Why specialty coffee is now gaining wider recognition outside the sector
Put at reading time: 9 minutes Key takeaways James Beard nominations signal that specialty coffee is earning wider recognition from outside its own trade.
“Wine and craft beer have consumption occasions built around slowing down: a dinner or a tasting. People still overwhelmingly consume coffee for utility: it’s a habit, the thing you grab on the way to work or school,”
But decades of cheap commodity coffee trained buyers to underprice it. Hospitality, not coffee quality alone, now differentiates the best cafés.
Growers must share in the recognition for the shift to have true impact. With specialty coffee consumption reaching record highs in mature marketplaces like the US, there are signs that recognition is extending beyond the industry itself. But it as well raises an weighty question for an trade built on a historically undervalued product: if specialty coffee wants wider recognition, how does it truly earn it?
For cafés, the answer will depend on sustained investment in hospitality, a willingness to help shoppers better understand the coffees they drink. A commitment to ensuring growers share in the recognition. Rate perceptions in coffee restrict its value With specialty coffee consumption growing in key marketplaces, buyers are demonstrably willing to pay more for higher-quality, better-sourced coffee.
People judge whether coffee is “expensive” relative to what they paid last week, not to the cost of production. Andrew Kent is the founder of Stamp Act Coffee in Seattle, Washington, winner of the Gold Filter award at the 2025 Global Coffee Awards US & Canada edition.
People still overwhelmingly consume coffee for utility: it’s a habit, the thing you grab on the way to work or school,” he explains. “You can have a genuinely exceptional cup and still drink it on autopilot. The James Beard Awards have honoured exceptional restaurants and chefs for more than three decades, and a nomination places a coffee brand in direct competition with them. Coffee’s value has historically been assessed at the point of consumption, with little reference to the labour and expertise behind it.
Institutions like the James Beard Awards honour the full experience of service and hospitality, and more coffee shops are now investing in this. Research points to 78% of millennials prefer to spend on experiences rather than goods , and some specialty brands have responded, replacing typical counter service and shouted orders with table service .
Guests reserve a time, sit down, and have a chance to actually explore the menu and talk with the person preparing their coffee.” For Andrew, the implication is that quality has become the entry ticket rather than the differentiator. “Experience is what actually earns loyalty: the hospitality, the space, the people, the sense of being known,” he states. “Great coffee gets someone to try you once. So, it’s not that coffee matters less, it’s that it’s stopped being the thing that differentiates you.” Producers need to share recognition None of this happens without makers, whose work supplies the coffee served in cafés worldwide. Recognition, like revenue, accumulates at the point of consumption: the café wins the award, the roaster builds the brand, and the grower who expanded the coffee rarely appears in either story.
Competitions such as the Global Coffee Awards, launched in 2025, now directly recognise their expertise and knowledge. The harder task is carrying this recognition beyond the sector, to the wider public now discovering specialty coffee. Coffee entered mass consumption as a cheap, interchangeable commodity, and shoppers judge its price against what they paid last week rather than the cost of production.
The nominations for Onyx Coffee Lab and Endorffeine place coffee businesses in direct competition with restaurants and chefs.