James Hoffmann, 2007 world barista champion and pioneer of specialty coffee.Manuel Vázquez
The first time James Hoffmann tried coffee, at age four, he spit it onto his mother's cream-colored carpet.
It was “the most disgusting thing he had ever taken,” he recalls.
Who was going to tell then that boy who grew up in the Lake District, northwest of England, that at 28 years old he would become the world champion barista and later, a kind of Steve Jobs of coffee, figure star in specialized festivals, who has a manager and whose videos on his YouTube channel on how to make a latte
at
home or filter coffee have accumulated more than four million views.
“I became obsessed.
I think that's the right word," he says in reference to the drink, with a half smile and sitting in an office of his roaster in London, Square Mile Coffee Roasters, the first to import specialty coffee - always the Arabic variety that has obtained 80 or more points in tastings sponsored by the
Specialty Coffee Association
— in the United Kingdom and a benchmark in the sector.
She founded it in 2008 — “the beginning of the coffee explosion in the city,” she points out — together with Anette Moldvaer and both then became pioneers of a movement that defends the high quality and traceability of the product and that extends throughout and wide of the world, including Spain, where, according to 2021 data from the specialized portal
Perfect Daily Grind
, the sector grew by 2,000% in the previous five years.
As an example, the almost daily openings of specialty coffee shops in large cities or the Coffee Fest meeting, which is held from February 17 to 20 in Madrid and to which Hoffmann attends as a star speaker.
So much so that when asked if he has any coffee routes planned around the city, he shows doubts, as he confesses that he can no longer go unnoticed.
Hoffmann, at the Square Mile Coffee Roasters, in London.Manuel Vázquez
This Briton finds it difficult to talk about his life before this universal drink burst into it.
Like many college students, he took jobs in casinos or as a door-to-door salesman.
At age 23 he began selling domestic espresso machines.
It was then that by chance a copy of the book
The Devil's Cup
, by Stewart Lee Allen, fell into his hands, which aroused his curiosity about a product that he had in front of his nose, but about which he had not asked anything.
“I began to learn, enjoy and teach about coffee,” he remembers, although at that time, those like him who began to talk about specialty coffee felt that no one took them seriously.
“It would have sparked more interest if he had won a sandwich-making competition,” he jokes of his victory in the world barista championship.
More information
What exactly is specialty coffee?
Almost 20 years later, the roaster he founded in a city where the greatest exponents of coffee culture were chains such as Costa Coffee, Caffè Nero or Starbucks occupies a warehouse in which around 5,000 kilos of coffee beans are roasted. weekly specialty, from small farms of diverse origin, which are then marketed to 500 customers in cafes and restaurants around the world.
But this is just one of the legs of a network of projects and businesses that also includes advice and collaborations with brands such as the coffee maker manufacturer Victoria Arduino.
Hoffmann has been weaving this empire around a trend that he began timidly talking about in 2004 on his blog
Jimseven
and whose articles he subsequently decided to adapt to new forms of digital consumption.
“I was building a reputation in the sector, but in 2016 I realized that people were no longer reading like before on the internet and I decided to move it to YouTube,” he explains about the origin of his channel on the platform, which has two million. of subscribers.
Hoffmann, author of
The World Atlas of Coffee
—edited by Mitchell Beazley, 350,000 copies sold—believes that you can drink very good coffee at a reasonable price.
“At home you can drink good coffee, one of the best in the world, for about 40 cents a cup,” he points out.
To illuminate this task, he has written
How To Make the Best Coffee at Home
, recently published in Spain as
The Best Coffee at Home
(Cinco Tintas), a brief manual in which he explains, without technicalities or paraphernalia, how to obtain a perfect drink using different extraction methods or what to take into account when buying coffee.
“You can buy it cheap, it can cost you 10 cents a cup, I know, but the difference in quality between a commercial coffee and a specialty coffee is so great that it seems to me that it is worth spending that extra money,” he says.
A handful of already roasted coffee.Manuel Vázquez
For many people, specialty coffee shops in Spain are still unexplored territories inhabited by foreigners with light hair and eyes and young freelancers in front of their laptops, commanded by tattooed baristas with
hipster
aesthetics .
Hoffmann himself believes that the specialty coffee movement has not always been accessible to all audiences, even though it has been done through knowledge and defense of the product.
“Baristas discovered how interesting coffee could be and wanted to offer this experience to someone else.
But then, if someone liked sugar in their coffee, or coffee with milk or cream, it was very difficult to find out.
There was this phase of 'you have to drink your coffee black', to which consumers responded 'yes, but I don't like black coffee.
"This is how I had my coffee, leave me alone', and there was this tension between the barista, who was trying to share an experience with the public, but without taking their wishes into account."
20 years ago, he himself, he acknowledges, was also like that, although now all he wants is for someone to have “the best possible experience.”
“The goal is for you to leave the cafeteria happy.”
Completion of a 'latte art'.Manuel Vázquez
From his broad vision of the sector and his experiences since the origin of the phenomenon, Hoffmann predicts a future marked by rising prices, which will make it even more difficult for specialty coffee to compete with commercial coffee.
A scenario, that of "good coffee is a luxury available to those who can afford it", which he considers frustrating, but in the face of which he retains hope derived from the change in certain habits, such as, for example, the improvement in the quality of coffee. that is drunk at home;
the reduction of consumption that results in less quantity, but greater quality, and the growing existence of a public "open to more unusual flavors."
Hoffmann shies away from exhaustive predictions, but sets out to ensure a clear trend: iced coffee.
“Not only because it's getting hotter, but because where and when we buy coffee is changing.
It is no longer the gasoline for work.”
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