I'm sorry to beat a dead horse... but you drive me to it.

What is with your ridiculous insistence that you want a "good dark roast."

Time and time again, I secretly slip you light roasted Guatemalan and Ethiopian coffees and you say, "oh yes, oh my, now this is what I'm looking for, this is the ticket, you have shown me the love and the love is splendid, more, more, more--I just love that dark roast."

Another thing you say that drives me crazy: "I want something bold."

This is, by the way, a term that Starbucks uses to describe some of their coffees: a purposely vague, yet catchy term. It sounds so sophisticated: "I like bold coffees." What does it mean? Almost nothing once you leave Starbucks. Bold? Might as well say I'd like "brave coffee." Sounds nice. Could mean anything. If you can't give me a better description than "bold," then you probably don't know what you want. (Which is what I assume anyway...)

How about this: next time you ask for "something bold" I'm going to attach your mouth to the espresso machine and pump dark roasted coffee down your thoat with 18 atmospheres of pressure. Now that would be bold...

Why I am so superior

Nietzsche had some chapter titles like this, and it's always entertained me.

Did the Nietzche-nator like coffee. Most likely--his self-important tone is the unmistakable sign of an over-qualified, under-appreciated, intelectual, egotistical barista. Or for short, a barista.

You heard it here first--Nietzche the barista.

On the freakin' Wine-Os.

OK, so I've bashed a few of the wine folk in the valley for posing as people with sophisticated palates, yet insisting on drinking dark-roasted coffee with cream and sugar in a 20 oz cup.
I take none of it back, but I thought I should balance these thoughts out with some positive stuff. I've been very, very impressed with some of the wine folk of late: drinking the coffee black; making very, very sophisticated and intelligent observations on the coffee.

You've got to hand it to them--they've got some great vocabulary and good imagination when they're tasting. Now, by imagination, I don't mean that they're "imagining" tastes that aren't there, but rather that it takes some creativity to identify the taste of butter-nut squash in a cup of coffee. It might be there, but most people don't put it together because they're not thinking of squash when they're drinking coffee. That's certainly an area where I could improve. I mean, I can single out a particular taste amidst the complexities in the cup, but describing the taste is very difficult.

I'm working on it. Today I recognized the smell of freshly baked pinto beans in the 'nose' of my Kenya. Hmmm, doesn't sound that appetizing, so I might not say that to a customer when I'm describing it, but I'm proud that I was able to recognize the aroma. Usually I'm stuck in the rut of coffee describing words: fruity, chocolatey, berried, lemony, citrusy, balanced, crisp, thick mouth feel, clean-finishing, etc... These aren't bad, but there are a lot more tastes in the coffee besides these. In fact, the coffee tasting wheel has twice as many tastes as the wine tasting wheel, so we coffee people should be able to describe coffee (and wine for that matter) in at least as sophisticated a way as the winey folk. Hats off to you, Wine-Os.

Oh You Fools

Why do you bother to ask me what you should order if you plan to ignore my answer?

Customer: "Hi, I'm not sure what I'd like--what do you suggest?"

Me: "How about a short cappuccino?"

Customer: "I'll have a grande mocha with extra caramel topping."

Yeah, that's similar to what I suggested.

Customer: "What type of coffee do you recomend?"

Me: "Well, currently I really like our light roasted Guatemala Huehuetenango."

Customer: "Ok, I'll take your Harvest Blend [our darkest roast]."


Do you ask your questions just to hear your own voice? You're going to get a portafilter spanking if you keep it up...