Reported from Toronto, May 2026
The word "terroir" migrated from wine to coffee gradually, then all at once. It arrived carrying the same weight it carries in the vineyard: the idea that the land leaves a mark on what grows from it, and that a skilled taster can read those marks in a cup.
Whether or not you accept the full philosophical weight of the term, something is undeniably true: a washed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe tastes different from a natural-process Colombian, and both taste different from a Sumatran wet-hulled lot, and those differences are real, repeatable, and worth understanding.
The Problem with the Script
Third-wave coffee developed a liturgy. Single origin. Light roast. Aeropress. "Blueberry and jasmine." The liturgy was a genuine improvement on what came before — on burnt commercial roasts, on flavour as afterthought — but it calcified into its own kind of orthodoxy.
The most interesting coffee operations in Toronto right now are the ones that have internalized the lessons of the third wave and then moved past the performance of it. They roast for flavour, not for ideology. They explain the cup without condescending to the customer.
Tasting as Practice
A proper coffee cupping — the professional evaluation method used by roasters and buyers — involves slurping the coffee loudly enough to spray it across your palate, in order to aerate and assess the full flavour profile. It is deliberately inelegant. It is also remarkably effective.
"People think connoisseurship is about being refined. Sometimes it's about making the right amount of noise."
The point is not the method. The point is the attention. Coffee rewards it.