Wednesday, April 3, 2013

What Makes An Amazing Coffee Phenomenal?


Walking the streets of Perth to find theperfect coffee has taken me years to narrow my list down to just a couple.Though in saying that, just about every month there is a new venue opening withthe promise of that perfect cup of Joe.

And just as a quick aside, did you knowthat Joe and his cup is actually a real person? According to the highly trusted(please note sarcasm) Wikipedia, the saying dates back to 1913 when Joe was theSecretary of the U.S. Navy. It’s said that he got rid of the officers winemess. In turn coffee became the strongest drink aboard the ships and hence thename, “a cup of Joe”, was born.

Useless fact out of the way, let’s getsback to this phenomenal cup of Joe.

I have a café I like to visit for whatever sideof the city I’m at to silence my caffeine craving. They are places I knowprovide not only a strong coffee, but a coffee with taste like no other at theperfect temperature. Café’s you’d be happy to take your mum to.

But what separated these amazing cup’s ofcoffee is that they know my name. They have a conversation with me and offer mea taste of a new coffee they’ve just brewed from the far reaches of the earth thebean unraveled from monkey droppings.

But recently my work place moved and I hadto start from scratch to build up a friendship with my coffee and the guys thatmake it.

I spent weeks… Okay I spent about a monthtrying different café’s. Café’s at different times of the day when the baristachanged over. I compared them against each other on price, taste, service andconversation. Then I went back and tried them again just to make sure.

After my month of intense testing, I foundit. I was able to drink coffee again. Coffee that was everything I ever wantedin a cup. But there was something missing. That amazing cup of coffee wasn’tphenomenal and I couldn’t figure out why.

I spoke to my work mates explaining mysituation but they couldn’t help me. It wasn’t until one morning making my owncoffee at home it dawned on me. They don’t know my name.

And so the second phase in finding thatphenomenal cup of coffee began. I needed a way in with these barista’s. Theywould have banter with everyone around me. I just hadn’t been there longenough. So I found them and the café on Twitter and tweeted about them.

On the next visit I ordered my coffee asnormal, he already knew the buttons to press on the till before I said myorder. And as he hands me the change, boom, “Thank you Jason”.

He knew my name.

I smiled and in my head, though possibly itwasn’t in my head, I fist pumped the air. I’d done it. But there was one last challenge;will they spark a conversation with me?

It took a couple of weeks, but we gotthere. I knew the barista was from Kathmandu and I knew the other guy played a bit of sport. But finally my amazing coffee was now phenomenal and Ican concrete them into my list of café’s that pass my phenomenal test.