Chatting with the Barista (2)

"A clothes store owner called up all the marketing staff—including two female students who were doing their four-weeks internship—and angrily said, 'From the Financial Statements, I see that our sales show a very significant value. But, P&L report shows a negative number. What's this? Explain it to me!'

'Well Boss,' explained the marketing manager, 'our plaid shirts are selling well in the market. But ....'

'But why?' asked the boss.

'Many have complained, because after only a few days, it has worn off. We have reported this to you and you have agreed to replace all claims with white shirts.'

Hearing this, the boss understood. 'Okay, keep up the spirit!' then said, 'From now on, we're going to sell this very 'camera friendly' shirt!' while taking out a black and white striped shirt.

"Haa, moire?" all the employees lowered their heads while grumbling.

An intern who had been sitting by the door, whispered to her colleague, 'Sis, how long are our internship plans?'

'Don't worry, friend!' said the colleague. 'If he gets angry again, our internship period has long gone.'"

"Coffee’s growing popularity led European trading companies to try and secure supplies: the situation became acute in 1707 when the Ottoman administration imposed an export ban on coffee outside the empire. By then Nicolaes Witsen, a governor of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), had already started to plant coffee on Java in 1696. The seeds came from Malabar in India, where legend has it that coffee was planted by the Muslim scholar Baba Budan," said our Barista.

"On Java, the VOC operated by coercing indigenous chiefs into supplying a fixed quantity of coffee in exchange for a low, pre-established, price. Regular shipments from Java to Holland began in 1711, enabling Amsterdam to establish the first European coffee exchange. In 1721, 90 per cent of the coffee on the Amsterdam market originated in the Yemen; by 1726, 90 per cent was supplied from Java. Deliveries from the island continued to increase until the middle of the century, but tailed off as new plantations in the Caribbean took over.

The Dutch were partly responsible for this, says Morris. In 1712 they introduced coffee to Suriname, a colonial enclave on the northeastern coastline of mainland Latin America, bordering the Caribbean Sea. Exports began in 1721 and surpassed those from Java by the 1740s. In Suriname, cultivators had no option but to produce coffee—the crop was grown on plantations tended by slave labour.

The Dutch colonial authorities continued to work through local rulers, introducing the so-called Collection System that required peasant households to set aside a portion of their land or labour to cultivate commercial crops sold exclusively to the state. The autobiographical novel Max Havelaar, penned by a former administrator in 1860, Multatuli (the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker), showed how peasants starved while the Dutch indulged their indigent lords. By the 1880s, 60 per cent of Java’s peasant households were forced to grow coffee. Tending to the trees took up 15 per cent of their time, yet generated only 4 per cent of their income, due to the low fixed prices.

The British also expanded their colonial coffee production, most notably on Ceylon (Sri Lanka). British entrepreneurs cleared the forests to set up coffee plantations, killing off many of the island’s elephants and importing workers from the heavily indebted Tamil population of the Indian region of Madras. Untold numbers died ‘on the road’ to these plantations or due to working conditions when they got there. By the late 1860s total British coffee production in Ceylon and India was approaching that of the Dutch colonies.

Coffee was transformed into an industrial product during the latter part of the nineteenth century by two nations in the Americas: Brazil and the United States. Brazil’s ability to rapidly expand coffee output without significantly raising its prices enabled the U.S. to absorb this into its enlarging consumer economy. Brazil extended the coffee frontier into its hinterlands by replacing a slave labour force with imported European peasant labourers. U.S. consumption per capita tripled between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, as consumers moved from home roasting to purchasing pre-prepared, branded industrial coffee products. Once Central America and Colombia began to compete for the U.S. market, new forms of coffee politics appeared, as states strove to protect their national interests.

Coffee became a global commodity during the second half of the twentieth century. The foundation was the planting of Robusta as a hardier alternative to Arabica, reviving coffee production in Africa and Asia. Its cheaper price facilitated everyday coffee drinking among new consumers, and dramatically altered the beverage’s taste and forms. International institutions developed to regulate the world coffee market, but proved incapable of protecting producers from price volatility, culminating in the coffee crisis at the century’s end.

