On Latte Art, Barista Showmanship, and the general effects of too much caffeine on an inflated Ego

Most of you are familiar with Latte art, and generally, you like it. At least I've never heard anyone say, "Please don't put a rosetta on my Latte." (Not that it couldn't happen.) We Baristi usually tell customers that we pour art to highlight our espresso; to show the high quality which differentiates us from others. That may be true. But the real reason we do it is because it's boring to just pour milk over espresso again and again and again. We baristi tend to be over-caffeinated, over-educated (for what we do), and usually a bit ego-maniacal. Pouring lattes is boring. We have an eccess of energy and enthusiasm. We need the challenge of pouring art. And we need to one-up our co-workers and competing coffee shops.

This, by the way, is also why we're flipping our tampers and portafilters and whip cream canisters and cups and anything else we get our hands on. We've got ridiculous amounts of caffeine flowing through our veins; Simple motions no longer feel possible; We HAVE to flip every item we touch. I don't think this actually impresses anyone but ourselves, but we keep flipping. At least it satisfies our neurosis...

On Milk

I spend a good amount of time ranting about you fools who put milk in your coffee to cover up the taste, so it might come as a surprise to find out that I drink at least one milk based coffee beverage a day. It's not hypocrisy though. (Really? It sounds like hypocrisy. Well, it's not. Trust me.) OK, it's hypocrisy.

Recently I tried using a different milk than normal in my cappuccino. I was surprised at how much worse it tasted than my normal milk. Both milks are whole milk, both are all natural, but my regular milk is organic. The organic tastes ridiculously better, creamier, sweeter.

Just thought I'd put that out there...

Dark Roast Rant Update

Well, plenty of you people are still coming in and asking for my "darkest roast." My ranting may be changing things, but only in a very small, slow way.

Today an old farmer came in and asked me for my darkest roast and I didn't even bother to try to educate him. Nope. Just pulled our burntest [sic] coffee off the shelf and sold it to him.

Is the fight worth it? I don't know. I do think that I'm getting worn down by people who know nothing about coffee but refuse to consider the idea that dark roasted coffee might not be the best way to go. Sure, what do I know? Tasting and roasting and preparing coffee is only my profession. But you, well, you probably read a snippet from the side of a Starbucks bag. Please, enlighten the rest of us; tell us how much better a dark roast is.

Mmmm. Tar water...

The morning crew

We're a young coffee shop--9 months old--so we're still developing our "thing" here. What is our thing? Don't know--still working on it. But if our thing, our general "vibe", in the future is anything like what our current crew of morning customers create, I think that would be cool. We have a regular group these days--we know what they're like; they know what we're like; they're getting to know each other pretty well, too. Every morning at the roastery cafe is noisy, haphazard meeting of friends, centered around coffee. There's a lot of good natured ribbing, a bit of coffee geeking, some ranting (mainly by me), and lots of tasty espresso.

Keep it up guys.