Singapore Specialty Coffee Scene Consumer Behaviours - Coffee Lovers or Love Cafes?
Coffee Bloggers who are professionally practising coffee are aplenty in the USA, UK and within the Scandinavian countries. When they write or blog on the subject coffee, most of the times if not all the times, they are right. Articles are fresh, full of knowledge, debatable but wise.
In our sunny island, there are plenty of coverage on the specialty coffee scenes through bloggers but most of the times, these are written by food bloggers who are self-proclaimed connoisseurs; with 3/4 of the article focusing on the quality of food, food styling and plating, customer service experience and ambience, followed by then coffee. Half the time, these same writers also announced to the world the Top 10, the Best 5, the Outstanding 30 Coffees in Singapore Cafes and what they had was a Cafe Latte, if not a Mocha. :)
Its not any fault of theirs. Even though cafes here attempt to put focus on specialty coffee, the message is lost among so many other messages - food, table service and atmosphere. Cafe operator recognise these consumer behaviors focusing on the above messages are profitable. People in Singapore think they are Coffee Lovers but in fact they love Cafes, not really Specialty Coffee. Offer them a single origin filtered coffee free and they will still opt to pay for a 12oz milk coffee! (with a savory sandwich to go) Yes we are coffee connoisseurs who believes, food pairing with the best single origin money can buy diluted in a big cup of milk with a beautiful swan latte art is the true definition of specialty coffee.
The cafe scene here is hotting up and talk on the streets goes like this, "There is another cafe in town focusing on specialty coffee. They do filtered single origins." In truth they do one single origin via V60 and if they are lucky, they sell one filtered coffee a week but hey, their all day breakfast is amazing. 20 different varieties. There is definitely a slight disconnect between what cafes purport to do and what customers want them for. They have to maintain the image of specialty coffee but yet keep 3 pages full of food items. They are amazingly connected to small producers around the world and uses the best technology to extract these goodness of flavors but consumers undermines the whole thing by claiming the coffee taste better as a cappuccino, with a touch of raw sugar. Oh Heaven forbids!
Are we ready for a change in appreciation of specialty coffee here without the fuss of having to balance food, or too much of it? Coffee have become sophisticated but our drinking habits remain conservative. Maybe one day, we will be ready. For now, we are mostly in love with Cafes, not Coffee lovers.
In our sunny island, there are plenty of coverage on the specialty coffee scenes through bloggers but most of the times, these are written by food bloggers who are self-proclaimed connoisseurs; with 3/4 of the article focusing on the quality of food, food styling and plating, customer service experience and ambience, followed by then coffee. Half the time, these same writers also announced to the world the Top 10, the Best 5, the Outstanding 30 Coffees in Singapore Cafes and what they had was a Cafe Latte, if not a Mocha. :)
Its not any fault of theirs. Even though cafes here attempt to put focus on specialty coffee, the message is lost among so many other messages - food, table service and atmosphere. Cafe operator recognise these consumer behaviors focusing on the above messages are profitable. People in Singapore think they are Coffee Lovers but in fact they love Cafes, not really Specialty Coffee. Offer them a single origin filtered coffee free and they will still opt to pay for a 12oz milk coffee! (with a savory sandwich to go) Yes we are coffee connoisseurs who believes, food pairing with the best single origin money can buy diluted in a big cup of milk with a beautiful swan latte art is the true definition of specialty coffee.
The cafe scene here is hotting up and talk on the streets goes like this, "There is another cafe in town focusing on specialty coffee. They do filtered single origins." In truth they do one single origin via V60 and if they are lucky, they sell one filtered coffee a week but hey, their all day breakfast is amazing. 20 different varieties. There is definitely a slight disconnect between what cafes purport to do and what customers want them for. They have to maintain the image of specialty coffee but yet keep 3 pages full of food items. They are amazingly connected to small producers around the world and uses the best technology to extract these goodness of flavors but consumers undermines the whole thing by claiming the coffee taste better as a cappuccino, with a touch of raw sugar. Oh Heaven forbids!
Are we ready for a change in appreciation of specialty coffee here without the fuss of having to balance food, or too much of it? Coffee have become sophisticated but our drinking habits remain conservative. Maybe one day, we will be ready. For now, we are mostly in love with Cafes, not Coffee lovers.
Singapore is not unique for this phenomenon, a lot of Australian coffee consumers don't appreciate specialty coffee and are happy with a large milky flat white/cappucino, there is still an ocean of average to really bad coffee out there, fortunately the specialty scene is expanding at a rapid rate and lovers of specialty have a great choice of passionate specialty focused cafes to enjoy unique coffees from around the globe.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully scripted and summarised. Coming from someone who writes and know his coffee too, I am impressed. Way to go Suhaimie.
ReplyDeletePoint taken............And most of the "specialty cafes" don't actually sell "specialty coffees" huge amount of quakers and underdeveloped coffees. To the average customer, they can't tell. No wonder commercial is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteNot much to say as Ice coffee isn't a true coffee menu either but cafes are forced to do so to suit customer needs....
On another point... some people think that Starbucks sells great coffee
"People in Singapore think they are Coffee Lovers but in fact they love Cafes, not really Specialty Coffee." Touche! Made me reflect on how much less of a coffee lover I am than a person who loves cafes. I have yet to learn how to appreciate specialty coffee myself.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful entry. Thank you. :)
You might enjoy this read: http://ninjasandrobots.com/compromise
ReplyDeleteI feel that coffee/cafes are becoming too much of a business. And the rental rates are too darn high in singapore, add to that the various operational costs, one must definately have a wide variety of food and drinks to supplement profits if not one will just die off. There is just so much to going on that the people cannot fully focus on making a good cup of coffee, or enjoy a good cup at all. I only know of currently just one cafe in sg that does purely coffee without selling anything else.
ReplyDeleteThank you guys for making this post the most visited and read article in this blog. Just read the statistic.
ReplyDelete