Cascara, Fermentation, and Specialty Instant: The Future of Coffee

In the miniseries “Inside the Market”, Ennio Cantergiani, a consultant managing L’Académie du Café in Switzerland, gives a first-hand perspective on the coffee market. He guides us through the future of coffee, discussing experiments and emerging trends.

In the last few years, a very specific trend has been implemented in some farms, especially in Colombia: yeas/bacteria inoculations, fruits/spices infused, carbonic maceration and mosto infused coffees, this list is not exhaustive.

So, today, I am asked to manage these new kind of experiments in order to improve the quality of the beans. Everything is related to the cupping score of these coffees: Higher the scores, higher the selling prices.

The second type of experiments involves “cascara”. This by-product is now part of the circular economy and needs to be developed in order to offer new products in our markets.

Experiments Currently Being Conducted Worldwide

All these infused coffees are the actual trend in Specialty Coffee world, especially for the barista competitions. So, let see if this trend is a real trend or if it will last just a few seasons.

Cascara fermentations are now trying to give this by-product a special, stronger taste and big players are working on that.

Today, fermentation is the most interesting field in coffee experimentation.

Specialty Instant Coffee is also something that could reinvent instant coffee. Blue Bottle, The Barn and other big names have launched their Instant Specialty Coffee.

Finally, I still think that cold brews, nitro cold brews, nitro lattes, etc will enter more and more into the markets.

Potential Trends for Coffee in the Next 5 Years

I think cold brews, nitro cold brews and nitro lattes will continue to grow. A new concept of cold espresso extraction is trying to disrupt the classic espresso drinks, but we are not ready now, I think. We need new machines to propose these cold espressos.

I am still waiting for cascara to be more present in the market as cold beverages, still or carbonated beverages.

Research centers worldwide are developing new varieties to combat climate change. In particular, Brazil is producing many new varieties that farmers are starting to use. However, it seems that many production countries are still thinking short-term and not fully acknowledging the severity of these climate changes. This may not be the case everywhere, and hopefully, better management practices will be adopted globally in the future.