KOREASCHOLAR

The purpose of this study was to analyze the general characteristics of coffee house consumers as well as the importance and satisfaction of selection attributes of specialty coffee houses according to length of coffee education period. Applicants in the Gwangju and Jeonnam area who had finished their Barista 2 grade certificate examination participated in a survey on March 12, 2011. Further, university students living in Gwangju participated as subjects who had never experienced coffee education from March 15 to March 31, 2011. Two-hundred and one subjects participated in the survey, and 184 questionnaires were used for analysis. Regardless of coffee education experience, quality of coffee was important, but higher educated subjects showed the lowest satisfaction of coffee from a coffee house (p<0.01) in terms of attributes such as freshness of coffee beans (p<0.01) and overall taste (p<0.01). Further, subjects who received no or little education demonstrated high correlation between importance/satisfaction of 'brand' and 'employee' compared to subjects who studied more than 2 semesters. These results provide future coffee house entrepreneurs and baristas with market information and marketing strategies for understanding customers' coffee house selection attributes.

• 길진모 | Khil, Jin-Mo