Spro Pros: BGA Recession Special

Briefly, a big thank-you to those that have contacted me regarding the kick-off post. I’ve been surprised and touched by some of the responses thus far, and it does mean so much to me that anyone could decipher my bean-counting with something approaching my own joy for the subject.

The informative portion of this one’s a relative quickie. Appropriate, as one would need to move fast in order to take full advantage. Also appropriate in the sense that there are many acronyms ahead, which follow that ironic tendency of acronyms to take longer in their repeated explanation than would be spent simply relaying the entirety of their abbreviation.

(…Perhaps I lied about your quickie.)

The Ristretto (short shot; espresso prepared with less water/time to exaggerate flavor): For the professional barista passers-by, please note that the Barista Guild of America, AKA the BGA, is having a “Recession Special” until the first of May. New members can join for one year at the cost of $25, as opposed to the usual rate of $45. Renewals are free!

Run along and join, or stick around for…

The Full Pull: No doubt many readers, by this point, will have exclaimed to themselves – “There’s a barista guild?” To which I proudly say, “mai guildz, let me show u it”.

Founded in 2003, the BGA became an official trade guild of the SCAA (the Specialty Coffee Association of America, which is the world’s largest coffee trade association). There was a certain amount of shrugging on behalf of the community itself as to if a guild of the notoriously non-conformist would stand solid. As the BGA website states quite poetically,

It’s not necessarily intuitive that a grassroots organization which intends to weather the winds of change requires a solid infrastructure built on a foundation that will last the tests of time.

Since its inception, however, the BGA has made several notable contributions to the craft, all of which are reasons to consider signing aboard if you haven’t already. This includes running ongoing skill-building workshops, officially sanctioning regional barista jams (the “barista jam” is an informal gathering of coffee-peers to share knowledge, a beloved barista event!), offering members discounts with training schools and on training products, as well as deals on equipment and even a network of coffee houses which provide members with free drinks and discourse. (For a full listing of member discounts, see here.) As one would hope, the BGA has fostered the sharing of knowledge and a sense of solidarity between its motley members. But perhaps most importantly of all, the BGA contributes to something which coffee craftspersons are well due for yet is amazingly short in supply: recognition of legitimacy.

It boggles me that for as much training, talent, hard work and pure love that coffee preparers pour into their trade, even with the coffee industry being as large as it is, the general public has little concept of what a barista is or what they really do. A bartender or sommelier command their varying respect by their traditions, yet a barista is often confused for the fast-food worker of coffee. True, I would gauge the process of making a pre-conceived single batch of drip coffee as demanding a chore as dunking a basket of french fries. There, however, the similarities thin.

Drink recipes are, for anyone who has witnessed a dozen-syllable beverage order, more malleable and custom-made than even the most having-it-their-way McCustomer. A barista, in the strictest sense, is a master of hardware and gadgets, a smooth small-talk operator, a host, a performer, a scientist, a foodie, a translator, a fashion plate, an artist, and an agent of counter-culture. Even those with push-button espresso machines in the most corporate regimented coffee establishments are required to maintain standards of sociability and product knowledge well above that of a burger chain. It’s a bit more elaborately caffeinated interpersonal mandala than the answer-null, sufficiently mind-emptying “fries with that?” koan. (And here, I bolster for McDebate. McChuckle.)

An encapsulation of the after-school special moral to be found within this post is: by supporting the BGA, a barista propagates the infrastructure of their trade, opens new avenues of learning for themselves, enhances public perception of barista-kind via the demonstration of their organization, and thereby improves the lot of all coffee brethren.

And right now, you can get in on the cheap.

Have at it, spro pros.

For next time, I have reviews of canned and bottled coffee products I’m buzzing to share.

The Seed

Seed2Cups is the chronicle of one little barista’s baby steps into the wide world of coffee.

Let me introduce myself, your bariste blogger, as Danae.  I’ve been involved with various aspects of the barista community for the past six years.  That includes working for giant coffee corporations and tiny family-run shops.  Yet within only the last six months, I’ve begun counting myself as a born-again bean brewer, and it has nothing to do with my religious alignment.

What’s the difference between liking coffee, and loving it?

I’ve liked coffee since I was sixteen.  I used to drink the cheapest lukewarm brown water that dingy senior citizens restaurants had the brazen balls to call coffee.  It tasted more like the re-used filter it’d been brewed in than the bean-chaff that had been percolated, but everyone ordered it regardless.  I used to make the self-professed “best” American coffee, and took the over-roasted, pre-ground cup of mass-marketed yuppie propaganda for what it claimed it was worth.  And when I visited my first high-quality, small-batch roaster, it was as if I had never really tasted  coffee before.   That unpretentious, pure cup of complicated black woke me the hell up.  I think I fell in love.  I say “think”, in the same way you can call something love only because it’s a kind of passionately devoted awe you have no other name for.

Coffee begins like a tiny miracle.  From the lush green grows a humble  seed of endless possibility, a red cherry ripe with untouched hope.  When stripped of the flashy, fleshy packaging, when washed, when the best and brightest aspects have been selected, have been left to ruminate, have been thrown into the crucible, when the finished product is released at the height of its development – even that’s just a start.  With these beans of highest virtue, we perform ritual, we give heart, we grind and brew and judge the remains for everything they are.

Of course, these things taste the best when shared.

And that’s when I thirsted for more.

I decided after much over-extracted thought on the name “Seed2Cups”, for a handful of reasons.

I’ll tell you right from the start that I certainly didn’t coin the phrase “seed-to-cup”, and I’m still investigating where it might’ve begun.  (If any of you readers has a lead, please let me know!)  The words are familiar in the coffee industry, illuminating the concept of following coffee production from its very origins through to the final beverage reaching the consumer.  It’s become a slogan for transparency, for accountability, for responsibility, sustainability – and other “-ilities” besides, generally making a statement about dedication to the highest quality for all aspects of that coffee’s development.

So what’s with that numeric up in there?  Has internet-slang “1337 speak” already made me incapable of writing two letters?  Not quite yet…  Aside from “to” as referenced above, “2″ further signifies the sharing component that I see as being essential to coffee.  It also explains why “cups” is plural, not singular.

It takes a long chain of dedicated workers from vastly varied disciplines to make a typical cup o’ joe (jane?) happen.  The act of drinking coffee, much like eating, has become a very significant social feature.  If I have a cup, and you have a cup, it gives us something to discuss, something to bond over, a shared experience, doesn’t it?  And for a more whimsical reason from a source I don’t put much weight upon, the two of cups has meaning within a tarot deck that echoes the sense of connection that I’m trying to get across.

To conclude this long-winded hello, I’ll tell you that this is only the seed, not the cupped result.  I learn more every day I’m behind the bar, and with that learning, recognize how ignorant I was before it.  I’m going to make mistakes, I’m going to be wrong, I’m going to burn myself and have to start again.  But out of that blood, sweat, and grounds, I expect to pull some black gold.  I invite you to read along as I post everything from laughable pictures to deep-digging technical research, tiny tidbits to run-away trains of thought, silly finds to intensely engaging reports, big-name events to no-name occurrences.  I don’t know where my new found passion will take me, but I know that I’ve just begun to brew.  And I’ve got a spare cup.

(Please excuse the grinds as I move into this blog; more to come as I familiarize myself with WordPress.)