Atmosfere del caffè: olfatto, gusto e coffee house in Cina

Auteurs

  • Paolo Do Università di Trento

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.13129/2281-8138/2026.1.68-86

Mots-clés :

Olfatto, Gusto, Atmosfere, Specialty Coffe, Cina

Résumé

Coffee atmospheres: smell, taste and coffee house in China.

L’articolo propone uno studio delle atmosfere urbane assumendo l’esperienza dello specialty coffee come via privilegiata per interrogare la produzione sensoriale della vita urbana contemporanea. La sua originalità risiede in una lettura delle atmosfere non basata esclusivamente sulle componenti visive, architettoniche o genericamente affettive, ma capace di integrare dimensioni volatili, intime e difficilmente oggettivabili che attraversano il corpo prima ancora di essere pienamente nominate: l’odore, l’aroma, il sapore.  Si fiuta un’atmosfera così come accade con l’aroma del caffè: da qui la scelta di analizzarla a partire dal ruolo del gusto e dell’olfatto, sensi centrali nella degustazione dello specialty coffee, attraverso un focus etnografico condotto in tre coffee house di Chengdu, in Cina. L’esperienza del caffè emerge come una zona intermedia tra ambiente e corpo, percezione esterna e incorporazione, qualità spaziale e valutazione sensoriale

Références

Aydın A., Temizkan S. P. (2024), “Factors influencing third wave coffee customers’ satisfaction and revisit intentions.” International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, 38, 101048.

Bitner M. J. (1992), “Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees”. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71.

Bizzozero V. (1997), L’univers des odeurs. Introduction à l’olfactologie. Geneve, Georg Editeur.

Bennett T., Savage M., Silva, E., Warde A., Gayo M. (2008), Culture, class, distinction. Routledge.

Böhme, G. (2010), Atmosfere, estasi, messe in scena. L’estetica come teoria generale della percezione. Milano, Christian Marinotti.

Böhme G. (2017), Critique of Aesthetic Capitalism. Milano-Udine, Mimesis International.

Böhme G. (2006), Architektur und Atmosphäre. München, Wilhelm Fink.

Bourdieu P. (1984), Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London, Routledge.

Coffey A. (1999), The Ethnographic Self: fieldwork and the representation of identity. London, Sage.

Coles B. F. (2013), “Ingesting Places: Embodied Geographies of Coffee”. In E.-J. Abbots & A. Lavis (Eds.), Why We Eat, How We Eat: Contemporary Encounters between Foods and Bodies (pp. 255–270). Farnham, Ashgate.

Fele G. (2025), Sociologia della degustazione. Milano-Uidine, Mimesis.

Garfinkel H. (1967), Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall.

Griffero T. (2010), Atmosferologia. Estetica degli spazi emozionali. Roma-Bari, Laterza.

Griffero T. (2022), “Sniffing Atmospheres: Observations on Olfactory Being-In-The-World.” In Olfaction: An Interdisciplinary Perspective from Philosophy to Life Sciences, edited by Nicola Di Stefano and Maria Teresa Russo, 75–90. Cham, Springer.

Gusman A. (2004), Antropologia dell’olfatto. Roma-Bari, Laterza.

Henningsen L. (2011), “Coffee, fast food and the desire for romantic love in contemporary China: Branding and marketing trends in popular Chinese-language literature”. Transcultural Studies, 2, 232–270.

Henningsen L. (2012), “Individualism for the masses? Coffee consumption and the Chinese middle class’ search for authenticity”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 13(3), 408–427.

Hennion A. (2004), Pragmatics of Taste. In The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Culture, edited by M. Jacobs and N. Hanrahan, 131–144. Oxford: Blackwell.

Howes D. (2003), Sensing Culture: engaging the senses in culture and social theory. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.

Howes D. (ed.) (1991), The Varieties of Sensory Experience: a sourcebook in the anthropology of the senses. Toronto, Buffalo, London, University of Toronto Press.

