Colorado Springs Speciality Coffee Culture Went from Backwater Brew to Fully Caffeinated
Speciality Coffee
The words naturally conjure images of flannel-bedecked hipster millennials sipping creamy latte art and talking Danish philosophy in a metropolis like Chicago or Portland. But despite its cultural and spatial distance from the big city, something is brewing in the Springs’ coffee culture, where a vibrant blend of local coffee specialists and passionate transplants is shaping Colorado Springs coffee community for the better.
Backwater
“Ten years ago,” says Eric Nicol, “people would say ‘Colorado Springs isn’t that exciting.’” When Nicol, co-owner of Loyal Coffee, first began living in the Springs in 2008, he watched young people like himself leave, moving to bigger cities in search of more culture and better opportunities in the coffee industry. But in a small city known mostly as the home of military bases and Focus on the Family, Nicol says “[my barista friends and I] saw opportunities to make it exciting.”
So they did.
With the help of Nicol and his fellow baristas, three specialty coffee shops (Urban Steam, the Principal’s Office, and the Wild Goose Meeting House), all made their debut within just a few months of each other in 2012-2013. Fast forward six or seven years and twice that number of shop openings, and today specialty and third wave coffee shops are more popular than ever in the Springs, making the city a hotbed for the highest standard of coffee in the 21st century.
History
In early 1900’s America, coffee became widely available in an ascension now referred to as “first wave coffee.” Before,, coffee had been unavailable in mass quantities. But now coffee conglomerates like Folgers and Maxwell became the norm, and with flavor notes like acrid smoke and ashtray, Americans were able to drink some form of terrible coffee in their own home or at a restaurant every day.
Starbucks and Peets Coffee, two west-coast based chains, defined what’s called “second wave coffee” by introducing shops designated specifically for coffee in the
1960’s, with customizable espresso drinks like the nonfat caramel vanilla latte or the pumpkin spice Frappuccino.
Second wave shops improve flavor by adding more sugar, giving rise to drinks like the Starbucks® Blonde Caramel Cloud Macchiato, the dietary equivalent of eating three straight tablespoons of sugar and drinking a quarter cup of milk.
But what about the experience? Many coffee-drinkers are perfectly satisfied with their caramel-macchiato-in-a-plastic-cup. But to customers looking for a unique flavor or a personal experience, these loud second-wave coffee shops and the sugar they use to mask their coffee flavor leave something to be desired.
Enter the third wave of coffee, which, according to Julia Guevara at the Perfect Daily Grind blog, “is all about making the consumer feel special.” In this relatively recent coffee-industry movement, expect impeccable, engaging service and roasting, brewing, and serving practices all geared toward showcasing beans from a specific producer or grower.
Specialty coffee is the product standard to which third-wave shops aspire. The Specialty Coffee Association grades coffee producers on a 100-point scale, with specific guidelines for every part of the drink—from bean quality to roasting guidelines to water quality. Only scores above 80 are considered “specialty.” The standard for this kind of coffee is so high that not all third-wave coffee shops in Colorado Springs make the grade. But the goal—showcasing the flavor while treating the customer as a guest—remains the same.
What’s it like?
Fausto Molinet was not a coffee drinker. In fact, when he had his first cup of Folgers in college, he remembers thinking, “no wonder I never drank this. It’s gross.” In college and afterwards, while serving in the Air Force, he never drank the stuff. But after moving to Colorado Springs in 2012, he found himself at the Wild Goose Meeting House, and a barista offered him a pour over coffee.
It was extraordinary. “She used a Beehouse [coffee dripper], and it tasted amazing. It was like the first time I had had coffee in my life.”
Molinet, a consultant based in the city, was hooked. Seven years later and now a lover of high-end coffee, he can even remember where the beans of that first delicious cup of Colorado Springs brew were from: Guatemala.
Comradery
“We all speak highly about each other [to guests],” says Nicol, referring to the relationships between coffee shops in the Springs. Whereas the national coffee industry is rife with competition, as shops work within their cities to roast each other’s competitors, Colorado Springs’ third-wave coffee shops tell their own story.
