Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/76066
1V[QOP\ ) s you've likely noticed, this issue of Fresh Cup is a In Encyclopedia Form little different. We've given our regular format a month- long break to bring you the Café Encyclopedia, a comprehensive collec- tion of the coffee and tea terms used every day in our industry. Anyone who's part of a niche community like the coffee and tea universe uses a specialized vocabu- lary to communicate with other obsessives. Being immersed in this world, one inevitably picks up at least a basic comprehension of its unique language. But with countless terms covering so many facets of the industry, it can be a challenge to master every word. An additional complication is the interna- tional nature of café culture, which inevitably results in several languages bleeding into one vocabulary— think Italian terms like doppio and latte or Spanish words like beneficio and pergamino. You even need to spout some Latin if you're going to accurately refer to the plants that bear our prized products. But despite the tricky, nuanced nature of coffee and tea speak, it's vital that industry professionals use jargon correctly. You are all seen as experts, after all, and—fair or not—mixing up notions like wet-processed and natural, or acidity and astringency, can strip away your credibility. In addition, understanding the depth of our industry's textured tongue can help a person see cul- tural and global connections that may otherwise remain in the shadows. It's with all that in mind that we decided to craft this issue. It may not be a definitive tome, but we hope it serves as a helpful snapshot of the language we speak at this moment in our developing café culture. We also readily admit there's something almost absurd about pushing a printed encyclopedia into a world where any fact can be Googled and updated in an instant. In a way, we've managed this month to take a print media brand and make it even more old-fashioned. But while it's absolutely true that plenty of online discussions and descriptions exist about the terms we cover, it's also true that when it comes to looking up many of these terms online, misinformation flies aplenty. We combated that struggle with definitions that draw their information from the best sources available: vetted magazine articles and books, industry Web sites (that we trust) and, most importantly, contributions from respected industry professionals and freelance writers. And we owe extra thanks to our editorial advisory board members, who loaned us their fact-checking skills by reviewing the terms. We believe there's convenience and a certain beauty in presenting these descriptors as a single collection—one that you can hold in your hands or flip through on your tablet or smartphone. To greater facilitate the sense of print-perusing joy, we've interjected sidebars giving in-depth takes on several of the more intriguing and layered terms. And there's some clever, enriching illustration provided by our talented art director, Cynthia Meadors. As journalists, we cherish language, and we frequently consider the role it plays in coffee, tea and the world beyond. As such, it has been entirely rewarding to rumi- nate over these concepts for the past weeks. We hope you find this special issue to be a worthwhile resource, whether it's placed behind the counter of a café, next to the roaster at a busy plant or alongside the porcelain cups at a tea tasting. Our regular Fresh Cup format will return next month; in the meantime, sit back and enjoy this rare magazine-encyclopedia hybrid. —Chris Ryan (editor) and Dan Leif (associate editor) 10 +INu -VKaKTWXMLQI )]O][\ # INTRODUCTION