The repositioning of coffee as a specialty beverage at the end of the twentieth century has had profound effects upon the global coffee industry. What began as a protest by independent roasters in the U.S. against commodification and industry concentration spawned the spread of international coffee shop chains, the hipster ‘third wave’ movement, the development of the coffee capsule, and a set of fierce debates about ethical coffee consumption. Arguably, the role of specialty in stimulating consumption in non-traditional markets has laid the foundations for a new era in coffee history.

Coffee was an important ingredient of 1960s American counterculture, whose spiritual home lay in San Francisco. Hippies hung out at North Beach espresso bars run by Italian immigrants, and purchased their beans from Alfred Peet’s store in Berkeley. Peet, a Dutchman, roasted his coffee considerably darker, and brewed it much stronger, than a regular ‘cup of Joe’. Despite the proprietor’s barely disguised disdain for many of his customers, Peet’s became a mecca for those keen to experience ‘European’ coffee.

The first person to use the term ‘specialty coffee’ was Erna Knutsen. In the mid-1970s she convinced the San Francisco coffee importers where she had started as a secretary to allow her to try selling small lots of quality coffees. She found a niche supplying a new generation of independent roasters, many of whom had ‘dropped out’ from conventional career paths.

Specialty coffee took off once emphasis switched from selling beans to serving beverages. Seattle was at the centre: in 1980 the first coffee carts incorporating espresso machines appeared in the city; by 1990 there were over two hundred carts positioned close to monorail stations, ferry terminals and major stores.

Starbucks was set up by three college friends in 1971. It primarily sold beans supplied by Alfred Peet, whose dark roasting style they subsequently adopted. Howard Schultz, a salesman for a Brooklyn company which was one of their equipment suppliers, visited in 1982 and convinced the founders to hire him as sales and marketing director. In 1983 Schultz visited Milan, where he tried to persuade Starbucks to re-create in America, the authentic Italian coffee bar culture. He failed to convince the Starbucks owners of his case, however, and left to open a coffee shop called Il Giornale in 1986.

Once Schultz adjusted his offer to create an ‘Italianstyle’ experience that met American customer needs, he started to have success. In 1987 he transferred this format into Starbucks, which he bought when the last of the original founders left for San Francisco to take over Peet’s.

The coffee shop format combines two elements: the coffee and the environment. The former pays for the latter. Schultz's Italian-style coffees proved perfect for introducing American consumers to specialty coffee, as the distinctive bite of the espresso could still be discerned through the sweetness of the milk. Caffè latte was the most popular, as steamed, rather than frothed, milk produces greater density and sweetness than in a cappuccino.

The term ‘third wave coffee’ was first used by Timothy Castle in 2000, and popularized by Trish Rothgeb, an American roaster, in an influential article in 2003. The first wave was serving espresso, the second wave was giants specialty such as Starbucks who ‘want to automate or homogenize specialty coffee’. The third wave would pursue a ‘no rules’ approach to crafting outstanding coffee.

Barista competitions are at the centre of third wave culture. The first World Barista Championships were held in Monaco in 2000. Competitors prepare a set of four espressos, cappuccinos and ‘signature drinks’ within fifteen minutes and are judged on technical and presentational skills, as well as the sensory qualities of their beverages. Equipment makers vie to have their machines classified as meeting competition standards. Roasters train baristas full time to compete using specially sourced blends. Winners gain celebrity status that bring high-paying contracts for consultancy and endorsements.

Third wave baristas experiment with the established parameters for espresso preparation and taste profiles, breaking away from Italian traditions. New beverages appeared as a result of those experimentations, such as the flat white, made using concentrated shots of espresso topped with velvety microfoamed milk and finished with latte art – all demanding high technical skills from the barista. The flat white was brought to London in 2007 by baristas from Australia and by 2010 had crossed into the mainstream chains, later crossing the Atlantic.

