Specialty coffee · Worth knowing

Bridgette, founder of C Market Coffee in Vancouver, discusses her evolution from a single Q-grader's passion project to a four-location specialty coffee company. She sources only specialty-grade green coffee scoring 80 points or above and emphasizes that quality raw ingredients form the foundation of everything, regardless of café aesthetics or menu creativity. Her philosophy has shifted from third wave coffee's obsession with the ingredient itself toward what she calls fourth wave coffee—building community and experience around quality coffee, creating large destination cafés rather than small high-turnover spaces. C Market's approach reflects broader industry trends: moving beyond "coffee snob" culture toward accessible luxury, experimenting with craft-style specialty drinks (like her signature black lava salt cream coffee), and incorporating elements like matcha and wellness-focused beverages. Bridgette emphasizes that scaling specialty coffee requires robust systems, formal training, and quality control across multiple locations rather than relying on passion alone. She's studying models like Starbucks Reserve while developing an internal training curriculum and quality audits to maintain consistency. Her vision includes seasonal storytelling and merchandising inspired by Asian and European café cultures, positioning specialty coffee as a mid-range quality product with pride, where education helps customers understand what they're consuming beyond price as a quality signal.