Kotler P. (1973), “Atmospherics as a marketing tool”. Journal of Retailing, 49(4), 48–64.

Le Breton D. (2017), Sensing the world: An anthropology of the senses. Bloomsbury Academic.

Liberman K. (2022), Tasting Coffee An Inquiry into Objectivity, New York, Suny press.

Lingle T. (2001), The coffee cupper’s handbook. Long Beach, CA, Specialty Coffee Association

Malnar J., F. Vodvarka (2004), Sensory Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Mancioppi E. (2022), L’olfattivo. Per un’estetica sociale dell’odorato. Pisa, Edizioni ETS.

Marin, K., Požrl, T., Zlati´c, E. Plestenjak, A. (2008), “A New Aroma Index to Determine the Aroma Quality of Roasted and Ground Coffee During Storage”, Food Technol. Biotechnol, 46(4), pp. 442-447.

Massey D. (2005), For Space. London, Sage.

Minkowski E. (1936), Vers une cosmologie. Fragments philosophiques. Paris, Aubier.

Mondada L. (2018), “The multimodal interactional organization of tasting”. Discourse Studies, 20(6), 743– 769.

Kosuke M., Takahashi A., Spence C. (2021), “Tasting Atmospherics: Taste Associations with Colour Parameters of Coffee Shop Interiors.” Food Quality and Preference, 94: 104315.

Opoku E. K., Tham A., Morrison A. M., Wang M. J. S. (2023), “An exploratory study of the experiencescape dimensions and customer revisit intentions for specialty urban coffee shops.” British Food Journal, 125(5), 1613–1630. doi: 10.1108/BFJ-04-2022-0361.

Pang C. L., Mo L. (2018), “Mapping Chinese coffee culture in the land of tea. The case of Yunnan province”. Journal of International Economic Studies, 32, 103–115.

Pink, S. (2015), Doing Sensory Ethnography. 2nd ed. London, SAGE Publications.

Ryding D. (2011), “The Speciality Coffee Shop Market: Are Today’s Consumers Demanding More than Store Ambience and Good Coffee from the Consumption Experience?” International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 6(3/4), 399–409.

SCA (2022), “What is specialty coffee?”, in Specialty Coffee Association website, online, https://sca.coffee/research/what-is-specialty-coffee.

SCA (2023), “A New System to Assess Coffee Value: Introducing the Beta Version of the Specialty Coffee Association's Coffee Value Assessment”, in Specialty Coffee Association website, online, https://sca.coffee.

Schmitz H. (2011), Nuova fenomenologia. Un’introduzione. Milano, Christian Marinotti.

Schmitz H (1967), System der Philosophie, Bd. III.1. Der leibliche Raum, Bonn, Bouvier.

Simmel G. (2020), “Sociologia dei sensi”. In Stile moderno. Saggi di estetica sociale, a cura di B. Carnevali e A. Pinotti, trad. F. Peri, pp. 83–98. Torino: Einaudi.

Specialty Coffee Association (2017), “Preserving Freshness: A Race Against Time.” 25 Magazine, Issue 4.

Spence C., Carvalho F. M. (2020), “The Coffee Drinking Experience: Product Extrinsic (Atmospheric) Influences on Taste and Choice.” Food Quality and Preference, 80: 103802.

Stewart S. (2013), A sociology of culture, taste and value. London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Stoller P. (1997), Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.

Tellenbach H. (1981), “Tasting and smelling – Tast and atmosphere – Atmosphere and trust”. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 12 (2): 221–230.

Tellenbach H. (1968), Geschmack und Atmosphäre. Medien menschlichen Elementarkontaktes. Salzburg, Otto Müller Verlag.

World Coffee Research (2017), World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, 2nd ed, College Station, TX, World Coffee Research.

Xu X., & Ng A.Y. (2022), “Cultivation of new taste: taste makers and new forms of distinction in China’s Coffee Culture”. Information, Communication & Society, 26, 2345 - 2362.

Téléchargements

Publiée

2026-09-16