Third wave coffee shops often operate on a shoestring, their owners inspired more by passion than profitability. Stripped-back interiors and basic seating highlight the hightech machinery on the counter into which all the investment has been poured. This aggressively non-corporate ambience recurs so often that it has become the third wave’s own brand image.

Buying coffee from speciality coffee roasters and small businesses, you are usually going to be buying coffe ethically. To buy coffee ethically means to buy coffee that does not exploit its workers and growers and usually means the coffee roasters will be very involved in the entire coffee making process, from the farming all the way through to the processing and eventually, the roasting. By buying from an ethical coffee company, you are ensuring that you are not contributing to the exploitative and damaging cycle.

Coffee has promoted clear thinking and right living wherever introduced. It has gone hand in hand with the world’s onward march toward democracy. One of the most interesting facts in the history of the coffee drink is that wherever it has been introduced, it has spelled revolution. It has been the world’s most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants.

Voltaire and Balzac were the most ardent devotees of coffee among the French literati. Voltaire, the king of wits, was the king of coffee drinkers. Even in his old age, he was said to have consumed fifty cups daily. To the abstemious Balzac, coffee was both food and drink. Sir James Mackintosh, the Scottish philosopher and statesman, was so fond of coffee that he used to assert that the powers of a man’s mind would generally be found to be proportional to the quantity of that stimulant which he drank.

There is no reason why any person who is fond of coffee should forego its use. Paraphrasing Makaroff: Be modest, be kind, eat less, and think more, live to serve, work and play and laugh and love—it is enough! Do this and you may drink coffee without danger to your immortal soul.

The coffee houses became the gathering places for wits, fashionable people, and brilliant and scholarly men, to whom they afforded opportunity for endless talk and discussion. It was only natural that the lively interchange of ideas at these public clubs should generate liberal and radical opinions, and that the constituted authorities should look askance at them. Indeed the consumption of coffee has been curiously associated with movements of political protest in its whole history, at least up to the nineteenth century.

During the thousand years of its development, coffee has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages. But coffee is something more than a beverage. It is one of the world’s greatest adjuvant foods. There are other auxiliary foods, but none that excels it for palatability and comforting effects, the psychology of which is to be found in its unique flavor and aroma.

We talk about having a cup of coffee, but coffee comes in myriad sizes and guises! You're sure to find one that suits you. Espresso: a small serving with a big flavor, for those who love the taste of coffee; Mocha: for those who aren't actually that keen on the taset of coffee but need a pick-me-up, a cool, creative solution; Double Espresso: for hard workers who know that one shot is just not enogh; Latte: perfect for the indecisive: it's risk-free menu shoice; Cappuccino: an eay-to-drink coffee for pleasure-seeker, but beware the milk moustache; Macchiato: an easy-to-drink coffee for anyone who hates a milk moustache; Iced Coffee: a bold drink for those who like coffee as much as they like drinking thorugh straws; Frappucino: a coffee for anyone who likes coffee almost as much as they like ice cream. Americano: one of the simples pleasures in life.

Good coffee, carefully roasted and properly brewed, produces a natural beverage that, for tonic effect, cannot be surpassed, even by its rivals, tea and cocoa. Coffee smells, not only good and tastes good to all mankind, but all respond to its wonderful stimulating properties. The chief factors in coffee goodness are the caffeine content and the coffee’s natural oil, called caffeol. Caffeine increases the capacity for muscular and mental work without harmful reaction. The caffeol supplies the flavor and the aroma —that indescribable exotic fragrance that woos us through the nostrils, forming one of the principal elements that make up the lure of coffee. Men and women drink coffee because it adds to their sense of well-being."

"What is well-being?" asked Wulandari. "We'll talk about it in the next session," said the Barista. Even though you only glanced at the Barista's face, her beauty was beyond understanding.

Then both of them sang,

Feels like I'm caught in the middle

That's when I realize

I'm not a girl, not yet a woman

All I need is time, a moment that is mine

While I'm in between *)

[Session 3]
[Session 1]

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