Joseph Bloom, general manager at Switchback Coffee Roasters, agrees with Nicol: “Here [in the Springs], we all go to each other’s shops and support each other.” Bloom has worked in the coffee industry in other cities, and he’s watched shops in Austin and New York “compete hard with each other.”
But three years ago, when Eric Nicol and five other baristas started talking about leaving their respective roasters and barista jobs to start their own barista-owned speciality coffee shop, their employers were—surprisingly—open to the concept.
Four of the original third-wave shops in the city supported the group of Nicol and his five co-investors as they left their respective jobs to start a new coffee company: Loyal Coffee.
And since people like Nicol started opening third wave coffee shops in Colorado Springs, the art form of this elixir of focus and energy has continued to expand throughout the city. To name a few: Building Three, Story Coffee Company, Peak Place, and Switchback Coffee Roasters have all started within just the past few years, giving rise to an industry that, surprisingly, can be defined by one word: collegiality.
“It’s the closest thing you could resemble to a family in a community,” says Charlie Claus. She grew up in Boston before moving to Colorado Springs, and within the first few months after her move, Claus began spending time at The Wild Goose Meeting House. Claus says the staff welcomed her and made her feel at home. Fast forward four years to today, and Claus is a manager at the Goose’s sister shop, Good Neighbor’s Meeting House.
Relationships between baristas and owners from different shops are common. A non-profit called the Colorado Springs Coffee Organization holds regular events hosted by shops around the city. Between latte art competitions and workshops, tastings, and speakers series, with a board that represents different corners of the coffee industry, there is plenty of opportunity for comradery to develop between owners, roasters, and industry employees.
Friendly Competition in the Speciality Coffee Community
Perhaps it’s ironic that one of the ways the speciality coffee shops most support each other is at, well, competitions. Each year baristas from around the United States and the globe
compete against each other in roasting, brewing, preparing, and serving coffee. In 2019, preliminary rounds took place in 13 cities in the country, from which competitors could advance on to qualifying events and, from there, to the U.S. Coffee Championships held in Orange County, California, and Portland, Oregon.
The two most popular categories by far are “Barista”—where competitors have just a few minutes to make multiple coffee drinks and serve them to a panel of judges, all the while explaining their own approach—and “Roaster”—where entire shops compete by roasting provided coffee and then presenting it to the judges.
Recently, says Charlie Claus, “Colorado Springs and Denver have been sweeping boards.” She’s right: last year, the fifth-place National Barista Champion came from our city, a barista at Switchback Roasters named Sam Neely. And Neely’s success is no aberration. In coffee competition, the highest concentration of competitors comes from Colorado, making it the most competitive state in coffee in the nation.
Where next?
In the Springs, most of the industry’s remaining room for growth comes from specialty coffee converts. Eric Nicol explains: “I want [an expansion of] better coffee because the majority of coffee consumed is of poor quality…So many people are still going to Starbucks and 7/11 and we’d like to get people hooked on better coffee.”
In summary: so long as people drink bad coffee, the third-wave coffee industry still has room to grow.
One of the largest barriers to converting consumers from brand-name coffee, however, is a perception that third wave coffee shops are snobbish. Joseph Bloom explains that “people who don’t know coffee can be…intimidated or embarrassed to ask questions.”
And at first, third wave coffee can be confusing—I mean, what is a cortado or a pour over anyway?
That’s why Bloom’s workplace, Switchback Roasters, has a motto of “Excellent coffee, for everyone.” Bloom prioritizes introducing coffee neophytes “without pretentiousness.” His hope is that “[even] if you [just] want brown sugar lattes, we hope that you’ll come here and have coffee with us.”
And with a community centered around that kind of welcome, those of us in Colorado Springs who are inside or outside of the coffee industry can be certain, “if you are excited about [coffee] and you love it, you’re welcome here.”
