Meaning, Michigan, & My Home.

It has been an exhausting few weeks.  We arrived in Grand Rapids with the help of my parents and the hands of a few friends.  Courtney and I made the decision to move back to our home state of Michigan, settle down and start planning our futures in coffee and life.  We have set up our professional residence at Madcap Coffee, the place where a kid can be a kid.  Wait! No! That's another place.  Madcap, from my perspective, is a place where we can work with other coffee professionals in developing ourselves and help in shaping Michigan into a coffee hub of sorts.  I am not going to name drop, but many a coffee professional hail from Michigan. But, just as we once did, these coffee professionals tend to leave the state for more lucrative coffee opportunities seeing as there are not many in Michigan.  Madcap, with the aim of the good souls that started the place, have put their gun-sights on quality, and what can be done to improve quality in all aspects of the coffee expierence.  I remember leaving Madcap the first time I visited, peering into the windows of this newly opened cafe and wondering to myself if Michigan was ready for the experience I had just had.

I now find myself serving up single brewed by the cup coffees to the fine people of Grand Rapids.Their open ears hanging on my every word.  They are looking for every nuance in the coffee I am serving and describing to them.  I find myself elaborating in great detail the benefits of providing Grand Rapids with the best quality cup brewed to the best of its ability.  I find myself empathizing with the needs of an ill informed public and raising their standard of living by giving them something only found in some of the biggest and most advanced cities around the world.  I find myself fine tuning the details of my routine in order to better understand what and why I am doing what I am doing.  I tell people that the emphasis that has been for so long been put on quality espresso and espresso based drinks has consequently left brewed coffee devalued  and under-appreciated.  We are filling that void by putting a single cup of brewed coffee in its proper place.  A cup of coffee is a gesture of romance and class, culture and soul, it gives real emotional value.  I do not mean value in a sense of monetary means but value in that a single cup of coffee can be worth far more than any action during a day.  A cup of coffee creates meaning and tells a story, the story, your story.

NOW!!!

I have moved to Michigan.  I have just had the internets hooked up.  I am working at Madcap Coffee Company in Grand Rapids. I have not had time to stop and write.  My laptop died.  I have things to write soon. Sorry I have not called, I have been super busy.

Saying goodbye

I worked my last shift at Anodyne today.  It was sad, but I never tend to get sentimental.  I am sure I will return.  Not as a worker, but as a customer.  I am excited to see what will come of my new adventure.  I need to get packing.  

Sitting and Reading

I had the opportunity to do something very valuable for myself today.  It was merely the chance to sit in  Anodyne and drink a cup of coffee while reading a book and doing some sample roasting. 

Why is this of value for me?  As my days usually go, I work eight hours, come home to settle in my nest of an apartment for dinner and  hopefully some reflective thinking before a good nights sleep.  I know it sounds boring and repetitive but this is how my days usually are.  Everyday I see people come into the cafe, and while drinking a coffee they are usually enjoying a good book, paper or casual conversation. One of the huge reasons why I fell in love with the 'coffee shop world' was the endless amount of time I would and could spend hanging out and drinking coffee.  As of the last half year though, this has not been so.  The reading of a book in a cafe has turned into sneaking a few minutes of book time in before bed.  The newspaper has turned into an I-phone application that I read while waiting for my vegan pork-slaw to come at Honeypie's.  Most importantly the casual conversations have turned into silence.  I do not mean to sound angry or bitter (if I do), after all these are the situations I have unconsciously constructed for myself.

Today though, I sat down with seven half pounds of El Salvador samples sent to us by Aida Battle from a bunch of farms in her local region, for us to cup and hopefully for Anodyne to get in the future.  I also sat there in the cafe with some head phones on listening to tunes, reading a book, enjoying some Burundi Kayanza Andaro made with the aeropress.  It felt good to sit and take in the environment not from a working perspective.  I do not consider sample roasting a particular kind of work seeing as I love coffee, and really love great coffee (which I hope this stuff turns out to be.)  I only have a week and a half left here in Milwaukee before Courtney and I pack it all up and move to Grand Rapids.  I am trying my hardest to soak it all up.  Maybe I am feeling prematurely nastalgic about moving after a year from a place I have enjoyed so much, but I know confidently that we are ready to move on and grow in other ways and other places.

