I miss jimseven.com

OK so I am not going to write a blog post about the absence of James Hoffmann entirely but I am going to talk about my three years in coffee and what has changed.

Three years ago their was a genuine ignorance on my part of how coffee worked. I had to scrape and fight on the forums to find an answer. I watched the pros debate on twitter. I watched hours of videos to find a chemex technique. I saved money to buy the new thing that promised me better control over this variable or another and I always had jimseven.com, theotherblackstuff.ie and tampertantrum.com to make me think more and get better. I did get better. My staff was more consistent and my customers became more and more addicted to good coffee.

This all started with a new staff member I took on here at Safehouse to cover me on my recent trip to Honduars. She had to learn to make all of the drinks to our standards in two weeks in order for us to be covered for the trip. This meant she couldn’t go through our internship program which is six months long from beginning to end. I think any good trainer can get someone to make a great drink in a day and in a week you have someone that can be consistent. In two weeks you can get latte art but thats not what I want on my bar. I want someone that loves coffee. I don’t want someone that loves latte art. I don’t want someone that likes the atmosphere of coffee or getting to pick the music… I don’t want someone that wants to work here because they want to dress however they want or because you get 4 smoke breaks an hour if you want. I want some one that loves coffee and that loves talking to people. Someone that understands that its all about relationships. Whether its the farmer to the buyer, the roaster to the retailer or barista to the customer. I care about that so much more than latte art throwdowns. So I decided to teach her to extract coffee with the mojo and give her a long list of links that I learned from when I started out.

While compiling the list I watched the videos again. Gwilyms performance for the World Championships was the first thing that came to mind. Watching that guy make coffee perfectly and connect with the judges was inspiring all over again. Next on the list was Stephen Morrisseys World Championship performance. Its a special moment to see a crowd of people cheer when a grown man carries four espressos in one hand. The moment he melted that blue berry muffin thing was exciting and timeless as far as coffee goes.

Of course on that list was everything on jimseven.com. There isn’t a man on the planet more deserving to champion coffee from behind a keyboard than James. Ive only met him once but he is the kind of guy that breathes progression of coffee and I can’t imagine anyone working on my bar that doesn’t have the answers to the questions that he has asked and answered over the years.

Dave Walsh was on that list. I just don’t know how to introduce someone to the theory behind coffee extraction without his name coming up. Sure most of it went over her head and some of it still goes over mine but every time I try to explain under extraction to someone I use the boat analogy that he put together on this very blog.

The opening of Intelli Venice was on that list. I hope it wasn’t only me but I watched every video of that era. The first one was of Chris Owens training the staff there. I couldn’t have imagined training a staff to that caliber at that time. Tasting fruits then finding it in coffee and tasting different phases of espresso extractions where are all things I learned from those times and have become second nature now. The videos after that were of a redesigned La Marzocco by espressoparts and that video of Venice’s opening party that seemed like the Super Bowl of coffee. That taught me how exciting coffee could be.

The best of the coffee internet world for me has always been the personality of Stephen Leighton. His charisma is enthralling and he makes me feel like he has known me for years on every episode of In My Mug. The tamper tantrums with Colin Harmon were a lesson in what to do. He made his customers feel connected. He made other coffee people feel like friends and he made coffee appealing and fun for everyone. He is also still at it. Every week a new video. I can’t say that for anyone else. He is constantly pushing his episodes to be better and finding ways to get people to drink better coffee. He also gives coffees a chance. Most of us stand on small sets of standards that our coffees have to measure up to. He has high standards but he gives coffees I wouldn’t normally look at a chance and everyone of them that I have tasted were great. Period.

The internet is more quiet now. Did everyone grow up? I think they did and thats a good thing. If I look at my own growth I see a little more perspective. I don’t even run bar now. I head up our company’s wholesale department. dirtyCup got pushed to the back burner as my responsibilities here grew and I guess thats what has happened to everyone else. That era made everything better and our companies became successful through the learning of that time. Now we are all too busy because of it. That seems like a good thing but I want my staff to somehow get a taste of the excitement of that time. I’ll always look back on those days as coffee at its peak. That doesn’t mean coffee won’t be better than it was back then. It just means that for me, it was exciting and perfect.