Defending The Face of the Industry

There’s an interesting read in three parts posted at The Shot, which concludes with a condemnation of the evolving importance of the barista.  There are many points I agree with and many I strongly do not, and the divergence usually occurs when it’s assumed that being a good barista means being a possessor of strong service skills.  The two skillsets, and to be sure they’re both skills, are completely independant of one another.  A bad barista can give great service regardless, and clearly a great barista is capable of poor service.   To generalize that baristas are as a group the most novice and least experienced, as the author does,  is kind of scary given that there’s no possible way to extricate them from the crucial communicative role they have with the customer.  I don’t think baritas are any less informed or able as a group than roasters or farmers, and I guess I’m a bit confused by that whole point.  Anyway, moving on…

I too argued once with Scott about barista competitions being counterproductive as a whole for the industry, and it begat a conversation that ultimately changed my mind a little bit.  The article missed the point and spirit of competitions.  I’ve never met a winner of a competition who believed that by winning, he was a superior “barista.”  The winner is the person who accumulates the most points awarded that day, and in my experience nobody takes that beyond the confines of the competition.  Now, that said, I’ve been lucky enough to work bar with two of Canada’s national champions and both were exceptional baristas in a cafe setting as well.  Both are charismatic and a hit with customers in addition to mastering the coffee they work with, and to me there’s little more to ask of someone in that role.   Competitions function well for baristas to meet and learn from one another, for the public as a gateway to learning about the finer qualities of drink building and service, and for the media to publicize an incredibly small niche of a market.  Perhaps they don’t succeed in crowning the “best” barista, but no less so than any competition judged on subjective criteria.

The last point made in the column is something I’ve already touched on; great service has nothing to do with making coffee.  I’ve heard Jamie McCormick and Abraco produce great coffee from a number of my peers, but his ability to connect with his customers is irrelevent to that.  I think both are essential for a good experience in a shop, and that’s true of any industry, not just coffee.  Baristas are unique in the sense that, unlike chefs (in keeping with that comparison), they’re responsible for building the drinks while relating to the customer.  There’s no kitchen to hide in, no team of waiters providing a layer of insulation.  Very often the relationship between barista and customer is a game of inches, adding more pressure to add the performative element that’s completely unnecessary for most culinary professionals.

So yeah, I guess you might not find the likes of Jamie McCormick in a barista competition, but that doesn’t mean anything so far as I can tell.  It doesn’t mean anything to me because of the guys you do find at competitions, perhaps just as skilled and friendly in every way.  I’m proud to call myself a barista and represent my craft to a coffee drinking public that hasn’t necessarily been initiated to the culinary approach that many of us share.  Taking the barista out of the spotlight as a means to further the “progression” of quality coffee makes little sense to me, especially given that so many baristas pursue their craft out of enthusiasm and passion instead of the material motives that have yet to become available to them.

I won’t comment much on the portion on coffee geeks, as this is dragging on too long as it is, except to say that some of the most important progressions in reducing variables in extractions and brewing have come from amateurs, not professionals.  Let’s not bite the hands that feed, yeah?

Yum.

I just had my first cup of coffee from Ritual Roasters, the Brazil Chapadao de Ferro.  Absolutely delicious.

Our Outta Style is Coming Back

So completely unsubstantiated speculation coming from sources of all types of repute suggest that Starbucks is purging the plan to incorporate more Clovers into their stores.  I mean, really they got what they want already.  They received a great deal of press about how they’re focussing solely on fresh brewed coffee and generated a decent buzz for a while.  Effectively there’s no real need to go through with it, given that the machine will drive up their cost per cup during a recession where they’re already cutting back wherever they can.  Perhaps they’ll buy the rights to the Chemex next.

Does a machine embraced and then rejected by Starbucks regain its cool factor?  Or does the lover spurned that is specialty coffee maintain its cold shoulder, effectively putting the Clover in limbo?  From iconic symbol to ironic accessory in a matter of months, such is the power of one of the most influential brands in the world.

Taste; No Accounting For It

Mark Prince is appalled that Ken Davids scored espresso pods highly on his review site.  Which begs the question, to me, how do we standardize tasting?  I’ve never tried using a pod and have never sought out to try espresso made from a pod.  I’ll say that unless Mark was there and tried the same pod under the same conditions that Davids did, it seems rather asinine to imply someone else’s subjective sensory appreciation is deteriorating.  People don’t appreciate the same visual aesthetic, don’t wear the same style of clothes, and enjoy different books, but everyone must enjoy the same type of coffee?

In a similar vein, Mark also commented that he didn’t like a roast of Intelly’s Black Cat a couple weeks ago.  I sampled some stamped as the same roast date and it was the most enjoyable I remember Black Cat being in a couple years.  I suppose this means my taste buds are detiorating.  It’s dangerous to present subjective preferences on a platform as big as coffeegeek.com, especially to those unequipped to make their own personal judgments.

