Specialty coffee

Specialty coffee traces its roots to the 1960s, when pioneering roasters such as Alfred Peet first invited customers to care about the beans in their cup: where they came from, how they were roasted, and how they actually tasted. Coffee importer Erna Knutsen gave the movement a name in 1974 when she used the term “specialty coffee” for distinctive, high-quality beans. Over the following decades, independent roasters and cafés brought that philosophy to a wider audience. What began as a shift in taste became a new way of thinking about coffee: from an everyday commodity to a drink with a history and a sense of place.