I’m vehemently atheist and feel a mixture of terror and bewilderment, amusement and pity when I read/watch/hear anything about western evangelism or for that matter, the majority of religion. But, love it or loathe it, it’s got a vast, willing, enthusiastic, burgeoning audience and makes an awful lot of money for it’s purveyors…

Cue choral music….

And it came to pass that a messiah was born. He preached espresso, the one true expression of coffee. On his journeys through the wilderness of fledgling cafe culture he found followers, willing to dedicate hours of their lives in the belief that there’s more to coffee than bitterness, unfulfilled craving and sensory hell. There is a drink, that with time, dedication, simmering fanaticism and a slightly warped perspective on what life is all about, can be made using simple tools, available to the many, understood by the few.

The Messiah, call him JC, no perhaps JH, gathered about him a flock of willing, slightly gullible but nonetheless self interested disciples. They spread the word, coffee shop to cafe, canteen to service station, bistro to bar, restaurant to catering tent. The purveyors of foul brews were lambasted and saw the error of their ways and sent on a spiritual journey to reach an understanding of the truth, the reason and the lipid. Soon true espresso was known and understood by many and anything but the one, true espresso was rejected, cast out, demonised. The deceit of drip and instant, the greed of the 20oz latte, the pointlessness of scorched milk and the dirty steam wand, the misunderstanding of an uneven tamp, the laziness of the unset grinder, the ungodliness of the cold cup and chocolate sprinkles… all were recognised for what they were, the manifestation of man’s stupidity, his willingness to follow the easy path to profit, his acceptance of mediocrity.
The gospel according to JH became the one true word. Followers demonstrated their belief by quoting his blog, undertanding his teachings on lipids, admiring his photography and coveting his girlfriend. He got a promotion and shares in La Spaziale. He married the aforementioned coveted diciple and she bore a child, kept secret for fear of reprisals by the evil behemoths Nescafe and Starbucks. A dynasty was born. Monuments were built, temples erected. The world rejoiced, overheated, and ended.
The end.

Guess who forgot the clocks went back?

There, I’ll say it.

Did you know B and N, that cafe, and some of the things I was told about them ended up being one of the “inspirations” for that article, “so what the heck is wrong”? Not the only Vancouver coffee shop to do so, but one of many.

Another inspiration for what the heck is wrong was a cafe crawl that Aaron Delazzer and I did on Main Street maybe 4 years ago now. 12 shops hit. 13 espressos had by each of us. The best shot, I kid not, came from a demo on the (then brand new) Starbucks Barista consumer super auto that the ‘bucks at 14th was selling. And the machine was not initially turned on – it was given a 2 minute start up then the demonstrator pulled a shot for both of us. (this was before the JJ on Main was built).

In that crawl, we tried to engage some of the baristas and managers in discussions about good espresso. It was a futile effort.

But I’ll say this. Now there’s JJ on Main setting a decent bar for the others to follow, and now I also have hopes that the cafe at Broadway and Main, CuppaJoe, is ramping up their quality – those guys were at the coffee and tea expo, right next to Frankie’s booth, and got the “buzz” of all the quality driven people dropping by to check out La Marzocco.

So maybe things are changing, albeit slowly. But my complaint last year, two years ago, four years ago about barista comps, the “official bodies” that run things, etc etc remains the same – until some way is found for true evangelism towards the consumer about quality coffee, from the top right on down through the trenches, we’re fighting a difficult battle. Barista comps preach to the converted; they don’t scale well to Joe Latte thinking his 20oz milk drink is “specialty coffee”.

I remember the first time Nick went to Artigiano, he brought in a bag on Black Cat he’d purchased there, we ground it on the silly Bunn grinder – the thing for retail coffee, dosed it by shaking the bag, tamped, and made shots. Mind blowing difference to say the least. The owner walked in on us… what did we do? Made him a coffee, and told him he should start by switching suppliers. That was 2 years ago. He still hasn’t.

The upshot, however, was that the head barista at this shop, my future coworker and blog cohort Barrett Jones, was braving this sea of mediocrity and false expectations in a noble, though often futile, attempt to provide something close to decent in the cup. To be fair, none of us really knew anything about origins or roasting, but we were doing our darndest to figure out the machines and adopt correct espresso technique. I’m pretty sure we were forbidden from touching the grinder settings (it was a semi-automatic, and set to dose a pathetically small amount of espresso– we would often dose several times to get what we considered an appropriate amount of coffee in the portafilter in an act of workplace sabotage that ultimately benefited the customer!). And through the wonders of the internet, we learned how to pour latte art, with the related benefit of having to figure out how to steam microfoam. What this amounted to in the end was that when Barrett and I left (coincidentally within one week of each other), customers were appalled at the decline in quality, something that we would happily have rectified if Barrett was given any time at all to train the other baristas. Sadly, there is no happy end to that shop except that it provides a cautionary tale to owners to trust their staff, give them the appropriate resources, and hell, maybe try to learn this stuff themselves.

