My time

Its been a few ticks of the clock since I last had time to really reflect on my situation.  Well, what have I been doing? For starters, right now I am in Chicago loitering in Intelligentsia on Broadway trying to find the best way to spend a 50 dollar gift card. But in more of a larger sense, what have I been doing? Writing a barista manual is the first thing that comes to mind.  Writing it came up as more of a necessity for me to properly teach wholesale accounts to more easily become not just another place that makes crappy coffee, but a place that has the potential to make a great cup of coffee using good coffee and proper technique backed up by some in-depth reasoning and logic.  In making this manual, it has led me to put down my version, and it may vary from others, ways of thinking via the world of coffee.  An ultimate goal is to give people a step in the door of specialty coffee without having to scour the internets for potentially damaging disinformation.  This has basically consumed all of my free time, but do not think that I am neglecting anyone like Courtney.  She in fact happened to get a job here at Intelly where I am currently sitting.  So now, I live in Milwaukee, she in Chicago, both working in coffee.  Furthermore, somewhere along the way we became officially engaged.  This to me was no surprise seeing that I couldn't see living without her, not physically like right now with us in two states, but the big living, like life.  It also seemed appropriate that we have been living together for some years now and for all practical reasons are married. So, we are thinking May or June, but who really knows about these things.  

A larger thought on coffee though.  Having spent the last few days wandering around the Chicago visiting some shops and watching the flow of things, I am pondering the logistics of coffee more and more.  I must say that the shops I am visiting are of a higher caliber in comparison to a business just there for a profit or loss margin, or to appease a board like some huge corporation.  Having said that though, I have seen an immense amount of quality, insane amount of quality with the stress of huge lines and a very stressful holiday.  This quality was not sacrificed because of the holiday, nor was it sacrificed for profit.  The bottom line was quality... Still, there was one thing missing that I personally valued when I was behind the bar making drinks.  There is this empathy that needs to be had between the uber-informed barista and the blissfully ignorant customer.  Baristas need the chance to change the status quo of syrup based drinks to showcasing the coffee they are serving without coming off as demeaning, pretentious, or like the customer is an idiot.  It should also be noted that most average customers only form of  information is what they can find at the majority of coffee shops which unfortunately do not have a genuine focus on quality but on profit.  On the side of the customer though is the thought that no one wants an undesired, potentially bad drink but ultimately some form of personal enlightenment.  And coming from a slight background in psychology and a love of economics books in my spare time, I am led to believe that the influence of exclusivity and secrets lends to the idea of quality and a willingness to invest in quality.  In other words, the value must be realized before it can be appropriately and ironically consumed (in our case.) So how does a person run a successful coffee business with a focus on quality as well as empathy in understanding and education?