Coffee awards have enormous influence over our industry.
They decide who gets recognised. They help baristas build careers. And they show the rest of us what excellence is supposed to look like.
That last part is where I have a problem.
Because once you decide what gets rewarded, you also decide what people spend their time learning.
We train people to impress judges
Baristas spend months practising competition routines.
They learn how to describe flavour. They perfect their latte art. They refine recipes, workflows and presentations for people who already understand coffee.
Don’t get me wrong - these are real skills. Developing them has helped move specialty coffee forward. Undoubtedly.
But very few customers need a barista to explain a coffee beautifully.
Instead, they need somebody to notice that they’re waiting. They need help ordering without being made to feel stupid. They need the coffee to taste as good as it did yesterday. They need a place that feels welcoming enough to visit again.
We train for technical consistency. We don’t spend nearly enough time training people to be patient, observant or kind.
We don’t train hospitality.
Customers are keeping the doors open
The people judging coffee competitions know more about coffee than the average customer. That’s precisely why the industry values their opinions.
But customers know whether a coffee shop is worth returning to. They know how the room makes them feel. They know whether the team seems pleased to see them. They also pay the bills.
Without customers, a coffee shop is an expensive collection of equipment.
I wanted to know what customers would reward
That is why I created the People’s Choice Coffee Awards (PCCA).
No judges. No industry panel. Just coffee drinkers voting for the coffee shop they genuinely love.
I didn’t know whether anyone would care. Then the first season received votes from 45 countries. Hundreds of them.
People added comments too.
They mentioned the coffee. Of course they did. But they also mentioned that they kept coming back to the coffee shop. The welcome. The consistency. The feeling that a particular coffee shop belonged to them.
Roasti Coffee Co. in Sherwood Park, Canada, won the first season. Season 2 brought votes from 28 countries across six continents. Flat White Specialty Coffee & Kitchen in Qatar came first.
PCCA rewards a different kind of excellence
I’m not trying to replace professional coffee competitions. The industry needs them. But they measure excellence as coffee professionals experience it. We’re doing them to impress each other.
PCCA measures whether a coffee shop has earned the affection of the people it serves.
That could be the most technically ambitious shop in the city. It could also be the small neighbourhood café where the coffee is always good, somebody remembers your order and you never feel as if you need to prove that you belong there.
Both deserve recognition.
Season 3 is coming
The first two seasons convinced me that PCCA needed a permanent home. So I built a new website at peopleschoicecoffeeawards.com.
Any coffee shop, anywhere, can receive votes. There is no entry fee. No application. No pre-determined shortlist.
Season 3 of the People’s Choice Coffee Awards is about to begin.
If you run a coffee shop, let your customers know. Don’t tell them what to write. Don’t tell them why you deserve to win.
Let them tell you.
Their answers might reveal what your team should’ve been training for all along.
Really resonates with me.
I recently exited as partner of a chain of cafes in Canada. I would prioritize customer service and hospitality over coffee expertise, 10 times out of 10. People will forgive a bad cup when delivered with good service. Coffee making can be trained. Mindset is harder.