Why did I make this website? You sure you wanna know?
The decision to start a caffeine-oriented side-hustle is not for the faint of heart.
... Actually, there are a few reasons. Let me explain one of the biggest of them now.
Picture, if you will, a quietly crisp building where dust is flittering down in little swirls of khaki and orange and gold in a window. The tiles on the floor are surprisingly immaculate. You've forgotten the obtrusive din of florescent lights long ago. There is a smell in the air--something like oil, but more like petroleum, sublimated in the surprisingly spicy cut of mineral oil--no longer the novel charm of paints' aroma, nor a choking cloud, but now something like a mild appetite suppressant. Someone is always here, alone or paired or in a group, mumbling something to themselves in the key of art school drama. This room seems to have more corners than it should, and so you occupy one from time to time.
I'm sitting in a space that seems to reside in the dim spots between the apices of the tubes that had been left on (when the painting teacher retreated for her hour commute home, it was common practice (my routine gremlinia to switch to a more cosy, eye-friendly lighting)): a light-corner. I'm looking at my coffee cup; it's better than I expected. I think I had recently made it, or maybe I just needed to look at it while I listen to someone speaking to me. There's Folger's original in it...
Why do people drink this stuff? Not Folger's--that I get--sometimes you just need a boost that's cheap, slightly nutty, strangely salty(?) and...--oh, wait, there it is: boost. I can't remember if the girl I was talking with in this moment was drinking some type of caffeinated beverage, but I'm sure we both needed the boost, since we were both incoherently tired in that moment (and beyond).
I took another sip. See, the problem is that coffee only rarely picks me up. Some of us out there are like this, if you can believe that...
It was cooled more than I had liked, but I found there was something else to be had in its flavour--a mellowing, if you will, that had unfolded new and yet unexplored pockets of taste. That's fine, I thought. At this point, I had already gotten used to this little inconvenience; I knew that if I had flavours to enjoy, the tired feeling would be a little more bearable.
I understand I'm describing art school like a concentration camp, but it was genuinely a challenging time in my life, and in such times it's best to focus on the smaller things as a sustainable source of joy--you don't have to be at war to have a need for morale.
Anyway, it was in times like this that I quietly reaffirmed that I drank coffee for the flavour, not the effect. So too with tea, only I had, at that point, understood that a greater variety of flavours were possible from the Camellia leaf--now I think they're about the same.
This change was mostly due to me working as a coffee roaster. It was my first experience working around coffee snobs, and boy did I learn a lot about coffee beans...
Until then, I was satisfied with medium dark roast for every bean, and hadn't the awareness to know the subtle differences between the different breeds of beans. This was when I learned about light roasts, acidity, fats, pulp...
Without the distracting buzz, I was free to enjoy the subtle flavours that were in each cup.
I remembered just how those tastes struck me--the way clay and the feeling of rain on the skin finds its way into Copan, the warm and gentle way of Kona, the understated wildness of Sumatran--like looking into the eyes of a tiger--the high and earthy feeling of Mexican--and to this day there are those which take me back to certain moments and places, of highs and lows, struggles and triumphs, and inside jokes so ridiculous and outrageously funny that my friends and I still mention them today. Sharing a cup with someone simply has that effect. It wouldn't be for another two years that I would finally take the plunge and start a business, but it was at this time in my life that I realised I wanted to discover and spread new flavours that were possible from these two enchanting plants--that's how much of an impact they made on me.
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