From a secretary banned from the tasting room, Erna Knutsen broke stereotypes about women to give birth to the concept of specialty coffee.
Anecdotes about Erna Knutsen, born in 1921 in Norway, may vary, but experts in the world's coffee world all recognize her as the "queen of specialty coffee".
Knutsen's path was hindered by stereotypes about women in the coffee world 50 years ago. In 1970, Erna Knutsen worked as a part-time secretary at B.C Ireland coffee import company in San Francisco, USA. After a few years, she began to learn about the professional aspect of coffee beans, a job traditionally done by men.
B.C Ireland's tasting room at that time was for just four men. They protested and threatened to quit if Knutsen dared to step in. These people also banned Erna from watching their process of roasting sample coffee. However, manager Bert still encouraged her to talk and work with local roasters.
The opportunity came when a coffee seller with a sample of Sumatra Mandheling beans stopped by the office. Mrs. Knutsen persuaded this person to bring in a grain sample to roast and taste it herself. Knutsen promised the manager to sell all the containers in a month and succeeded.
That achievement earned Knutsen an official spot on the B.C. coffee cupping table. Ireland in 1973. In the same year, in an interview with Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, she first used the phrase "specialty coffee" to refer to coffees with unique flavors, produced in small quantities in specific regions. This concept is still considered the standard for evaluating coffee quality today.
Knutsen's way of working was also unlike his contemporaries. She was one of the first importers to realize the importance of being directly present in coffee growing areas. Knutsen wants to deal directly with farmers instead of reaching out like traditional importers. Previously, coffee traders only went to raw material areas to work with banks and brokers, instead of visiting farms.
This thinking created a mark in the specialty coffee trade later: not only did the trader taste the product, he had to come to the place.
Before Knutsen shaped specialty coffee, the Industrial Revolution of the second half of the 19th century with its tendency to centralize processes made the coffee industry boring. Small roasteries were eliminated, replaced by mass production factories. Producing countries turned to chasing quantity, implementing haphazard mixing and lowering input grain standards.
In the eyes of the business group, small roasters are "lost ducks" in a world full of "fat geese" who consume entire containers of coffee for breakfast. Container shipping has only been around for about a decade, but the steel tank has quickly become the industry's benchmark.
The "Queen" saw what coffee brokers 50 years ago were completely blind to: coffee sales could be measured in small bags, not just giant containers. In 1985, at the age of 65, she bought B.C Ireland and changed the name to Knutsen Coffees LTD.
Knutsen has twice received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCA), at the ages of 73 and 93.
"They think women don't deserve a chance, but I proved it to them," she said.
Knutsen died in 2018, aged 96. The legacy she left behind is not just a term, but also an inspiration for true coffee makers.