I suppose this could also be considered post one of two, or just to be continued.

Also, thanks to Matt and Swe for the visit at Myriade yesterday.  One of the best things about the cafe so far is receiving baristas from visiting cafes and cities to compare craft.  Having a discussion comparing experiences with brewing and experiencing different coffees is often surprisingly insightful.  Looking forward to serving you guys tomorrow.

Tangential Stalling Before The Storm

How much does Scott Rao love his new refractometer?  Let me count the ways: 22g, 24g, 26g…

Watching Scott experiment with brewing coffee is the closest I’ve been to science since- well probably ever.  Over decent food and terrible service at Le Local, we briefly discussed the definition of being a barista.  I’ve always considered good baristaism to be a matter of maintaining intangible cues in tandem with physical tasks, while I imagine to others it’s purely the act of dose/distribute/tamp/extract.  It’s curious to me how our industry can function without consensus on anything, really.  Imagine going to a bar and ordering a shot of whiskey and being served a triple, and then being told “that’s the way it should be done.”  I suppose in that sense, maybe I agree.

Also, can I just say how facetiously angry we at Cafe Myriade are at George from Crema for ripping off our french press motif for  his awesome new t-shirt concept.  Shame on you, dear friend.

I’m being coy with my posts at the moment because I’m uncharacteristically overediting a rather large post that may perhaps land me in trouble.  In keeping with my love of confrontation and controversy, I look forward to publishing it.  Questions of the day: how much do we trust the people in charge of the limited mainstream media our industry has?  How are we being represented to others, and how well are we being represented to?  It severely bothers me that I appear to be in the minority affected by questions like those.  More on that soon, for better or worse.

On Calgary (Not About Intelligentsia)

A couple days ago I had the pleasure to receive one of my peers from Calgary as a guest at Myriade and spent the better part of an hour covering a range of topics in discussion. He was from Kawa Espresso Bar, one of the newer and more reputably well received additions to the city’s specialty coffee landscape. My relationship with Calgary growing up was one of conflicted feelings. While I have absolutely no personal quibble with the city or any individual Calgarian, I abhor their hockey team. Apparently I have difficulty with compartmentalization of emotions as this hatred towards the Calgary Flames has tainted my mental outlook to the probably-fine city of Calgary in general. Before this post goes off the rails, the point I’m plodding towards is that Calgary, personal hangups aside, has (at least what appears to be from afar) the most diverse and engaging coffee scene in the country.  With a more diverse offering of roasters in a clustered area, a variety of specialty shops (Phil and Sebastian’s, Bumpy’s, Kawa, Artigiano, etc), and a customer base that encourages and supports the shops and individual baristas alike, the city’s poised to have a flourishing network of good cafes for the foreseeable future.  It doesn’t hurt that four out of the six finalists at last year’s National Championship work in or have roots in Calgary’s coffee culture.   I’d be curious to visit to get a sense of the approach in Calgary as compared to any of the cities in Canada; I suspect that based on the big differences between Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver that the development of a particular ethos depends greatly on the clientele.

In local news, this Sunday’s tasting is completely full and I regret to say that we can’t accept anyone else.  We’re hosting guests from such exotic locales as Massachusetts and Connecticut, possibly the states with the hardest names to spell.  Look for news about next Sunday’s offering some time this weekend.  Enjoy the day.

Intelly Reimagining the Wheel

Intelligentsia’s making the news lately.  In another piece Kyle Glanville discusses plans for a new concept in Venice, CA that will augment Intelly’s already firmly established presence in coffee service.  To me, there are two distinctly interesting parts to the story; the architectural vision and the approach to their coffee service.  The former is noteworthy in its conceptual redesign of the traditional coffee shop, which for me piques interest on many levels.  The exercise in excess of having multiple barista stations functioning independently of one another is, I suppose, the next logical progression from stores that have more than one espresso setup behind their counter.   I have no opinion on the functionality of a system like this based on my lack of experience with them, and it sounds to me as though there’s logistical information missing from the article to help form a cohesive image (where do people lineup, at the “concierge’s” desk?), but again it sounds intriguing and I’m interested to see the resulting infrastructure.  The article also mentions that the space will include a 1972 refurbished La Marzocco to pull single-origin espressos at the  “cupping bar,” a paradoxical approach as the machine appears to be placed as a nostalgic element (all others of which are being systematically and intentionally eliminated).  There may be logical reasoning behind the decision, and I’d be keen to hear it.

The cupping bar, as Kyle puts it, is actually a “slow manual coffee service station.”  Vacuum pots, eva solos, french presses, and manual drip will all be available in addition to a chemex.  Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.  Including the Clover located somewhere on the main floor, by my count the Venice Intelly will be offering coffee brewed seven different ways.

