A Short Lexicon of Coffee Buzzwords

“Sustainable,” “ethical,” and “responsible” are all words used to describe coffee, but what do they mean? Companies use them constantly to denote integrity but what do these words actually mean?

Photo by Lesia and Serhii Artymovych on Unsplash

Hi friends! I’m collaborating again with Fionn Pooler of The Pourover to produce a piece on coffee buzzwords: the words you see in marketing, on bags, and used by roasters to talk about coffee.

We wanted to create a brief lexicon of words we see used a lot and what that evoked for both of us. Perhaps this is a slightly cynical version of a 2010 lexicon created by New York Times coffee writer Oliver Strand.

In Strand’s glossary, he defined terms like “affogato,” “micro-lot,” and “single origin” — this lexicon was incredibly foundational at the time, particularly for an industry that’s struggled to come up with widely-agreed upon definitions for words we use all the time. Of course, that problem hasn’t gone away: if you ask one roaster what they mean by “direct trade,” they might have a different response than the next roaster.

I also think this is an extension of past work Fionn has done in defining the word “coffeewashing,” or the practice of pretending something is good for the industry but in reality is not. A form of coffeewashing is using terms like “sustainable” and “ethical” in promoting a product or process, but offering no tangible way to measure or define that impact.

As coffee writers (and perhaps more importantly, coffee readers and consumers of information) we see a lot of words thrown around without any sort of clear definition on what the user of the word is trying to say. In this lexicon, we don’t mean to give har definitions to terms, but rather, give our perceptions on where these words appear and what they signal in the industry. Some words are taken at face value without critique; some get used over and over and lose meaning.

The goal here is not to criticize individual companies. What we’re trying to do is encourage you to look more closely at some of the words used by coffee brands—especially those used to convince you to buy their coffee.

We hope that you find this guide helpful and that it’s used as intended: an invitation to be curious and ask “Why is someone marketing their coffee as X, Y, or Z? How can I verify that?”

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Sustainability: In my opinion, this is one of the most-used words in coffee because it has no formal definition. What does it mean for a coffee roaster to use the word “sustainable?” What does it mean for a coffee shop? If a coffee shop composts its coffee grounds but serves drinks in paper cups, are they sustainable?

I’d argue it’s impossible to call any product “sustainably sourced” because there’s no threshold, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be done “sustainably.” I like when brands use phrases like “sourced with sustainable practices” or something that implies the idea of sustainability is an action rather than an outcome. For me, I like to see what folks mean when they say something is “sustainable.” As an editor, one of the notes I write to people in their articles is “what do you mean by this” and that’s often the question I have for folks when they use the word sustainability. — Ashley

Community

Another of the industry’s buzzwords du jour, “community” is extremely popular with coffee companies of all sizes. Much like sustainability, community is, on the surface, broadly positive. When done thoughtfully and intentionally, community-building is one of the best things about the coffee industry: Cxffeeblack’s work in Memphis and within its supply chain is a striking example. However, like the other words in this lexicon, “community” is malleable—and ripe for misuse.

The word’s scope is often specific and hyperlocal—“building community through coffee” is a common tagline from neighbourhood cafes. But it can be used more generally, as in the SCA’s goal of “fostering a global coffee community”, or else as a way to link seemingly disparate companies together, such as Nespresso’s Instagram post referring to B Corp as “a community of brands moving forwards with our commitments to have a positive social and environmental impact”. (I’d love to know what the other B Corp-certified coffee companies think of that explicit link between them and Nespresso.)— Fionn

Relationship Coffee: Usually means a roaster has some sort of relationship with a farmer, generally built by purchasing their coffee in years past. David Griswold, founder of Sustainable Harvest, said he coined the term “relationship coffee” in the 90s but wasn’t able to trademark it. When I interviewed him in 2022, he defined relationship coffee as “based around the idea of complete transparency between all the parties involved in the [coffee] supply chain.”

Arguably, this doesn’t happen in every coffee that calls itself a “relationship coffee.” More likely than not, when roasters label coffees with that term, they simply mean, “hey, we’ve bought from this farmer a lot,” which is a good thing (having predictable buyers and clients for coffee is good for forecasting and knowing where your harvest is going). When talking to David, I considered his use of the word relationship and how we think about relationships in our day-to-day lives. Consider what we owe or give people we claim to have relationships with—are we actually giving the same to farmers we claim to have relationships with? — Ashley

The Old School Buzzwords: Small Batch, Artisan, Handmade, etc…: Arguably what defines specialty coffee is any amalgamation of the words above, particularly in the early aughts. For a long time, there was a belief that handmade was always better: a pour over had to be better than coffee from a drip machine, for example, so these words became synonymous and indicators of quality. The industry has shifted significantly: that’s not to say the words above are bad (they’re not) but they’ve become less of one-to-one indicators of tasty coffee, I think. — Ashley

Ethical (especially in regards to coffee sourcing)

Similar to “sustainable”, you’ll often see “ethically sourced” on a bag of coffee, impact report, or About Us webpage. Like many of the terms on this list, it is fairly malleable and hard to define. After all, we all have different ideas of what it means to be ethical. For me, I would hope that “ethically sourced” means that the company paid a fair price for the coffee, and that the farming practices involved were safe and equitable.

