I have about 8 hours until 2012 comes in guns blazing and I am sitting looking at old videos from the 2010 – 2011 coffee content era and it was a blast. I guess its gotten me a bit nostalgic and excited to move on all at the same time. There is no doubt in my mind that things are going to be huge for our company (Safehouse), for the Specialty Coffee Industry and for the standard of living for people devoting themselves to coffee.
In case everyone has forgotten we here at Safehouse have set up shoppe in a tiny town called Griffin Ga. There’s not much around here to do. That why we saw the potential for a community focused coffee company and began with the goal of giving people somewhere to be all while enjoying a coffee that they didn’t know existed. This town has puttered along with us in this endeavor for 5 or so years and we have both grown tremendously here recently. So much so that our little town is now getting the mark of approval from Starbucks. While this doesn’t make me all that nervous it has drawn a line in the sand for the staff to get better even when we feel like we are doing this coffee thing very well. We’ve never had competition in what we do and now that someone is stepping up to the plate we are all finding ourselves striving to be better than we already were. So in the light of this change I have a promise to our local friends in Griffin. We here at Safehouse promise to give you a consistent beverage that we care about. We promise to serve it to you with more professionalism than we ever have and we PROMISE to not forget your names as we grow even more. Griffin is the next big thing in Georgia and we can’t wait to caffein-ate the people pushing this town to be huge.
As for the coffee Industry everything is still quiet, its almost sleepy in a way. From everyone that I have spoken with about this drowsy time, it seems that the loud ones are taking time to focus on their business, new projects, find their way to origin or transition into new, better roles within their companies. What I see happening from this is space to let the new generation type a little and ask questions, find responses and argue. While I can’t wait to listen and even respond to this, I hope that the new generation finds itself better than the one that came before it. A quote from Gwilym Davies sums up this same hope: “Hopefully in 2012 voices like mine will become old school with the new kids on the coffee block bringing fresh energy, ideas, action and change”. Thats my hope too. I can’t wait to see new folks emerge and try something new. The folks I have been following lately are @coffeecranium (Chris Ayers) of Knoxville (a slayer of dragons sometimes) and @collinamoody (Collin Moody) from Chicago (i think). I really like the way they think. I believe voices like theirs will be important in 2012.
Now onto dirtyCup in 2012. Im not quite ready to let myself walk quietly into the night, not just yet anyway but Ive learned one thing in the past three years that I want to put into practice right now. I don’t want to promise something and then become to busy to do it. I will tell you what I want to do though, thats the easy part. I want to have fun in coffee again. I want to loosen up a little and just talk. I don’t want to focus on being correct as much and ask stupid questions. I want to start some arguments and learn. All in all I want to make videos again and tell you more of what we are up to. In 2011 Hunt and I decided to put DC on the back burner for while and focus on building our team to meet our growth and we did that. We were very successful in managing our growth and now we are more confident than we have ever been. I can’t wait to see whats next and if everything goes the way I want it to you guys should be able to click play on a few videos every now and then.
Last but not least I want to get back to Honduras and meet needs. Our trip to Linares put a whole in me. I want to make a difference and by george I am going to try. If you haven’t been to a coffee growing country you should make it a priority. It really changes the whole thing. I won’t talk anymore about that now but I’ll certainly blog it when I feel the need.
Im not good at summing up posts but this is my attempt. Thank you Griffin for giving our coffee a shot and coming back. Keep that in mind when the mermaid swims in next year. Thank you coffee industry for being awesome. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
If you want to buy our coffee we are slowly becoming more lax in our rigid purchasing policy. If you want to give our coffee a try email me (Jacob) at jacoborriv@gmail(dot)com. I want you to taste it because its great and I am proud of it. I think you’ll enjoy it.
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Jacob.
