Abstract
France has a long-standing culture of coffee consumption. In France, there are places dedicated to coffee consumption since the 17ème century: cafés. In cafés, coffee is a bitter espresso prepared by untrained waiters from arabica and robusta blends roasted by large-scale companies. Consumers do not go to cafés to appreciate the taste of coffee. Rather, they go to cafés to socialize and to get a shot of energy. French consumers are used to this consumption experience, they do not expect that coffee consumption could be different, or that coffee should taste any different. Interestingly, a new type of places dedicated to coffee consumption flourished in the early 2010s: specialty coffee shops. In specialty coffee shops, consumers have the choice between a wide range of balanced coffee-based beverages prepared by skilled baristas from 100% Arabica beans roasted by small artisans. Consumers go to coffee shops to appreciate the taste of coffee. In my doctoral dissertation, I explore the emergence of a niche market (specialty coffee shops) in a culture of consumption shaped by a strong mainstream market (cafés). In this chapter, I emphasize the key role played by consumers in this phenomenon. To do so, I draw on a seven-year ethnographic study of the French coffee scene. I find that it was consumers used to drinking espressos in cafés who opened and worked in the first specialty coffee shops in France. In other words, consumers have become market professionals. Then, they connected with an established professional association sharing a similar interest in specialty coffee. Together, they created the specialty coffee shop niche market. I use the sociology of translation to make sense of these findings. I show that a four-step process of problematization, interessement, enrollment and mobilization fostered the transformation of consumers into market professionals, reshaped their taste practices, and enabled the creation of the alliances needed to form a niche market.