The coffees that made me
And other such foolery.
I’m incredibly honored to be nominated for two Sprudgie awards this year, Best Coffee Social Media & Best Coffee Writing (specifically for this piece). I could have never imagined such recognition when I started seriously writing through this newsletter so a huge thanks to all of you for being here. If you’d like to vote or explore the nominations, you can do so here.
I’ve been reading a lot of food books lately.
Monstrous, technical cookbooks full of things I’ll only ever dream about making. Approachable guides that feel like cooking in my childhood kitchen. Academic textbooks on the economics of restaurants. The history of utensils. Memoirs from acclaimed chefs and cooks, reminiscing on the time they spent chin-deep in the weeds of dinner services long gone. You get the gist.
As a child of the Food Network’s Good Eats, I recently picked up Alton Brown’s Thoughts & Ruminations and was struck by a set of essays simply titled “Meals That Made Me”. Quick retellings about the meals that, for whatever reason, shaped him as a person.
It got me thinking. Surely there are coffees that made me.
After a long while, I came up with several.
Coffees that made me #1
Mochas were my way into drinking coffee. At sixteen, my regular order was a 16oz hot mocha with whole milk and it was delicious. Rich chocolate and warm milk, topped with cocoa powder and sweet enough to mask all but a hint of the espresso I was still a long way off from appreciating.
Still, it never felt very grown-up to order a mocha (don’t ask me why, teenage social anxiety was a beast) and I was always a little envious of the adults who sat alongside me with mugs of black coffee and milk drinks a quarter of the size of mine. Finally, I swallowed my nerves and ordered the fanciest sounding thing on the menu: a cappuccino.
Reader, when I tell you that I suffered through that drink, I mean it. Immediately I was met with the flavor of espresso, uncovered and unmasked from the sheen of sweet chocolate I’d been used to. Still, teenage anxiety dictated that I could not return a half-finished drink to the counter so I slowly braved my way through it. By the end, that final cold sip of milk and espresso had morphed into something that wasn’t nearly as… monstrous. It had become a little bit silkier, a little bit more familiar.
I went back to ordering mochas after that but occasionally, I’d pepper in a cappuccino and later, a cortado.
I don’t think sixteen year old me could have fathomed that cappuccinos would later become my favorite coffee drink.
Coffees that made me #2
I once had an americano that was so atrocious that it warned me away from the drink indefinitely.
I’m dearly sorry but try as I might, I still don’t think it’s the beverage for me. My palate recoils at the idea of ordering one.
If it’s your drink of choice, I commend you and hope that maybe someday I can see in it what you do.
Coffees that made me #3
The first coffee that I ever competed with at the national level of the US Barista Championship was also the first coffee I ever personally picked on a cupping table.
It was early-2019 and I was a baby barista with little to no cupping experience—never mind palate development—and the pressure was on to pick the coffee I’d use in what felt like a Herculean competition.
My coach (and roaster) sourced us a range of available samples and set up a blind cupping on the back bar, mid-way through a morning rush. As I shoved my nose into steaming bowls of coffee, I wondered how I could possibly decipher a coffee worthy of competing with. It felt like there was a right answer and I was shooting in the dark, trying to find it. Did I actually have any idea what a good competition coffee tasted like? I had only just worked my way down to 6oz mochas after years of ordering 16oz.
“Do you have a favorite?” I was eventually asked.
“Well, I like number six,” I searched for a hint that six was the right answer, “but of course, if you think there’s something better, I’d be okay with that. I don’t really know.”
“Six is your favorite?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Let’s use six then.”
Six turned out to be a beautiful blend of Typica and Caturra varieties produced by Juan Peña at La Papaya in Ecuador. I can still remember tasting it for the first time.
It took me years to come to peace with the fact that as much as one can (and probably should) try to game out what the best performing coffee will be in competition, there’s one question that has to come first and foremost… is it your favorite?
Coffees that made me #4
In 2023, I had the privilege of visiting Daterra Coffee in Brazil along with a collective of fellow top-ranking World Coffee Championship finalists.
For a week, we lived together in a large guest house situated on the edge of coffee fields. In the afternoons, as we walked to the quality lab to cup, we could faintly hear the harvesters collecting the many ripe cherries growing around us. The heat of mid-day was as brutal as the sunsets were beautiful.
There were quite a few of us, encompassing two years of multiple competitions, and we’d all come from different countries. The backstages of competitions are often fraught with nerves and concentration as we competitors prepare for our performances. Outside of that environment though, we are all just exceedingly passionate coffee people with a pension for perfection.
Every morning, bleary eyed from the time zone adjustment, I’d wander into our house kitchen and find at least one of my housemates already brewing coffee. We used what we had available: shared hand grinders, jars of coffee simply labeled natural or honey, water of unknown ppm, and mismatched cups that usually ended up being shared.
Typically two or three people would end up brewing for the group and we’d pass around carafes that would quickly get mixed up and confused. We wouldn’t ever pour more than a few sips into our cups at a time, leaving plenty for the rest of the table to enjoy. Half-way through breakfast, we never really knew what we were drinking anymore and it didn’t matter. The sun was cresting the fields outside, the coffee was delicious, and the company was even better.
A few parting links for your enjoyment:
p.s. Americanos are my drink of choice 🥲🩷
I had a strikingly similar experience as your first cappuccino with my first macchiato. It's now my favorite, too, LOL!