The One With The Wild Card...

One of my most favorite lines to say to someone is "Man Mac, you sure are a wild card!", or "Damn, DJ, you're a wild card!"... I say this line to people that I miss judge on the first meeting.

For example, I met my friend DJ a while back, and I had him pinned for a pompous jerk that was living on his parents money, a womanizer and a lazy yuppie. I was dead wrong! This guy has had the same girl for going on five years, is hard working and damn near one of the most down to earth people I've ever met, and I jumped to a conclusion based on a first impression and a stereotype I had run into before in this area. I guess that's why they say to never judge a book by it's cover, right?

I use this example with DJ as an interlude to my visit to my state's capital, Sacramento, California! I knew of only one good shop in city, and that was Temple Coffee! I was ultra excited to visit here because I had met the owner, Sean, at Camp Pull a Shot this past year, and just adored him to no end. Later that week he was to be the first of many to offer me a job, but above all, he was the first person in the industry to truly treat me like a professional, and I'll forever hold a special place in my heart for him and Temple because of that interaction. There is no better feeling than being treated the way he treated me, with respect, dignity, grace, friendship, professionalism and love, I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be.

Anyway, my road dog, Chris, and I rolled into Sacramento around 6pm and we high tailed it to Temple! I received a wonderful Panama on the SO, and we left, I had happened to come to town the ONE DAY OF THE YEAR that they were closing early for a company appreciation party! What luck!? But, I had heard of this place called Insight, just about a 1/2 mile away, so Chris and I threw some change in the meeter and headed down to Insight!!!

When we arrived I was overly impressed by what I saw! Being in the coffee industry, I know what to look for in a good shop, and this place had it all, up to and including an in house roaster, piston style lever espresso machine, a wonderful pour over bar and most importantly delicious freakin' coffee!!! Insight was arguably the best brewed coffee I had on the trip! Their El Salvador, Finca de Anconcagua, was well rounded, juicy bodied and simply perfect in every way. Ben was kind enough to send me away with a bag, and all of the fellow baristi I shared it with later in the trip were in agreement about just how simply wonderful that El Sal was! Immaculate, is the word that I would use to describe that coffee, or even more simply, it was divine! Thank you again Ben for my little piece of heaven found in Sac Town!

The more research I did in Sacramento, the more wonderfully delicious coffee I found! There are 4 excellent shops in the small downtown city of Sacramento! Temple (which now has 3 locations!), Insight, Chocolate Fish (which is located inside the city building next to the cafeteria) and Broadacre which apparently is in an old Temple coffee location downtown as well!!!

The Broadacre boys were super rad and were serving up the likes of Stumptown, Intelli and Verve, an impeccably clean and funky shop with an amazing array of artwork from a Long Beach artist who's name escapes me at the moment, that I hold near and dear to my heart!

Chocolate fish, these guys I can not wait to see at the western barista competition! This shop by far had the most amazing staff! Not owners, not management, the staff, the low on the pole baristas, (YES! THEM!), these guys and gals took the home the trophy for the whole trip in the category of customer service!!! AND, not just to me, every person that walked in the door was treated like a king, I am really excited for their shop to grow and for their roaster to refine his craft. The coffee was super good, but I think will a little more time and practice by next year it will be excellent!!! I know, I know, with a name like Chocolate Fish, it's a little uneasy to get coffee their for all you folk with dirty minds, but regardless, stop in and grab a cup, the experience itself is worth the detour!!!

All in all, when Chris and I had first pulled in to Sacramento, I had to admit that I had assumed that this place was going to be the low spot of the trip, but HELL NO!!!! The crew at Chocolate Fish even set us to some of the best damn sandwiches of our lives!!!!! Hit up Dad's if you're ever in Sac, the food is unbelievable and cheap!!!!

I judged Sacramento, before I had ever even visited there, a prime example of contempt prior to investigation! If it hadn't been for my baby brother getting ready to have a baby in April, I am very sure that I would have relocated to Sac Town, drowned in fantastic coffee and gained 60 pounds eating at Dad's everyday!!!

I am always the one that is talking about how I get so irritated that people judge me, my family, my friends, or every Tom, Dick and Harry by the way they look, talk, act, race, color, creed, and religious beliefs, but aren't we all subject to judging others, so we don't have to look at ourselves? How dare I judge and ENTIRE CITY!!!! Sacramento was my wild card of this entire trip.

 Another lesson learned. another truth about myself brought to the surface for me to see, another city to check off the bucket list, and above all another city closer to the boarder of the state!

Although Sacramento may have been the wild card of my trip, my next stop was definitely the full house that won my heart.... Until next time Sacramento, please, from the entirety of my soul, keep making great coffee and I'll keep coming. Cheers!

The Long Road One...

The road doesn't just get longer, it narrows.