This might seem straightforward, but it isn’t always the case. For example Starbucks and Nespresso both claim that their coffee is ethically sourced—both use that exact phrase across their websites. But can a multinational corporation really be ethical? Investigators have uncovered multiple instances of forced and child labour within both companies’ supply chains. What ethical framework does that fall under?

The concept of ethical coffee sourcing. therefore, involves a lot of trust on the consumer’s part. The only way around it is if the company clearly defines its own ethics and commits to true supply chain transparency, but such commitments are still frustratingly rare. — Fionn

Specialty: For a long time, I thought specialty was a designation: coffee often gets scored on a 1-100 scale, and I heard that anything above an 80 was considered specialty, but I’m not sure where that comes from? It might be an antiquated term that originated with the Specialty Coffee Association, which is a global trade organization, but in 2019, the SCA overhauled its definition of specialty: they define specialty as “a coffee that demonstrates excellence in quality and distinction across the entire value chain—from production to preparation and experience.”

The term “specialty coffee” was first used by Erna Knutsen, an early coffee luminary, in 1974. She meant this term as a way to define coffees being bought and sold outside the commodity market, coffees she thought were “special.” I think specialty still refers to coffees bought and sold outside the commodity market, but what makes them special has expanded beyond flavor and quality (another term with lots of baggage; see below). — Ashley

Local: Obviously chains like Starbucks or Dunkin aren't local, but surely that cool cafe down the road is independent, right?

Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, La Colombe are some of the most famous specialty coffee companies, and still often bill themselves as indie upstarts embedded in their local communities (incidentally, they all also love the word “community”). Despite this local, community focus, they are all owned by much larger companies: Nestlé owns Blue Bottle, La Colombe is a subsidiary of Chobani, and Peet’s/JAB Holdings owns Intelligentsia (and Stumptown).

After the purchases, not much changed on the outside. Those involved would surely prefer that their customers not know of—or at least not think about—the takeovers. A similar thing is taking place with Fairwave Holdings’ acquisition of independent roasters and cafes across the United States—bringing brands like Anodyne, Spyhouse, and most recently Black & White under the umbrella of private equity but keeping an ostensibly local veneer.

The most interesting thing to me about all these acquisitions is how fiercely the workers have fought back: workers at Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, and La Colombe have all unionized, as have workers at Anodyne. The companies might no longer be local, but the workers sure are. — Fionn

Quality: Is the theme of this lexicon going to be “it’s hard to define this term?” Maybe, but quality is especially hard to define because quality depends on what you’re looking for.

Programs like the Q grader exam, a rigorous test that establishes precise benchmarks for flavor descriptors and how to identify coffee defects, do attempt to codify quality, which is important (we have to establish some sort of baseline between people evaluating coffee). But quality can also be subjective and easily influenced: studies have shown that the color cup you drink out of can influence what you think of the coffee you’re drinking. — Ashley

Stakeholders: One of those business words that has leaked into the coffee world, probably through impact reports, corporate social responsibility documents, or LinkedIn.

The simple definition of a stakeholder is a person who has a vested interest in an organization or company, be it an employee, shareholder, or supplier. In coffee, stakeholders are usually vague groups—see Louis Dreyfus Coffee’s plan to “improve collaboration among coffee supply chain stakeholders”—or corporate partnerships like multi-stakeholder initiatives. Hot take alert, but to me the word’s increased use by organizations like the SCA is another data point in the increasing corporatization of specialty coffee. — Fionn

Passion: What most people think it takes to be a coffee professional. This is a loaded term, and I’d argue that coffee jobs are some of the most emotionally-regulated jobs there are: we make fun of baristas for being snobby or stuck-up (see this article I wrote about the myth of the hipster barista), but then demand an absurd amount of passion from them while paying baristas barely above minimum wage. We seem to hate baristas that take their jobs seriously, but we also demand they be knowledgeable and passionate about their work. — Ashley

Compostable/Recyclable: Ah, that’s the last of the coffee from this bag. Now what? I don’t want to throw it away—I’m a conscientious person, after all—but it’s getting harder and harder to decipher all the various options. Is the bag plastic, and if so, will my local council let me recycle it? If not, is there a supermarket nearby that will take it? And anyway, doesn’t something like 70% of the soft plastic collected by supermarkets for recycling in the U.K. end up being burned?

Or maybe it’s labeled compostable, but then, does that mean I can throw it in my backyard pile or does it need to be sent to a commercial composting facility? Does my council do that? If it is home compostable, does that include the valve and seal? Perhaps it’s made from PLA or biodegradable plastic, but what does that even mean? Those can’t be recycled—and can in fact contaminate a recycling system—but they have to be better than regular plastic, right? Even though it acts just like fossil plastic when dumped in a landfill? Oh god, I’m hyperventilating. Better just throw it out. — Fionn

Transparency: If there’s a buzzword in coffee, it’s transparency. Often, roasters use this word as a way to convey that they’re giving out more information about a coffee than usual, and there’s been recent pushes to be more transparent in order to back up claims like, “we pay more for coffee” or “our coffee is sustainable!”

As my colleague RJ Joseph pointed out in the Red Fox Coffee Journal, transparency without context doesn’t mean much. “Without context on cost of production and other costs throughout the supply chain, the price paid for coffee is just a number. Think of it like rent: if I told you what I pay for my apartment, the number would be meaningless without knowing more about its size, location, and the general cost of space in my region,” Joseph writes. — Ashley