The Coffee Heretic

Caffeinated ruminations outside the Coffeegeek Orthodoxy.

Posted by Mark Overly

her-e-tic

Origin: 1300–50; Gk hairetikós able to choose (LGk: heretical), equiv. to hairet(ós) that may be taken (verbal adj. of haireîn to choose) + -ikos -ic

Mark Overly: A coffee friend once described me as a "known contrarian" at which I replied, thank you! After pondering it for a while I concluded that I am not so much a contrarian, nor am I some sort of iconoclast. I am instead a coffee heretic. Specialty Coffee has evolved its own orthodoxy that increasingly disparages critique. I have been around just long enough to remember that what we now call Specialty Coffee initially struggled to differentiate itself from cheap, commercial coffee. Many helped create this niche, forging new paths to quality. Some of these voices have since been marginalized. I am a product of those voices.