Extra-Curricular Coffee Education

As a group of passionate baristas, we go to trade shows, compete in barista competitions and read over coffeegeek, barismo, and coffeed to hone our craft. Many shops (including ours) hold events such as coffee cuppings and latte art throwdowns to increase customer awareness. The majority of the time these events are attended by people already passionate about coffee, very rarely will Suzy Q. Iced-banana-four-sugar-packet-Mocha or Johnny Caramel-mint-vanilla-orange-frappachino be attending your coffee cupping event. Tell them you're practicing for a barista competition and they'll think it's amusing that you practice for an event where 'all you do is hit a button'.
How can we educate these customers, who see coffee as just a gateway for caffeine, as something more than this? Often we seek to give our customers on-the-fly education while we're working the espresso machine. However, this rarely translates into a conversation and at worst can be viewed by the customer as a pompous, arrogant and hostile lecture. The answer for customer education isn't found in two minute lectures but rather a conversation that starts both outside and inside our shop.
This past week I was invited to speak at an International Justice Mission meeting about coffee economics and the craft of creating and understanding quality coffee. If you're not familiar with IJM, they're a human rights organization that operates from an understanding that God calls us to "Seek justice, protect the oppressed, defend the orphan, [and] plead for the widow." They have student groups at college campuses across the country to educate and work towards their mission. I was honored to be able to speak at their Robert Morris University chapter. When the event started, I asked those in the room (about 15), how many drink coffee (~8), how many have heard of fair trade coffee (~6), how many have heard of direct trade (0), and how many have participated in a coffee cupping before (0). Starting with this, we discussed coffee economics and different trade models. I spoke about Edwin and Carlos, the Finca Vista Hermosa farm manager and his son who were tragically murdered only a few weeks ago and seeing coffee as not a mere commodity, but rather a crop that people around the world rely on to put food on the table and send their children to school. Understanding coffee quality and having a respect for those who produce it is intimately tied together. We cannot, and should not, have one without the other. To that end, everyone in the room got a chance to cup coffee. It was fun teaching these students, many who don't even drink coffee, about the nuances of the bean. They were excited for this new opportunity and got their noses and tastebuds into the coffee as they worked to describe them. After the cupping we opened the floor up for questions. These students, now on their way to becoming passionate about coffee, asked me questions ranging from how they should brew their coffee, to what I thought of Starbucks, to what coffee I recommend. It was a fun and exciting time for coffee education and happened 30 miles away from our shop. Sometimes the best education happens when we step away from our espresso machine and find natural partnerships with those who rarely, if ever, step into our shop. My question to you is this: How are you taking coffee education outside of your shop?

-jake