In my "professional" opinion, especially in coffee, not only is the road to success long, agile, expensive, heartbreaking and romantic all at the same time, but above all, it narrows with time.

As baristas, we all start at the bottom, somehow, somewhere, we get just another job, and whether it's the experience, or the people, or the coffee, we fall in love with the romance that is becoming a barista. Then, like all other professions, we strive for a better job, with a more progressive company, a more stable company, more money, more opportunities for growth, just more, more, more! At some point, the day comes when we wake up and realize that the job we're in isn't enough, we've now reached the glass ceiling, which can mean a variety of things; for example; maybe we've gone from barista to trainer, trainer to shift lead, shift lead to manager, and manager to ... there are endless possibilities in coffee, but what people don't talk about is the business side of things. Folk get crazy behind the almighty dollar, I know, I've been there, I've been the "man", the bad guy, the business guy, the yes man, and I've done well at it. If you do your job well, shouldn't you be the first to get the promotion, the opportunity to learn new things, to grow? In a perfect world, yes, in the business world it seems as though that the mindset is "if it's working don't fix it", etc.

So, what's my point right? Let's say that you're a great barista, great trainer, great manager, and like me, you want to learn all areas of the industry, as a business owner, wouldn't you want to promote that person to green bean sourcing, or roasting, or whatever if they have the passion to learn? Or, are you going to try and keep that person in their current position because they do the work that it would take 2 or 3 people to do and pay less for it? I guess that's up to the owner, and now what do you do as the employee? Do you go else where? Do you just do more and more in hopes for a change? Do you stop doing so well because you resent the decision? I guess that's up to the individual.

When I was growing up, I was told that if you work hard, love what you do, are honest, admit when you're dishonest or wrong, learn from your mistakes, and treat people well and above all take initiative and do more than your peers, that I can do whatever I want to. I still believe this, above it all, above all my dissapointments, above all the hard work and no pay off, I still believe what my mother told me, now, just to find the job to agree to help me do this, that is willing to help me grow, right?

I've thought I had found this before in my life, sometimes, most of the time, I am the one to screw it up, self imposed crisis, misplaced ego and pride, maybe too honest and blunt; and on the other end, I've also been pigeon holed into what I'm "good" at and never moved from that position because perhaps I am doing too good there to move to another position.

Either way, this is what I mean that the road narrows. In coffee, knowledge is never ending, education is never ending, and this is what I absolutely adore about the industry. However, now that I have all of this experience, as a barista, as an educator, as a manager, sales, wholesale training, competing, etc., the next step for me, my hopes for myself are to learn roasting, learn about green bean sourcing, taking trips to origin and continue to manage, educate and compete! Seems logical, right ? Does this mean that I want to be a roaster? NO! I just want to know how to do it! Why that is important to the coffee, what it does to the molecular make up of the bean, how it effects the taste, how to identify defects, and most importantly, how to taste the roast profiles properly, identify opportunities for change, to make the end cup better, not to become a roaster; I just want to know how. I want to go to origin and learn more about the process of growing and harvesting coffee, what micro climates, region, and farming practices do to the bean. I want to learn how to grade, judge, and source green coffee because it's important to how the roasting will be done, and most importantly how to the end result, how the coffee will taste! And etc., etc., etc., !!! It's like an architect that knows how to a contractor and all facets of that industry, not because they want to do the manual labor, but so they know how, they can relate, and therefore, makes them a better architect, right!?

Here's my point. If I am an employer, am I going to take that passion, that drive and help it grow? Or, am I going to go with the sure thing, and keep the barista a barista because I am afraid of them going to the competition? Afraid of them outgrowing my company and looking elsewhere for work? Am I going to offer them more money so I don't have to have turn over and train a replacement? These are all business decisions, not people decisions.

This is how the road narrows. All shops want a passionate, talented, efficient, friendly and hardworking baristas

The road narrows, because I have been told, I am too qualified for a position. The road narrows because the fear of the new employers is that because of all of my assets, I might get offered a job from the competition. The road narrows because they ask, "would you be happy as a __________?", "are you sure this won't be less challenging for you?", etc., etc., etc.,

The road narrows, for people like me, because I don't know when to keep my mouth shut, my experience might be my detriment.

The road narrows, because I continue to believe that if I work hard, if I am passionate about what I do, if I learn from my mistakes, I can do anything I want to, and what I want to do now, is walk the narrowing road to success and smile graciously at the ones that said, "you can't", the ones that said "you won't", and most of all the ones that said, "you're good at this, don't worry about that".

The road is long and narrow, and God damn it, I'll tight rope walk that bitch all the way to where I want to be, even if I'm still learning what that is, but mark my words, I'll be brewing, drinking and serving the entire way ... 

The One That Has Insight. . .