I am really glad I got a chance to sit and read today, it helps to put things into perspective every once in a while...

We keep at it!

It has been about a year now since Courtney, Luke and I have moved from our home in the suburbs of the economically fragile metro-Detroit to the vibrant local communtiy active Bay View in Milwaukee WI. Its strange how fast everything changes and everything is re-perspective-ized yet again. 

Courtney and I have decided that we are moving to Grand Rapids MI, back to our home state, the place we endlessly tell all our WI friends about.  We have jobs lined up at Madcap Coffee Roasters in Grand Rapids where we will immerse ourselves in coffee both figuratively and literally with the super-dedicated and intensely passionate individuals there. 

There are things I look forward to in life.  The biggest thing I can foresee is that I want to settle down and raise some kids close to 'home' as well as getting married.  Home being where my family is and by default Michigan.  Courtney and I have not stopped talking about opportunity these past few days.  As much as my life is mine, it is inextricably intertwined with Courtney's' and I could not ever see being apart from the woman I love again after her stint in Chicago.  The hour and a half distance nearly killed us both.  I know that no matter were we go or where we end up, as long as we are together I know that I will be happy.  

It is strange having to leave a place that has given so much of itself to me as Anodyne has over the past year.  I really could not have ever been so fortunate as to get a job with them, when I did.  Steve Kessler is a straight-up gangster! What I mean is that I have never met a guy with so much will-power to grow a small business such as Anodyne and push the quality, local, and caring roaster into peoples coffee shops and restaurants.  Milwaukee is fortunate to have him, Anodyne is fortunate to have his dedication working for them and I know that ultimately he will be rewarded for all the endless hard work that he puts into it.  I will really miss working at Anodyne with Steve and crew.

I live by the idea that no matter where your physical form has been in the past, no matter what actions you have done in your life, no matter anything you have ever said, none of it defines what you will do or be in the future.  I am looking into my future right now happily and looking fondly at the past.  I put my heart into everything that I do without limitations and borders.  If you know me you know that it can drive you crazy when I am driven to do something.  We are moving to Grand Rapids the third weekend in May, rain or shine, hell or high-water.  I am ready to dedicate myself to the task at hand and drive home ready to accomplish the unimaginable.  I could not be more excited for my future adventures with Madcap!  I smell big things on the horizon.

So, here we are a year later in search of coffee, seasons come and go, we make friends and deepen our love of the world.  Things get challenging and almost impossible, but we will keep at it!

Coffee and music...

So, what is it about coffee and music? One of my favorite things to do is to sit down and drink a cup of coffee while listening to music.  (im doing this now)  But my concern is with bands and coffee and getting into the mainstream consciousness.  I am sure most people have seen this:




The band Deathklok loves coffee, and it doesnt end just there.  One of my all time top favorite bands Akron/Family loves coffee, and although they have not written any songs about coffee (that I know about) they are known to scoure the city they are playing a show in to find the best cup of joe.  One of the dudes in the band also worked at Gimme coffee at some point as well as them playing a bunch of shows at one of their stores.  Check out this article about the bands top 10 favorite shops for espresso here. Historically speaking too, just about everyone who has worked in coffee knows that there is this thing about bands playing shows in coffee houses.  In two of my last two coffee houses we had bands and musicians play multiple times a week, forming communities of people who loved good coffee and people who loved local music.  Here is a song played at my old shop 'The MugShot' by the band Shripmpanzee :




And from another shop I worked at 'Kozy Koffee' here is the whole open mic crew playing to a packed room their version of Outkast's song 'Hey Ya' :




Beyond all my history of having bands loving and playing in coffee houses I think I have had more impact on peoples lives via the music I have played in the shop while they were there drinking their coffee.  I have played music that most people would never have otherwise listened to and hopefully opened their minds to not just new music but a new way of looking at coffee...

