COFFEE. Oh coffee, sweet coffee. My love, my life.
You know you are a little obsessed with the world of coffee when smooth, caramel coloured love hearts in pretty cups make you swoon. The smell of fresh beans being poured into a hopper gives you goosebumps, or that click of the machine when your perfect extraction has glided its way into the glass with a delicious pop gives you a grin that would make a Cheshire cat jealous. You also know that you are ridiculously addicted to coffee when you can't actually talk in the morning until you wrap your shaky hands around that first cup. Or several hours, and as many cups later you mutter "Oh, go on, one last one won't hurt." Knowing full well that it won't be your last at all. It doesn't matter though, because i am not alone.
Accidentally stumbling into the wonderful world of coffee many moons ago was probably the best mistake of my life. From my first fumbling attempt to mimic the Barista's at my part-time cafe job, (i often have nightmares at the concoction that i came up with) to each afternoon when i lovingly brush the last remaining bits of grind off the hopper and scrub all my group heads and handles until they gleam at my full-time job as Head Barista at an adorable and well known cafe in the snobby hills of Malvern. Coffee is literally my life. It's my job and I'm not only passionate about it, but I'm damn good at it. Each coffee, to me is a work of art. There is much more than just making a coffee look pretty, the beans, the grind, the extractions are an obsession.
In the last few years I've been slowly working on my coffee snobbery. The first coffee making training course i attended was purely because it gave me a paid day off work and it was catered. Then i moved onto to a slightly less awful job that i cared slightly more for, and attended another (Catered!) course that lasted several days and was much more thorough and much more interesting. I started really getting into coffee, drinking more, reading more, scavenging the papers and the internets for great coffee reviews so i could stalk the cafe I'd been reading about and dive right into several of their cups, then spending the next hour leaning over the benches and counters and picking the Barista's brains. Several years, courses, jobs and millions of cups of coffee later, I'm in a job i adore, i have a little machine that is my best friend and i create about 300 - 400 coffees a day. I love the hospitality industry, it is hard, hard work and the hours suck but i couldn't see myself doing anything else. I love the people, the food, the talent. It's where i belong.
There is nothing more satisfying than watching (or peeking creepily over the top of my machine) as a customer takes that first savouring sip and smiles, or have a stranger tell me that my coffee was delicious and then come back for more. It makes me so very happy. Happy and slightly arrogant, so I'm always trying hard to better myself in the hope that one day i make a coffee so epic that i actually make someones head explode.
I don't think I'll stop until i achieve my goals. Plus, it's always healthier to want to work hard on bettering yourself in your job. No matter how awesome you think you are.
Anyway, this post is pretty much a soppy love-filled confession to my best friend.
Coffee, i love you. I wish to marry you and have your delicious babies.
Photography by Ella Wilkinson, coffee made by Me.
You know you are a little obsessed with the world of coffee when smooth, caramel coloured love hearts in pretty cups make you swoon. The smell of fresh beans being poured into a hopper gives you goosebumps, or that click of the machine when your perfect extraction has glided its way into the glass with a delicious pop gives you a grin that would make a Cheshire cat jealous. You also know that you are ridiculously addicted to coffee when you can't actually talk in the morning until you wrap your shaky hands around that first cup. Or several hours, and as many cups later you mutter "Oh, go on, one last one won't hurt." Knowing full well that it won't be your last at all. It doesn't matter though, because i am not alone.
Accidentally stumbling into the wonderful world of coffee many moons ago was probably the best mistake of my life. From my first fumbling attempt to mimic the Barista's at my part-time cafe job, (i often have nightmares at the concoction that i came up with) to each afternoon when i lovingly brush the last remaining bits of grind off the hopper and scrub all my group heads and handles until they gleam at my full-time job as Head Barista at an adorable and well known cafe in the snobby hills of Malvern. Coffee is literally my life. It's my job and I'm not only passionate about it, but I'm damn good at it. Each coffee, to me is a work of art. There is much more than just making a coffee look pretty, the beans, the grind, the extractions are an obsession.
In the last few years I've been slowly working on my coffee snobbery. The first coffee making training course i attended was purely because it gave me a paid day off work and it was catered. Then i moved onto to a slightly less awful job that i cared slightly more for, and attended another (Catered!) course that lasted several days and was much more thorough and much more interesting. I started really getting into coffee, drinking more, reading more, scavenging the papers and the internets for great coffee reviews so i could stalk the cafe I'd been reading about and dive right into several of their cups, then spending the next hour leaning over the benches and counters and picking the Barista's brains. Several years, courses, jobs and millions of cups of coffee later, I'm in a job i adore, i have a little machine that is my best friend and i create about 300 - 400 coffees a day. I love the hospitality industry, it is hard, hard work and the hours suck but i couldn't see myself doing anything else. I love the people, the food, the talent. It's where i belong.
There is nothing more satisfying than watching (or peeking creepily over the top of my machine) as a customer takes that first savouring sip and smiles, or have a stranger tell me that my coffee was delicious and then come back for more. It makes me so very happy. Happy and slightly arrogant, so I'm always trying hard to better myself in the hope that one day i make a coffee so epic that i actually make someones head explode.
I don't think I'll stop until i achieve my goals. Plus, it's always healthier to want to work hard on bettering yourself in your job. No matter how awesome you think you are.
Anyway, this post is pretty much a soppy love-filled confession to my best friend.
Coffee, i love you. I wish to marry you and have your delicious babies.
Photography by Ella Wilkinson, coffee made by Me.