So we moved on, and I will always look back on this as my formative coffee experience. Compared to others, I was still in an enviable position as I valuable information at my fingertips. Had this been a decade earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to seek out information on the web to supplement the dearth of quality leadership and training at that shop. But I’m glad it happened that way, it all helps me to understand exactly why most shops in Vancouver– a purported Mecca of coffee in North America– still totally suck. People don’t know any better, and they have no way of learning. I don’t have any proper answers to this problem except to say that every customer I’ve had in the last year and a half who’s demanded to know why their cup was so much better than anything they’d experienced previous is a testament to the ability of regular people to be discerning customers. As soon as more people begin to demand quality, the marketplace will not be able to bear mediocrity as a standard and more will follow. Let’s keep pushing, folks.

I fell into the same habits. In college, I would venture out during study nights to the local gas stations, hoping that I could hear the distinctive GURGLE SPIT PLOP of an empty airpot before my cup was full: at Sheetz, if you empty the airpot, they normally don’t make you pay for the coffee! Cheap? Sure. Tasty? Mmm, not so much.

My first cup of artisan-roasted coffee was actually on the interview for my first coffee-specific job. I won’t shamelessly plug my employer, let’s just say it was eye-opening. Coffee went from a habit to a treat, from a source of caffeine to a culinary drink. The ceiling for what coffee can help me achieve in my life has still not stopped rising, and i hope it never does. Coffee is now not only my favorite drink, it’s also the lifeblood for a newly discovered career path!

Please pass the Yirgacheffe!

After posting my little rant I thought about things a little more, there is so much I wanted to say but it is mostly negative. From the brands to the finished product to the people who consume, the industry is a long, long way from where it should be. I don’t know enough about growers, importers and roasters so can’t comment on them.

As I’m in the process of opening my own outlet I’ve made a point of trawling around all the competition in Cornwall and deliberately saying ” Hello, please can I have a really good espresso?”.

The look on the ‘baristas’ face is invariably a mixture of shock and confusion. As if I’ve just asked them for a hand job. If there’s more than one person behind the bar they invariable look to each other to pull the shot. They don’t know what they’re trying to achieve, they have no confidence in what they’re doing, and they’re surprised/worried by a customer wanting better. They mumble as they present it, they’ve no idea of where the bean’s grown or roasted, they apologise before I’ve taken a sip.

I’ve had a couple of passable espressos, but they’re mostly bitter, flat, under extracted/watery, crema free, full to the brim, served in a cold cup etc…. everyone knows what I’m saying because anyone who reads this blog suffers it every time they take a punt in a coffee shop.

The problem isn’t the coffee, I’ve had it wonderfully brewed by the suppliers own bristas. The problem isn’t the machinery, a Mazzer Super Jolly and Gloria Astoria. The problem isn’t the supplier, I know for a fact they’re spending a helluva lot of time and money training. It’s the barista and his/her manager.

They believe if they have the right kit and Beans they’re making good coffee. The public think the same. A big, shiny espresso machine, a well thought out brand and bingo, a half pint of watery, overheated, cotton wool and chocolate coated cappuccino is worth £2.50. And the profit margin is huge….

I’ve always been in the restaurant industry, during my career the chef has became the focus for the public, not the food grower (though thankfully that’s changing, led once again by california), cooker manufacturer, the decoration or the view. Think Mossiman & the Roux bros through to Ramsay and Blumental. They may use good ingredients but it is their skill that matters. Sadly today it’s more about their television appeal but that’s a side effect of the national obsession with celebrity.

Barista’s and Beans need to become the focus. Not the brand, the machine, or the advert. The beans are getting great, baristas are just beginning. I learn’t a helluva a lot competing in last years UK champs. Watching Herr Hoffmann do the stockfleth move nearly gave me a heart attack…. what the hell did he just do? Why? By the finals I knew I knew nothing, I was blagging it. Since then I’ve learnt a great deal, but without pulling a single shot.

I really wanted Jim’s map of the UK’s great coffee outlets to become huge. People who know about coffee letting others know. And, like michelin restaurants, the accolade is to the barista, not the cafe.

There are no short cuts and there is no end point. Let’s just be passionate about what we do, teach anyone who wants to know and demand good coffee from every cafe/retaurant we risk an espresso in…

Enough already! Humble appologies for rambling on again!

Hug