‘One Ethiopian Hand Brew, Please!’: Discovering Habitus of Specialty Coffee Connoisseurs

Bc. Margarita Yelisseyeva

Master's thesis

Abstract:

The present paper deals with specialty coffee consumption, and specifically one member group of this community – connoisseurs. Specialty coffee, being a niche in coffee consumption, has not yet been studied thoroughly by social sciences. This study aims to discover distinct features of habitus of specialty coffee connoisseurs. By doing this, this paper contributes to the existing, but scarce, body of literature on spe-cialty coffee consumption, helps to understand how specialty coffee connoisseurs separate themselves from other coffee consumption practices, draws a general pic-ture of a specialty coffee connoisseur and shows how the subcultural capital is reproduced in the community through interactions between connoisseurs and professionals. The theoretical framework for this paper includes Pierre Bourdieu’ social distinction theory, together with Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. The paper also outlines other postmodern and contemporary theorists in consumption studies. The results stem from insights gained from interviews with 6 agents, enriched with in-sights from the author, for they themselves are an active agent in this community. The study showed the humble side of specialty coffee community, which focuses its effort on gaining subcultural capital. Although connoisseurs admit perceiving professionals as the most reliable source of new knowledge, they also reported not being interested in gaining recognition from professionals. A role of a connoisseur is found to be universal, being ‘put on’ by the agents in any environment. Thanks to this, and also to the ubiquity of the subcultural capital, the influence of connoisseurs is far reaching. In-deed, not only do they play an integral part in the reproduction of subcultural capital within the social field, but they also contribute to the enlargement of the community through sharing the insights with the outside world.

Abstract:

The present paper deals with specialty coffee consumption, and specifically one member group of this community – connoisseurs. Specialty coffee, being a niche in coffee consumption, has not yet been studied thoroughly by social sciences. This study aims to discover distinct features of habitus of specialty coffee connoisseurs. By doing this, this paper contributes to the existing, but scarce, body of literature on spe-cialty coffee consumption, helps to understand how specialty coffee connoisseurs separate themselves from other coffee consumption practices, draws a general pic-ture of a specialty coffee connoisseur and shows how the subcultural capital is reproduced in the community through interactions between connoisseurs and professionals. The theoretical framework for this paper includes Pierre Bourdieu’ social distinction theory, together with Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. The paper also outlines other postmodern and contemporary theorists in consumption studies. The results stem from insights gained from interviews with 6 agents, enriched with in-sights from the author, for they themselves are an active agent in this community. The study showed the humble side of specialty coffee community, which focuses its effort on gaining subcultural capital. Although connoisseurs admit perceiving professionals as the most reliable source of new knowledge, they also reported not being interested in gaining recognition from professionals. A role of a connoisseur is found to be universal, being ‘put on’ by the agents in any environment. Thanks to this, and also to the ubiquity of the subcultural capital, the influence of connoisseurs is far reaching. In-deed, not only do they play an integral part in the reproduction of subcultural capital within the social field, but they also contribute to the enlargement of the community through sharing the insights with the outside world.

Keywords

Bourdieu, connoisseurship consumption, Goffman, habitus, interaction order, social distinction, specialty coffee

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 4. 5. 2023

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 30. 5. 2023
• Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Pavel Pospěch, Ph.D.
• Reader: doc. PhDr. Ing. Radim Marada, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Studies

Master programme / field:
Sociology / Sociology