Coffee curation and the pursuit of flavour
A retail business revolves around an interaction between people (customers) who find value and worth in the offering of the business. It can be a damn marvellous and rewarding affair. Assessing feedback and the decision making involved with running a business is, to me, rather fascinating. The feedback equation isn't always obvious and is less simplistic than many common viewpoints (the customer is always right…) allow for. Sometimes, it can feel like deciphering a riddle. What is the right answer? What is the right action? What is valuable and what is worth seeing differently? For example, Once the goals of the business...
Read moreMy intention was to write about feedback next but I have chanced across an article that I feel impelled to touch on first. Now, all of my posts have recognised that the approach to coffee we take and the approach that defines speciality coffee is almost a hidden gem; that it is unknown to many, a surprise if you like. I have often mentioned my epiphany moment in Melbourne, a moment that was ignited by a coffee from Kenya that displayed notes of strawberry and spice. Part of my thought process that day was not only, “I desperately want to...
Read moreI am, as are all of the people who enter our shop and the people who work for us; involved in experiences that play out upon a certain landscape. I have looked at our shop’s specific terrain in depth many times before. After a recent experience (that I will detail shortly). I am inclined to look further a field at what underpins the wider land upon which all types of retail and hospitality businesses play out their stories. I want to look at the lawful rights that sit in the background. At the end of November last year a person...
Read moreAn exciting sense of the new has abounded in the story of third wave/specialty coffee over the past 15 years or so. Naturally, fields of specialism are born from a reaction to the status quo. So many established traditions have been challenged and questioned, so many myths and fallacies of coffee have been overturned. The colour and persistency of crema is no longer seen as vital to the success of an espresso. A single origin espresso is not the recompense of a nutter who doesn’t get the balance and complexity of traditional blended espresso. The obsession with the pressure of...
Read moreI have always seen us an independent company that specialises in speciality coffee, exploring concepts of displaying and serving the product. Quite often though, we are asked- “What’s the deal? Are you part of a bigger company?” The word Independent means one thing when taken literally, independent ownership. However, based on the conversations I have had with many customers and other shop owners it would seem that when it precedes the words coffee shop it also suggest a very specific genre, type and model. I have stated early on that we have made a conscious decision to separate ourselves from...
Read moreThere is a fair bit to talk about on the competition front. What often fails to be appreciated though, is the worth the competitions have as an influence for a speciality coffee model; more specifically how service can draw from the format of competition routines. When I first got into coffee in Melbourne Australia, many of the shops/roasters I visited and the baristas I chatted with did not have a deep enthusiasm for barista competitions. The common complaints suggested the format was obscure, and did not translate to a real world service environment. It would indeed be fair to say...
Read moreCrisp mornings, fresh mist and shorter days mark a seasonal change, they accompany the arrival of autumn, for me this brings what has become an annual marker, one where the taste of coffee is all the more pertinent. I am guilty of spending far too much time pondering the perceptions of taste. How varied are one’s experiences of the same tastes at different times? How consistent are our experiences of taste? Is every taste of the same thing in essence different to those that proceed and follow? What is intuitive and what is influenced by cognitive experience? Is there a...
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