Acquiring Taste: Drinking Specialty Coffee and Craft Beer in Colombia and the United States
In this new research, I investigate how taste is at once an individual and a social experience. I ask how people learn to distinguish and appreciate certain tastes, and examine the social, cultural, and political dimensions of this learning process. Focusing on the communities of consumers emerging around specialty coffee and craft beer in Colombia and the US, this project explores the implications of the rise of these new forms of old beverages on popular aspirations for middle class belonging, dreams of prosperity, performances of gender, and ultimately, what it means to pursue a better life against a backdrop of insecurity.