The confusing point to me is related to comments to do with seating.  Reportedly the space will exclude tables and chairs from the layout, supposedly to spur social interaction.  The only way I see this being a valid approach is because by forcing shyer, less social people out of their comfort zones and therefore away from the exerperience, only customers with degrees of extroversion will remain.  That’s perhaps a bit facetious, but I see no social benefit to making a space less conducive to those who prefer to be alone in a crowd.  There are plenty of reasons to abandon tables and chairs (efficiency of space being one, you can fit more people into a room standing than sitting) but doing so to encourage social interaction seems theoretical at best.  Put four people who talk alot at different tables and within fifteen minutes they’ll have heard all about each other’s days.  Likewise, I don’t imagine those who enjoy their own company to be roused to engage with others due to a lack of tables.  Regardless, I look forward to visiting Intelligentsia Venice at some point.

Myriade’s first tasting of 09 will be a reprise of the One-Coffee-Five-Ways trick we pulled in November.  It was successful and received well, and we’re looking forward to doing it again.  Hope to see you Sunday at 11AM sharp.

Class is in Session

I need another day to finalize the details of our Sunday tasting, but it will definitely be a coffee event and, as usual, limited to ten to twelve people.  As it stands it will either be an experiment with temperature or a reprise of a single coffee brewed multiple ways.  Fun starts at 11AM Sunday January 11th, reserve your space in the cafe with $10 buy in, fun will be had and coffee will be tasted.

Today was a lot of fun and a lot of stress.  Given that Myriade is situated across the street from Concordia, the return en masse to school instigated a flurry of activity from morning until close during which our cash register misbehaved, water pressure to the sink was lethargic for an hour or so, and I exploded a bag of tea.  It’s always fun seeing people for the first time after time apart, and it’s good to be reminded of how much I enjoy our clientele.  On that sycophantic note, I’m off to bed to brace myself for a tomorrow like today.

RIP: Intelligentsia’s Urn Coffee

So after some deliberation and a relatively bad day, I planned to abandon writing any more about Vancouver’s limited options in filtered coffee. Then I come home and discover an article I’d missed for the last week or so about Intelligentsia axing their coffee urns in their Lakeview store. It’s an interesting reference point, given that in a way they appear to be doing exactly what I found the cafes in Vancouver were doing – relying on a sole brew method that skews to an extreme in terms of cup characteristics. But then, the article also includes a quote about how Intelly plans to introduce Vac Pots, which are a great addition to any coffee service when done effectively. I don’t know what other brew methods aside from the Clover are available at Intelligentsia stores, but I think progressive change to serve everything fresh can only be a good thing. If they offer an immersion brew and a variety of beans from differing origins, what more could you ask for in terms of choice?

But if I’m all for serving fresh, why (one might ask, as my peers did) call-out the proliferation of the Clover in Vancouver? This is where some confusion arose as baristas from my hometown cafes texted me to insist they do serve other brew methods and that the Clover provides many advantages I ignored. I should make clear, it was less the machine I was commenting on and more the trend towards a singular brewing method serving the needs of a variety of tastes in a clientele. If everyone was only serving drip, or french press, or siphon, or whatever, my reaction would have been in kind. As prices paid for green coffee rise as quality rises, and as these costs translate to higher prices on the menu, we who offer these coffees run the risk of offending our clientele who may not perceive value as being added. The luxury of choice can go a long way to piquing and engaging the interest of somebody who may otherwise not be interested in paying $3.50 for what is, more often than not, a less than perfect cup.

Also as an aside, it’s worth reading the comments posted by readers after the conclusion of the article. While by no means an 100% accurate insight into the minds of an average consumer, this is the kind of debate generated when change is instigated and routines are broken. There’s always something to be learned, and in this case I discovered there exists a type of person that harbours inspired, passionate, and unadulterated hatred towards urn coffee. That, to me, is awesome in its own right.

Tomorrow I will post information about the first tasting event of 2009 at Myriade. Goodnight.

Routines

If I was forced to choose only one coffee or tea to enjoy for the rest of my life, at this point in time I believe I’d drink Amber Dragon Oolong from Rishi Tea all the way to the grave.  How curious to consider that until a few months ago I couldn’t have cared less for the intricacies of fine tea.  It’s so easy to fall into routines that, once shaken, reveal themselves to be crutches in various formats.  Which is to say, I’m beginning to see the merits of keeping an open mind.  Or maybe I’m just really into oolongs at the moment.

Or maybe still my mercurial temperment is seeping into the blog, veering it dangerously close to personal conceit?  Nah, I was never that good at creative writing.

Tomorrow, if I can get my act together, I re-address the Clover as many misconstrued the inaugural posting of this blog.  Goodnight!