Traveling = Insight.

Traveling gives you insight into why you left on the trip, why you chose to go to your destination, why you chose not to choose a destination at all, why you postponed the trip for so long, why you don't do this more often, and most importantly traveling gives you insight in to you and your bubble of existence, perspective into what you're missing in your bubble. Granted, this is all my opinion and why I travel, and my God, it's liberating. I believe the most liberating thing about traveling for me is the plunge into the unknown. Every single time I have taken that plunge I have emerged with a new sense of self discovery than before I jumped.

Let me explain. When I was 18 years old I walked into the Santa Ana train station and asked for a one-way ticket to the furthest away destination, which happened to be Atlanta, GA for $105. That trip, I learned what it meant to be a grown up, what racism truly was, what it was like to travel alone, what life was like outside of Southern California and how the rest of the country viewed Californians, how to trust the kindness of strangers, and how to take chances. When I was 22, I traveled to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and so on; I learned what Yankees were to Southerners, I learned what it was to live and work in different states, what real winters were like, what it meant to be on a trip as someones wife, and most importantly on that trip, how to be one among many in a family. At 24, I took one of my many drives across the country on I-10, and I saw our purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain; I learned how to ask for help, how to to keep long distance friendships, how much I loved books on tape, what it meant to grieve a divorce and find places I wanted to see in the country and most importantly how to embrace change and love from a distance without reservations or conditions. These are just a few trips that I've made in my short life, but the lessons I've learned about me and my passions are irreplaceable, I've learned most importantly, to thine own self be true.

So, with that being said, here on this journey up the west coast, I left Modesto, and headed straight into Oakland. I am not too familiar with Oakland, but I knew there was a Blue Bottle there where I could pick up some good beans, I was out and in need of coffee to brew on the road. I had never been to an actual Blue Bottle location before, so I was uber excited! Unfortunately, I was slightly disappointed with the visit.

One thing I cannot stand about the coffee world is arrogance. Specialty coffee should be approachable to all people, regardless of their coffee knowledge, and my road dog, Chris (until this trip), was anything but a coffee person. We walked into the shop, no one greeted us, and when I inquired about their offerings and single origin espresso for the day, the staff seemed irritated that I was interested in the coffee, and the shop was not busy, not that being busy is an excuse for frustration, but hey, I'm a barista, I understand. However, when your shop is slow and someone is actually interested in the coffee, that should be an invitation to talk about coffee with passion, not pretencion. The coffee was good, but not great, and in my opinion, it has everything to do with the experience. I truly believe that you can serve the best coffee in the world, but if you're an ass, it's going to taste mediocre at best. Your coffee can be good and not great, but if the experience is amazing and you feel good about the coffee, it's going to taste incredible, because the experience was incredible! This experience, was disappointing, and therefore, made the coffee disappointing, especially since Blue Bottle has such an amazing reputation for great coffee.

I bought some beans, the Oaxaca, which were wonderful when I brewed them at home, and departed onto our next location. When we got in the car, Chris looked at me and said, "I don't think you should work there". When I asked why he responded, "those guys were jerks, total DB's, you're better than that, you still like coffee", when I heard that I giggled a little, and thought to myself, "yeah, Blue Bottle is one of the 'best' but do I want to work with people like that?". The staff was, well, apathetic. When I turned in my resume, it seemed like a huge inconvenience. I reserved final judgements, because I knew there were a few more locations in SF that I wanted to hit, so I told Chris, not to fret, maybe that location was a fluke and we'll have a better experience at the next one.

Next on the list? REMEDY!!!

Super exciting, before we left Oakland for Sacramento, we stopped at Remedy Cafe, which serves Ritual Coffee Roasters, again, I had tasted Ritual before, but never been to a shop that served them, so I was again, excited! Pleasantly surprised, I had by far the best shot of "regular" espresso there! SO delicious! The beautiful young lady behind the counter was friendly, welcoming, and when I handed in my resume, she was engaging and most of all welcoming. She asked questions about where we'd been and where we were going, what coffee we enjoyed, how the trip was! Excellent customer service and she was engaging  while she dialed in the espresso, tasted it, then pulled another shot for me to drink. I think the one of the most important skills of a baristabev, she kindly asked me, "how was your espresso?", she took such care in preparation of that espresso, and was so proud when I told her it was absolutely delicious and perfectly pulled.

I drove out of Oakland and my faith was renewed in baristas all over. My stomach, unfortunately had just realized there was no food in it, and way too much coffee!  We headed further north towards Sacramento, and at that moment, when I saw that the bay was to my left, that the temperature had dropped, and that I'd been away from home for over a week, that this was still the beginning of what was to become the most insightful journey of my life thus far.... and how appropriate that the next shop on the list, was Insight Coffee Roasters, Sacramento, CA......