[Here is all you need to know, if you would like to skip out on the following, emotionally-driven post. No feelings will be hurt :)
1) jimseven blog
2) anne lamott (author, not related to coffee, but life in general)
3) david schomer (author of espresso coffee: professional techniques)
4) brian's previous post on the concordia children's center]
First, a warning: this post may be more emotional than factual, more ego-centric than coffee-centric--and I promise to try not to do that too often. But the truth is, coffee has become what I do, what I spend time thinking about, dreaming about, reading about...and I guess for this reason, it has become one of my major avenues of self-revelation. That is, through working with coffee, I often am jolted into realizing how selfish and insecure I can be.
Here is a recent example: Yesterday, I tried reading the jimseven blog--the blog of James Hoffman, 2007 World Barista Champion. It is very interesting, and you should check it out! Anyway, back when I'd first heard of it, my illogical assumption was that the name "James Hoffman" would belong to someone much older, someone whom I could cheerfully allow to have a very popular and informative coffee blog...someone whom I would not feel threatened by, because I'm young and still learning, etc etc. Ok, I don't know how old he is, but he is fairly young. And incredibly enthusiastic/passionate, innovative, and curious. And has an entire bookshelf full of coffeebooks--which makes the maybe 6 books I own seem, all of a sudden, nearly pathetic.
I'm trying to be honest, not depressing. This morning was spent reading Anne Lammot's book Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. Anne is a writer who admits to "my emotional drag-queeny self." She candidly admits to failure, and at the same time, speaks of what she learns from it--while being very clear that she is still emotional, still failing, still learning every day. So maybe I'm trying too hard right now to be like her, but she's incredible. The point with all of this is: I don't even know how much I don't know about coffee...and the temptation is to get discouraged because I'm proud and Want to think I know everything. Or, similarly, I want to believe that I'm the kind of person who is going to do incredibly beautiful things for the coffee industry, fighting injustice and all that...when I am rarely compassionate to the people right in front of me because I wrap my insecurity in snobbery.
I love coffee, and what I understand of the coffee industry--it's encounters like this, like reading jimseven and jealously freaking out, or narrowing my eyes at every person for whom i have to make a brr-latte (frozen blended drink), that threaten to paralyze everything--that make me afraid that all my love is selfish and therefore i can't do anything. But I don't think that's true.
Now I'm at the point where I want to wrap this up, but don't know how because it's a process and I'm still living in doubt and fighting mis-motives. Does this resonate with any of you? Do you look at what needs to be done, at what you love, and think "How can I possibly do any of that?" And if so, what then? What do you do about it? Again, I apologize for so much emotional venting...but it's important to me. It's what I want to do with my life, but haven't "figured out" yet. Which is okay.
To end on a positive note, here is my very favorite quote ever from a coffee-book. From David Schomer's Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques. "Ideally, espresso should taste like the freshly ground coffee smells. Texture is featured always, and should feel like a pair of velvet pajamas wrapped around your tongue." That image of velvet pajamas makes me smile every time. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The thought of velvet pajamas wrapped around my tongue dries out my mouth. The thought of David Schomer wearing velvet pajamas makes me laugh though, so it all works out.
Coffee, and more specifically the coffee industry, is so big that no one knows very much of it. It's vast. And most of us don't know what we don't know. That's one of the many reasons I chose this industry. I know that I have only to follow the tails of a few hunches based on something I thought of while I was researching something totally different... and I'll learn something about coffee that I didn't know existed. And after a while I'll forget it. And then I'll learn it all over again someday.
I started out in this business thinking I could help people in a number of ways. A couple of those core principles are still at the forefront of my company and life. But some of those things have changed. I can't do everything, but I know there are places I can focus my energies to help people. So I try to stay focused on those things when it comes to charity and justice.
As far as James Hoffman... I wouldn't worry about how many books he has. I'd be willing to bet that some of the most book-learned people in the world have the most to learn. I read Hoffman's blog occasionally. He's a good blogger, I guess. But he's part of a particular segment of the industry, so you have to keep in mind that he is disseminating information that espouses his beliefs and propagates his position. I assume you saw all those books behind him in his video podcast (I wonder why he chose to record in that location?). If so, I'm sure you listened to what he was saying in his first one. It astounds me. I read the comments and found almost nothing but head-nodding. My first thought was- he's laid out something so ridiculous just to see if people would agree with ANYTHING he has to say about coffee, and maybe in a couple days he would come back and say he was just kidding and scold people for not thinking on their own. But he didn't. My second thought was, this guy should be the laughingstock of the coffee industry. My third thought was, I've never looked to him for stimulating information anyway, so what do I care. I know James Hoffman is capable of much more than this. Coming up with ideas that are different doesn't necessarily make you an innovator.
Of course there is failure. If you never failed, you would be a failure. It's hard to know what doesn't work unless you try and fail. And if you don't know what DOESN'T work, you'll never have any idea what works better. Or as Winston Churchill said, "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam."
Post a Comment