september started with a visit to coffee friends and colleagues in san francisco, california, the americas. i was volunteering at the slow food nation event as a taste captain, but also spent time cupping, sample roasting, hanging out in parks and in coffee shops for the entire week before the event. actually, when i think about it, i spent about five days up and down valencia street between the beautiful new-opened fourbarrel and the not-so-new-but-still-a-classic ritual coffee roasters. and tartine. and bi-rite. and dolores park. more about that another time.
being a taste captain can be compared to what i do for whole sale accounts, coffee shop customers and baristas every day. i talk about coffee. and it really felt like the people that showed up for the tastings (and yes, there were lines...) really liked to hear about the origins. how the coffee was harvested and processed, elevation of the farm, micro climatic conditions, varietals etc. after doing taste flights for five hours straight, i was sick and tired of hearing my own voice and realized i elegantly leaped over focal points - as pointing out the country where the coffee was produced, but got straight into bourbon varietal history. um. time for a beer and some charcutrie, then. the food event in itself was almost too huge for me to digest. not literally, i have a big belly. pavilions with coffee, tea, bread, fish, charcutrie, pizza, beer, wine, ice cream. yum.
it is impossible to talk about coffee events without thinking about the people behind it. andrew barnett of ecco caffe, eileen hassi of ritual coffee roasters and tonx of tonx.org was co-curating the coffee pavilion, and brent fortune did an amazing job organizing all the volunteers. i don't know how many volunteers he was juggling around, but he did quite an impression on me with his google spreadsheets and strict dress code. i had the cutest and nicest runners that did dishes all day long, brought ceviche and i was constantly inspired by the extremely knowledgeable peter giuliano from counter culture coffee and all my other co-captains and all the baristas working on machines pulling shots of the same coffees. oh my.
before going to california i heard so much about verve coffee roasters in santa cruz (totally into naturals from central america...). i was thrilled to be able to do a tiny road trip with a few friends down to santa cruz monday after the show. i could almost not wait to have my face melted (they supposedly call their espresso for a face melter)! stopping by tartine in the mission /sf for a early morning bun and bread pudding before taking off and then down south. their roasting operation looked neat, and their cafe is situated in the neighboring building. one of the owners told me they looked into the design of java and mocca before designing the space. well, if so, i'm honored, their space was beautiful and the baristas totally melted my face!
