世界咖啡，在地味蕾：臺灣咖啡師如何進行「好味」協商

Global Coffee, Local Palate: How Taiwanese Barista Negotiate Good Taste with Local Customers

本研究追溯臺灣咖啡品味的轉型過程，探究跨越國界的食物如何進入在地的飲食地景，在全球與在地雙重作用力下，重塑味道邊界。本研究強調文化中介者的角色，並說明咖啡師的勞動過程橋接世界咖啡風潮與在地口味。 本研究的分析主要分成兩個部分：宏觀背景指出連鎖咖啡店從日系慢火重焙甘苦味、美系大火快炒焦香味，轉型到第三波咖啡的快火淺焙果酸味；接著說明咖啡師在臺灣第三波咖啡轉型的重要性。微觀實作說明咖啡師如何引介、挪用世界咖啡風潮的文化元素生產自身的品味利基，在雜食性消費者撐起的區隔化市場中定位自身，又如何在消費者服務中進行品味協商，「好咖啡」的界線就是在咖啡師與消費者不斷進行的推廣、順應或抗拒的互動過程中動態地建構與重構。臺灣消費者的感官經驗也回頭挑戰歐美定義的好咖啡，所以咖啡師不僅「仲介」好咖啡，也在品味協商的勞動過程中成為具備匠藝的文化生產者。由此，本研究將社會學中關於感官品味與文化中介者的兩個觀點帶回食物與邊界的討論，指出臺灣咖啡好味的轉型過程也是社會劃界的過程，鑲嵌著全球性與在地性、歷史與地理脈絡中的文化生產與文化消費，濃縮在勞動者與消費者的感官與身體上作用。

The research I am conducting sheds light on the transformation of Taiwanese coffee tastes. I investigated how cross-national foods entered the local foodscape and rebuilt the taste boundary, looking at both globalization and localization. Attention has been devoted to cultural intermediaries' critical roles: baristas' labor process bridges global coffee trends and local palates. This article consists of the following two parts: the background part notes that coffee flavours promoted by chain stores in Taiwan were transformed from Japanese-style slow-cooked beans with a bitter taste to American quick-roasted beans with a caramelized flavor. And then it changed further to quick-fried light roasted beans with acidity in the third-wave coffee trend, through the efforts of coffee baristas. The second, social-action part notes how baristas introduce global coffee tastes to consumers. They seize on cultural elements from coffee trends to develop a specific style of taste provided by their coffee shop, and thus develop their niche in the discriminating market. In their consumer service process, baristas negotiate the dynamic boundary of good-taste coffee with consumers, and the boundary is shaped and reshaped through the different types of interaction include promotive, compliant, and rejective. Taiwanese consumers' preferences are rooted in their own sensations, and also challenge Westerners' taste. Therefore, coffee baristas not only “mediate” good coffee but also become craft producers in their buying, roasting, blending labor process. The research brings the sociological concepts of “taste of sense” and “cultural intermediary” back to the academic agenda of research on food and borders. It demonstrates that Taiwanese good-taste coffee transformations are social boundary-making movements embedded in globalization and localization, historical and geographical contexts condensed on workers' and consumers' embodied sensations.