Ol'fiction

1 October 2012

4 Comments

Poetry

To The Portly Gentleman in Suspenders

I had wished to say to you
before you stormed out
that I am sorry

you did not stay
for an extra minute and perhaps a
cup of coffee — just enough

for you to understand why
I am not your pet,
nor an alchemical magician,

but also why I still ache to surpass
your rigid demands and those
of your much-too-young wife.

Forget your order (I certainly have)
as specifics are relics of the past when
you stormed out of my shop

yelling that I was worse than
1930s Nazi Germany, calling me the
“coffee gazpacho,” an insult

laughable by two measures.
Had you not yelled all the way to the door,
I would have asked:

Does that make you a coffee Jew?
persecuted for your order by youths with nothing
but eagerness you please you.

Does my shop mantra — kill with kindness
– strike real mortal fear into you?
I’ve never seen a smile scare someone so.

If only the Jews could have avoided their fate
by spending four dollars elsewhere, then
your comparison may not have been so offensive.

But I understand your anger the way you don’t
understand my convictions, so I forgive you
for your hurtful words and wish to tell you

that your young wife can handle the extra
25 mg of caffeine;

that you would have loved your coffee
if you could have not hated me;

that I understand your frustration and
strive to alleviate it;

that, should you come back,
(and I sincerely hope you do)

I would gladly brew for you.

Tagged Anger, Customer service, Forgiveness, Olfiction Original

6 September 2012

There’s A Moment

There’s a moment when you read something that reminds you how awesome it is to be a barista. This one, a Yelp review, is brought to you by Jon A. of San Francisco, CA. Apparently, his Four Barrel coffee was pretty good.

There’s a moment in your life when you are: not caffeinated by the perfect cherry from Earth — the coffee plant — that’s roasted as delicate as the skin on the cherry that’s roasted. And that moment sucks.

It’s the moment before NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars. It’s the moment before Barack Obama was announced as the Next President. It’s the moment before you lace up your boots. It’s the moment before Whitney sings the National Anthem. It represents what we yearn for: to wake up.

However you get there — love, a face splash, a jog, a morning dance with your spouse — get there. I get there by what I love. I love the story of Earth that coffee tells. It’s a deep planted passion that I’ve been growing into for the last 7 years. From tended, cared for land, up sprouts a plant with a cherry that holds a bean worth while enough for a person to wash, process, peel — or not to peel — another person to roast, brew & cup, another person to distribute, then another cadre of people to roast & then, like here at Four Barrel, one wonderful man to brew the cup in front of me. I asked for something citrus & punchy, and what he gave me was citrus & punchy in the perfect way: their current Guatemalan Retana. Brewed to precision, the cup told the whipping lemongrass tale of all that made its way to me.

Be inspired by the passion that it takes for the Direct Trade farmed cherry to brewed cup — because in your hands rests what embodies the expoobident of how we endeavor to care for another to get us to that moment after we are: caffeinated, on Mars, with The President, with boots laced, singing the National Anthem, awake.

Tagged Customer appreciation, Four Barrel, Online review

30 August 2012

Introduction to Cupping

I tell myself to inhale and hold it in.

To allow the coffee’s story to unfurl
within me, to speak in pure silence the way
a weathered leather-bound book might creak open.

I tell myself to lay down a rhythm
and let the coffee harmonize atop its own melody
while I watch it dance.

I tell myself to sink, to stop treading,
to trade the chaos of breaking waves for deep current
undulation en route to the ocean floor.

I tell myself to forget
my oxygen tank, to leave it stowed beside
the crew’s life preservers and hype.

But all I manage to do it cast a line and talk
to the captain about what we expect
will bite this time,

dreaming about all that lives on the ocean floor.

Tagged Billy Collins, Coffee cupping, Olfiction Original, Tasting

24 August 2012

Cartel’s Chemex Brew Guide

Latest in a series of videos from Ah Dios, Cartel Coffee Lab’s Chemex Brew Guide boasts equal parts style and instruction.

Tagged Cartel Coffee Lab, Chemex

17 August 2012

1 Comment

Article

Backcountry Baristas Take Note

Strip away the fancy home and cafe gadgetry like espresso machines, electric burr grinders, and gooseneck spouts on temperature-controlled electric kettles. Away from home, these luxuries will have to wait as you explore the wilderness.

Would you still bring your Aeropress, hand mill and a pound of your finest whole bean if you had to carry it on your back – along with a stove, fuel bottle, tent, and a set of spare clothes? As an avid backpacker, I find these questions are not so easy to answer. The saying, “ounces mean pounds and pounds mean pain,” resonate with anyone who has tested his or her grit in the backcountry for days or weeks at a time, causing some to even lop off the handle of a toothbrush to drop pack weight.

Boiling snow for a quick on-trail coffee break in Utah.

Backpacker Magazine recently released an article aiming to test different backcountry brew methods to see which appeals most to backcountry baristas. They compared three methods: cowboy coffee, filter, and French press. For those who want to skip their article, their scoring went as follows:

Cowboy coffee: brewing with grounds in the mug, sinking the grinds, then drinking until it gets too gritty
Best for Ultralighters and groups
Convenience: 4 out of 5
Taste: 3 out of 5

Filter: brewing in an unspecified filter
Best for low-fuss caffeine addicts
Convenience: 3 out of 5
Taste: 4 out of 5

French press
Best for weekend-warrior connoiseurs
Convenience: 2 out of 5
Taste: 5 out of 5

Source: http://www.backpackinglight.com

Before I begin, I would like to thank Backpacker for running a piece on coffee in the backcountry. I particularly enjoy when two of my passions collide and they put a fair amount of thought into the article, including this gem: ”Proper extraction happens between 195 and 205 F. If you’re brewing at elevations between 3,500 and 9,000 feet, you can pour boiling water straight into your filter or press. Above 9,000 feet? Leave your coffee kit at home and bring a quality instant instead. At that elevation, water’s boiling temp is below 195℉, so it never gets hot enough to extract subtle flavors.”

Bravo! However, I must contend with a few of their claims for each method.

Cowboy coffee (my preferred method) amounts to cupping a coffee, except drinking the whole thing. Given that this is the tasting critique for every respectable coffee establishment in the frontcountry, I give it a 5 out of 5 for taste for a total score of 9 out of 10.

The entire section on the filter method makes no sense, especially given that they did not describe the device they used. They recommend a cylindrical mesh tea-infuser for more even extraction and pleasant body than conical filters, which is entirely erroneous given their additional instruction to use a fine grind and pour-over technique. This section sounds like a recipe for a cup of under-extracted sludge that deserved 1 out of 5 for taste for a total of 4 out of 10.

I would never carry a French press while backpacking, so this sounds silly to me. However, if you’re the type to shoulder the weight for a ground-free cup, then cudos! However, I’m still knocking the score down to 1 out of 5 for convenience for a total score of 6 out of 10.

Opinions aside, two undisputed facts remain:

1. Regardless of method, a good cup always starts with a fresh grind.

2. Nothing in this world tops brewing a warm mug of backcountry coffee while taking in a chilly sunrise amidst the lingering aroma of freshly ground coffee.

Tagged Backcountry barista, Backpacker Magazine, Backpacking, Cowboy coffee, French press, Olfiction Original