Connoisseurship Consumption Community and Its Dynamics

Abstract

Purpose -This study aims to identify and explain the forces and tensions between the members of the connoisseurship consumption community and its dynamics.Design/methodology/approach -Adopting a naturalistic inquiry approach, we immersed ourselves in the field, visiting and observing consumers and professionals in independent coffee shops in North America: Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, and New York from August 2013 to July 2014.Findings -The research describes the connoisseurship consumption community and explains its forces, which are education, emulation and tensions between the members of the community.Originality/value -Our findings explain the amateur consumer's behavior and the relationship of these amateurs with professionals and with the public during their consumption practices. We help to advance the study of heterogeneous consumption communities by revealing the tensions between the members of the community and the production of subcultural and social capital. Our research contributes to the consumer culture field by increasing knowledge of this social consumption phenomenon.

Contesting Indonesia’s Single Origin Coffee Market: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

“…Shop, on the other hand, because it is very independent and relatively small coffee needs to detect partner by utilizing the farmers who have wide field and quite knowledgeable about coffee. The shop really follows the principle of connoisseur consumer (Quintão et al, 2017), where certain people have a tendency to know more deeply what they consume.…”

The changing notions of materialism and status in an increasingly dematerialized world

“…Another factor prompting a rise in inconspicuous consumption is the shift described above in moving from having to doing. The coffee connoisseur, the oenophile, and the gourmet may sometimes be interested in signaling their elite tastes and possible snobbishness to others, but they are increasingly interested in enjoying the sensory aspects of their consumption experiences (Le Bel 2005;Quintão et al 2017). By displaying more subtle preferences they may signal their tastes, but these messages are directed primarily to other aficionados as well as others within their social class.…”

Connoisseur Consumers, Dynamics Capabilities and Sustainability of Indonesian Single Origin Coffee Consumption

“…Connoisseur consumers (CCs) are a consumers community that has more attention to the goods they buy [33] such as the origin of the goods, quality, friendliness on the environment, and other ethnic attributes. Theoretically, their consumer behavior is relatively sustainable because they have specific attention to the environmental issues as well as having the willingness to pay for environmentally friendly products better than general consumers [34].…”

“…Connoisseurs enjoy more of its behavior as the leisure activity as well as emphasizing the different self-identity with many of consumers group where one of its characteristics is empathy to the environment, does not have a problem with the price, subjectively care to the goods and service they consume [33]. Furthermore, CCs builds its own subculture that is different from most consumers.…”