Coffee is an Excuse
What does that even mean?
Field Note #001 - I don't know what I'm doing, but I feel something
I spend a stupid amount of time thinking about coffee. Probably not in the way you'd expect.
Sure, I contemplate Grind size, Water, Temperature, Texture, Extraction. Where it came from. Who grew it. What cup it should go in. Whether the first sip tastes the way it did in my head. (10 years in this industry and I'm still nervous every-time someone takes a sip)
I care about all of that. A lot.
But the longer I do this, the more I think coffee is mostly an excuse.
An excuse to stand across from somebody for a minute. To ask a question. To make something with intention and hand it to another person. An excuse to step away from our lives for a moment, or prepare us for our lives... if you know what I mean haha.
Conversation over transaction.
That’s what we used to say at Roast. It's nice, but it doesn't fully encapsulate what we're saying. And it ignores the fact that we do exchange money for these "experiences". The transaction is real. So is everything else.
I’m not interested in pretending the money part isn’t there. You bought a coffee. I sold you one. That matters.
But the exchange doesn’t have to end at the receipt.
There can still be care in it. Curiosity. A little theater. A conversation neither of us planned on having. Maybe you try something you wouldn’t normally order. Maybe I tell you way too much about why I made it the way I did.
The coffee should be worth what you paid for it.
And then, hopefully, there’s something left over that you couldn’t really put a price on.
That’s the magic part I keep coming back to.
The Magic Part
The funny thing is, there isn’t much magic in coffee.
It grows like plants do (not diminishing the absolute chaotic beauty of nature, but it is very familiar.)
Extraction is science (again, not dimension the absolute orderly and structured beauty of science, but it is just water, heat, pressure, & time.)
The magic, to me, is everything that happens around it.
A stranger telling you something they probably didn’t expect to say pr share that day.
Someone taking the first sip and closing their eyes for half a second.
A conversation that only happened because there was a cup sitting between two people.
That’s the part I’m chasing.
Coffee is the medium.
Coffee is the excuse.
Connection is the magic.
But what do I know? I’m just a wizard, a cup, and a few questions for the universe.