity, juicy, good mouth feel, [and] full bodied.“
Jay Caragay, Baltimore coffee shop Spro, selling a 12 ounce cup of for $13
"The cup was very balanced, with slight orange notes. It had a clean finish… In the start and through the finish, in the aroma and in the taste, you can identify many different notes."“
Caroline Bell, Brooklyn coffee shop Café Grumpy selling a $9 cup of coffee
“How you brew isn't as important as what you brew…So it's all about the bean.”
Alan Kaiser of the National Coffee Association
“$13 coffee worth the brew-haha?” by John DeVore and Steven Stern, CNN April 7, 2010

3. Background: The Coffee Paradox
Latte revolution - Dramatic changes in coffee procurement and retail marketing since 1980s
Buyer-driven trade dynamics - small, medium and large-scale roasters and retailers w/ increased control over value chain
A ‘coffee boom’ in consuming countries and a ‘coffee crisis’ in producing countries

4. Background: Existing Geographic Research
Global Value Chains, Economic Restructuring, Crisis
Agro-Ecology of Farming Communities, Biodiversity Conservation, Livelihoods
Coffee Certifications, Market-based Development Initiatives
Ethical Consumerism, Alternative Trade Networks
What about Taste and Place?

5. Taste and Place
Taste is subjective, personal, complex – yet taste is used to determine coffee quality and thus price
“special geographic microclimates produce beans with unique flavor profiles” (Knutsen)
Taste continues to trump other qualities (i.e. ethical, ecological values)
Sensory Evaluation = Buying Decision
Professional Coffee Quality Evaluators
Try to identify unique flavor profiles of coffee produced around the world
Enforce of quality standards

6. Defining Specialty Coffee
“Until the moment that the roasted coffee is brewed and transformed into a beverage, the concept of specialty coffee is locked up as a possibility, just a potentially wonderful gustatory experience. Starting at ground level, so to speak, we must limit specialty coffee to those that are drawn from the appropriate intersection of cultivar, microclimate, soil chemistry and husbandry.”
- Ric Rhinehart

7. Coffee Cupping

8. Cup of Excellence Quality Competition and Internet Auction
“The Oscars of Coffee” – “Highest Echelon”
Started Brazil 1999, Guatemala 2001
2010 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Rwanda
Most stringent coffee cupping standards and evaluation techniques
competition entries /country /year

9. What makes an “excellent” cup of coffee?
Sought to understand Cup of Excellence competition and auction outcomes
Spatial analysis of Central America results
Back link coffee evaluation from cup to crop
Explore environmental factors effecting taste - varietals, soils, climate, and farm practices, regional geographic location (terroir)

10. Database Development
Barrier: No data stored in traditional database forms or formats
Recorded information on paper, translated into website (
Only “winners” scoring above 80 recorded
Information copied from the website and placed into an initial database for analysis

11. Cup of Excellence Winners By The Numbers
Countries
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala
Years
2003 – 2009
Number of Winners
756
Minimum Score
80.25
Maximum Score
95.76
Median Score
85.95
Mean Score
86.70
Minimum Price /lb.
$1.16
Maximum Price /lb.
$68.17
Median Price /lb.
$3.83
Mean Price /lb.
$4.61

12. Cup of Excellence Competition Data Description – Environmental Variables
Range, Examples
Year
Country
Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador
City
Citalá, Jinotega, etc
Region
Corquin, San Juan Sacatepéquez, etc
Coffee Variety
Bourbón, Caturra and Catuai
Processing Method
Washed and sun dried, Conventional, etc
Farm Name
Santa Elena II, Shangrilá, etc
Farmer
Julia Rosa Mena de Lima, Ernesto Lima Mena, etc
Farm Size
Hectares
Coffee Growing Area
Altitude
Meters
Certifications
Fair Trade, Organic, etc

13. Cup of Excellence Competition Data Description – Competition Variables
Range, Examples
Rank
1 - n (n differs by country/year)
Score
80-100
Lot Size
Number of bags/boxes submitted
Cupping Number
Unique ID number
Price
USD in current year
2003 Dollars
Derived from above
Winning Bidder
World Coffee Co.,Ltd., The Rosterie Inc, etc.
Descriptors
Citrus, creamy, mellow, complex, chocolate, sweet, floral, melon, butterscotch, rich, orange, carrot, jasmine, honey, spicy, syrupy, licorice

14. Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Quantitative Approach
No notable correlations for environmental factors
(e.g. altitude vs. price).
Notable correlation
price (i.e. auction outcome) vs. rank (i.e. competition outcome)
Clear outliers
Variability in each rank
Why do certain entries get better auction when the get lesser rank?
Does flavor (descriptors) drive price?

15. Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Qualitative Approach
Created Dictionary of Coffee Descriptors
Massaging the database
Flavor wheel too limiting
Descriptor groups by country/ rank/ price/ etc
Need for qualitative analysis
– flavor descriptors influence the outcomes

16. Approach To Qualitative ESDA
Visual tools can help the brain efficiently process complex ideas and relationships
Wordles
Created by Jonathan Feinberg of IBM
Owned and copyrighted by IBM
Display words in different sizes based upon word counts in a piece of text
Outputs are designed primarily to be an ‘artistic’ rendering, not scientific analytical
Can compare wordle outputs to see differences in word counts in two (or more) pieces of text

17. Wordles

18. Comparative Wordles Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank

19. Comparative Wordles Highest Dectile of Price Compared to Lowest Dectile of Price

20. El Salvador Comparative Wordles Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank

21. El Salvador Comparative Wordles Highest Dectile of Price Compared to Lowest Dectile of Price

22. Nicaragua/El Salvador Comparative Wordles By Rank

23. Future Directions

24. Conclusions Environmental variables aren’t important – anyone can win
Flavor wheel isn’t that important
Complex dictionary of descriptors
Semiotically rich
Difference in descriptors for rank and price
Differences between countries
Descriptors are non-random
they have notable outcomes

25. Questions? Comments? Thank You
Frank LaFone, Bradley Wilson, Trevor Harris
Department of Geology and Geography
West Virginia University

26. Nicaragua Comparative Wordles Highest Dectile of Rank Compared to Lowest Dectile of Rank