I'm not sure if coffee inspires music or vise versa or if they co-exist and build on each-other on some plane of the human subconscious, but there is some connection to be had in that they work so well together.

How about Iggy Pop and Tom Waits in the movie "Coffee & Cigarettes":



or the traditional coffee and blues :




Or Ella :



Ya gotta admit that there is something with coffee...

Futuro?

As you know by my previous post on Who, What, Where, When, And Why? you know, and hopefully think, that the more information a consumer has is better for about a million or so reasons having to do with coffee than having none.  But, something no roaster in the world would consider doing is putting their roast profile on the bag.  A roast profile in my very humble (is it humble if I have to say it?) opinion, is one of the most important steps having to do with your final cup.  The unfortunate thing is that for the most part, you as the consumer have absolutely no clue about anything having to do with the world of roasting coffee.  Most people see dark roasted this, medium roasted that, and a light roasted whatchamacallit, never knowing if what they are drinking is actually a light roast, a dark roast, or even what the hell roast levels have to do with coffee.  I have not taken any polls, but it seems to me that the majority of the folks who come up and talk to Steve or I while we are roasting at Anodyne have absolutely no idea that the big machine in front of them is actually a coffee roaster.  We do however get told that it is the biggest grinder that folks have ever seen! We promptly and through learned empathy and education teach these consumers in small steps about coffee trying to ultimately not overwhelm them with our plethora of information.

 How does roasting affect the coffee? Beyond the obvious that you cannot drink green coffee, there are a few very important chemical reactions going on in the roasting process.  I am not for fear of being boring, going to get into those processes but be assured that every coffee takes different methods of finesse to bring about that signature flavor that shines in a cup.

So basically as the coffee roasts, the sugars caramelize, aromas are created, amino acids are exchange, lipids and oils move about and cell structures break down. What does this mean for the consumer? There are no two plants that are the same in the world.  Why would there be two identical coffee beans let alone the thousands of beans in a pound of coffee which equates to several dozen potential trees over how much area?  What I am saying is that there is virtually no uniformity on a very micro level, but it and they become more uniform per micro-lot to farm, to region, to country.  Some of these defining characteristics follow through into processing style, whether it be natural, wet, pulped natural, dry or monsooned.

So back to my question of whether or not roasters should give more information to the consumer in order for the consumer to make the right brewing choices?  The reasons rosters have for not giving out their profiles range from it being top secret like recipes to not wanting a competitor to mimic a profile and potentially steal business down to the plain and simple "we don't know what we are doing and are putting out something we are not proud of."  I am not speaking of Anodyne in this sense, but I can imagine there are a ton of "roasters" out there that don't have the knowhow to develop and knowledgeably know what they are doing and why they are doing it.  Maybe it will be a mark in the future on a bag where right under the varietal of 100% bourbon and pulped natural there will be a 422 drop temperature and a 370 first crack to signify to the consumer that the sugars began to caramelize at 370 and that at 422 degrees 3.5 minutes later we feel that the profile would best produce the best results in your cup? Yeah, I could see this becoming a problem in that some customers (who care hopefully) might start demanding a change to the profile of a coffee, but this would be resolved in public cuppings or possibly the offering of different profiles for coffees for different applications?  I can see on some level that you would not want to give up the blends to public scrutiny in fear that 'Joe's coffee shop' down the street would just roast and mix what you are doing in his shop.  But, that would also mean you are doing something right if someones copying you and your styles.  Maybe it would set a quality standard for people to follow, or set you apart? I'm thinking of this as a potential learning tool.

Maybe in the future we will see with elevations,  the density of the beans for the proper brewing technique so you don't over extract... less waste and more quality?


Afterthought: Am I for or against profiles for consumers? I am for raising quailty standards and learning for all people.  It is something to consider and think about for the future.

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