Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Key takeaways
- James Beard nominations signal that specialty coffee is earning wider recognition from outside its own industry.
- But decades of cheap commodity coffee trained consumers to underprice it.
- Hospitality, not coffee quality alone, now differentiates the best cafés.
- Producers must share in the recognition for the shift to have true impact.
Specialty coffee has always sold itself on excellence. The best roasters and cafés source high-quality beans, roast them with care, brew with precision, and serve customers with exceptional hospitality.
For years, these standards have been defined by the industry. Increasingly, however, consumers are the ones pushing to raise the bar: nearly half of American adults now drink specialty coffee every day, according to the National Coffee Association.
With specialty coffee consumption reaching record highs in mature markets like the US, there are signs that recognition is extending beyond the industry itself. Earlier this year, Onyx Coffee Lab was nominated for Most Outstanding Bar at the James Beard Awards, an honour traditionally reserved for restaurants and chefs.
The nomination hints at a future in which the best coffee shops sit alongside Michelin-starred restaurants. But it also raises an important question for an industry 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 customers better understand the coffees they drink, and a commitment to ensuring producers share in the recognition.
You may also like our article on whether table service can be the differentiator that coffee shops need.
Price perceptions in coffee restrict its value
With specialty coffee consumption growing in key markets, consumers are demonstrably willing to pay more for higher-quality, better-sourced coffee. On the surface, this suggests the product is finally being valued.
However, decades of romanticised storytelling obscure that the market has always underpriced coffee. It entered mass consumption as a cheap staple, training consumers to see it as an interchangeable commodity, closer to flour or sugar than to wine.
Consumer psychology reinforces the problem. People judge whether coffee is “expensive” relative to what they paid last week, not to the cost of production. Decades of cheap commodity coffee have set this reference point low.
Daily consumption compounds it further, making coffee feel like a routine rather than a considered purchase.
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. He says the comparison with other premium products reveals a structural disadvantage.
“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,” he says.
“You can have a genuinely exceptional cup and still drink it on autopilot. That’s a structural challenge, not just a storytelling one, compounded by the fact that access to the source is harder to come by than it is with wine or craft beer,” he adds.
“So, the specialty coffee industry’s job isn’t only to educate people; it’s to create more occasions where people actually pause long enough to notice what they’re drinking and where it came from.”
Recognition is starting to come from outside the industry
Coinciding with rising specialty coffee consumption, Onyx Coffee Lab earned a nomination for Most Outstanding Bar at the 2026 James Beard Awards. Jack Benchakul of LA’s Endorffeine also became the first coffee professional to earn a nomination for Outstanding Professional in Hospitality.
The significance lies in where recognition comes from. 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 has long celebrated its own through barista championships and industry awards; external validation from food and hospitality institutions is a different, and arguably more valuable, form of recognition.
“Coffee gets more recognition now, but there’s still a lot of room to grow,” says Norberto (Norb) Peña, co-founder and head roaster at field study coffee, a reservation-only coffee shop in Brooklyn, New York. “People are starting to recognise good coffee and understand that there’s a huge difference between coffees, but a lot of the work behind it is still invisible to people who are not in the industry.
“Specialty coffee has done a good job talking about quality, but we could do a better job helping people understand the full chain behind quality without making it feel overly technical or intimidating.”
This invisibility isn’t incidental. Coffee’s value has historically been assessed at the point of consumption, with little reference to the labour and expertise behind it. Wine addressed this with appellations, vintages, and a shared vocabulary that lets consumers connect price to provenance, while specialty coffee is only beginning to build the equivalent infrastructure.
Spending habits are moving in coffee’s favour
McKinsey describes a “small indulgence effect”: consumers buy less but spend more as prices rise, and coffee sits within the trend. As consumers consolidate their spending into fewer, better purchases, coffee shops that justify a premium can capture it
“People are more willing to spend more when they understand why a coffee costs what it does and when the quality is noticeable,” Norb says. “We’ve served coffees that are much more expensive than what most people are used to paying for a cup of coffee.
“We recently had a Panama natural Gesha from Hacienda La Esmeralda on the menu for US$66 a cup, and people were still curious enough to order it,” he adds. “Not everyone is going to spend that much on coffee, of course, but I think it shows there is an audience that sees coffee more like wine or another specialty product and wants to experience something different.”
Hospitality is what earns recognition
Specialty coffee is earning more recognition beyond its own industry through hospitality. Institutions like the James Beard Awards honour the full experience of service and hospitality, and more coffee shops are now investing in this.
Coffee prices are high and set to rise further, which puts pressure on cafés to offer something worth the money. Research suggests 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. Starbucks has moved in the same direction, training baristas to greet every customer on arrival.
The shift reflects a harder truth: serving coffee alone may no longer be enough. Home brewing equipment has improved considerably, and customers increasingly want something they can’t replicate in their kitchens.
“There are so many cafés serving good coffee now that just making a technically good pour over or espresso isn’t always enough to make something memorable,” Norb says. “The space, service, pacing, menu, glassware, presentation, and the way someone talks to you about the coffee all affect how you experience it.
“We wanted to slow things down and create more of a hospitality experience around coffee instead of treating it like a quick transaction. 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 says. “Great coffee gets someone to try you once. Everything else is what gets them to come back. 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 producers, whose work supplies the coffee served in cafés worldwide. Yet they remain the least visible part of the chain. Recognition, like revenue, accumulates at the point of consumption: the café wins the award, the roaster builds the brand, and the farmer who grew the coffee rarely appears in either story.
Connecting producers and consumers through the café experience is one way specialty shops can avoid this, and some in the industry frame it as more structural.
“On the producing side, growth looks like access, more producing communities and cities having the tools, infrastructure, and space to serve a quality cup of their own coffee to their own customers, instead of their best beans only ever being seen in majority-consuming countries,” Andrew says.
For most of coffee’s history, producing countries exported their best lots, but thriving café scenes in cities like Bogotá, Addis Ababa, and São Paulo suggest that pattern is starting to shift.
Formal recognition for producers is also developing. 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 industry, to the wider public now discovering specialty coffee.
Award nominations, rising demand, and shifting spending habits all point to a future in which the best cafés earn the same respect as fine restaurants.
“The goal isn’t to make coffee feel more exclusive or complicated,” Norb concludes. “It’s to create enough space around it that people can actually notice what makes these coffees special.”
Achieving it will require more than excellent beans: shops must invest in hospitality, help customers understand what they are drinking, and ensure producers share in the recognition.
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Specialty coffee FAQs
Why has coffee been historically undervalued?
Coffee entered mass consumption as a cheap, interchangeable commodity, and consumers judge its price against what they paid last week rather than the cost of production. Behavioural economists call this reference pricing, and decades of artificially cheap coffee set that reference point low.
Why do the James Beard nominations matter for specialty coffee?
The nominations for Onyx Coffee Lab and Endorffeine place coffee businesses in direct competition with restaurants and chefs. Unlike barista championships, this validation comes from outside the industry, suggesting the wider hospitality world is beginning to value coffee’s craft.
How can coffee shops justify charging higher prices?
Consumers pay more when they understand why a coffee costs what it does and can taste the difference. McKinsey’s “small indulgence effect” shows people consolidating spending into fewer, better purchases, and cafés that invest in hospitality are well placed to capture it.
Photo credits: field study coffee
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