Yesterday, the 30^th of December and the penultimate day of the year, I made up my New Years resolution.

This isn’t a post so much about the new years resolution itself, because it’s a mundane and yearly thing that I tell myself and forget by March, but rather the arrival at it this time around. To put it in writing compels me to keep it. Should you read this, hold me to it.

Throughout the shop fit, before, and after, and throughout everything business-wise, I have got “I told you so” a lot.

So much so that I don’t care being wrong; I ask questions, I try to avoid problems before they arrive and suss out if there’s going to be a get out clause for the decision I choose. I’m becoming more informed as time goes on, yet its unavoidable.

*

“You need to get more signage, folk can’t tell if it’s a coffee shop.”

“You need more signage, cause folk don’t know if you’re open.”

“You need menus on the wall ‘cause people don’t know what to order.”

“You need to get 2 to 3 social media posts up every day.”

*

A lot of this stuff I have heard before. A lot I’ve agonised over, researched, tried to suss out and organise. It’s not wrong. Unfortunately, it almost always comes down to time and money. (All my previous bosses will laugh at that one, cause I have always been that guy.) If I don’t do it myself there’s the real possibility that something will get damaged. This has happened a few times already, very visibly and irreversibly, and while I want to trust those around me, no one knows this place better than I do, and no one cares about it as much as I do. And the end result is one I have to stick with – they don’t.

“You need more signage cause then…”

I patiently waited for one guy to finish his “doin’ me a learning” before I laid out exactly what all the options were, how much they cost, who I would use to do them, and exactly why I hadn’t yet done so at that point in time. He could tell I was low on patience, and had he been less patronising earlier in the conversation in welcoming me to “adulthood” I might have been more patient with him. I regret not being more friendly; though I don’t know that I’ve stopped a potential customer, I may have ended a potential friendship.

So, when a baby boomer, or child of a baby boomer, told me to sit down at his table after he’d finished, said with quite aggressive body language, I was prepared to be told off by someone who proposed to know better than I; experience told me to put up my defences.

“Take a seat.”

“Was everything okay?”

“Take a seat.” This time he doesn’t make eye contact. I sit. He sits forward like a mafia boss, hands clasped.

“Now, do you want some constructive criticism?”

I’m already sitting so I feel I have consented to whatever this dude wants to say to me. He’s setting the tone, establishing dominance on the young new-business owner. Working in hospitality, I have come to expect older folk to know better than me, whether they’re right or not – they know better.

“Sure.”

“Your coffee is very weak.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Now if I get a cup that size, I expect it to be stronger. It tasted nice, but it was much too weak.” His wife is nodding.

I try to interject at this point, he does not allow me.

“Now, what kind of beans are you using?” It’s almost like he’s problem solving for me at this point.

“What kind of beans?”

“Yes.”

“Like what country? Or, roast or…?”

“Just what beans are you using in your coffee.”

I can kind of tell by the way this guy is talking that he doesn’t know coffee, but he thinks he does. Which means he has to be treated delicately. My thinking at the time – he’s a sensitive boomer who thinks this young upstart has no clue and he’s going to set this kid straight cause business is cut throat and he’s a paying customer so that’s his right.

I’m quite affronted by this, for reasons that will become clear, so I start to get quite anxious by the situation and the injustice of it.

“So, you had the house espresso, which is a seasonal blend-”

“Yeah, but of what beans.”

“So, it’s a blend of X% Capim Branco Brazil, Y% San Antonio Colombia, and Z% Kiandu from Kenya.”

His wife, who has been sitting quietly up ‘til this point, raises her eyebrows and smiles, looking at her husband.

Had I not worked in a coffee roasters for over 2 years I wouldn’t have known that off the cuff. The statement wouldn’t have had half the clout. For someone with as much, though different, experience, they may not have turned this around. That statement set the tone.

“So, this is what we call speciality coffee, third wave coffee. Who named it I couldn’t say, but it’s a point that coffee professionals wanted to maximise flavour of the coffee and get the most out of the beans. This meant working at origin with producers and paying more to incentivize great production. Then, they have to be roasted such that it doesn’t burn the caramels, but still makes the flavours soluble to the water. We’re not looking for deep chocolate bitters and carbon flavours, we’re looking for sweetness and complexity, and everything is done to a recipe. We don’t roast the coffee here, so if you’re issue is just that its not dark roast enough then that’s fair comment and we can’t really compromise on that. But there’s a reason I asked you if you wanted a smaller cup that’s stronger, or a bigger cup that’s weaker. Do you remember me asking you that? You chose a bigger cup which would be weaker.”

His wife nods.

“I didn’t think it would be that weak though.”

“Well it’s a cup almost twice the size and the only difference is that it has more hot water in it. Espresso is made to a recipe down to a 3 second window that we know tastes good. That’s why we serve a long black in a 6oz cup. Do you remember I offered you batched filter too?”

He nods.

“Well, batch filter is a big pot of coffee which is made to the same strength for the whole litre. If you have a big cup it’s the same strength as a little cup. The only thing was that you’d have had to wait on it brewing because we had just finished it. Do you remember me offering you that?”

He nods.

“Let me get you one the way I’d serve it.”

I come back with an espresso cup with a single espresso in it, topped up with hot water. I’m not giving the guy a full long black on the house, that would be preposterous. This is his problem.

“Try that.”

Given all the people who have done me a learning throughout my short and hectic business life, it would have been easy to lose my cool and lose the customer in the process.

“That’s lovely.”

“That’s how I’d like to serve you it. The thing is people often want more of something rather than the best of something. And who am I to tell them otherwise. I can only do my best to guide you to the best version of what I can offer. And I’m lucky we’re not hugely busy at the moment, because it meant I’m able to have this conversation with you. Were we busy, you wouldn’t have got that, and you probably wouldn’t come back.”

The thing was, he didn’t realise I had put some thinking behind it, and didn’t understand that his choice affected the drink, mostly because that same choice doesn’t have nearly as much of a bearing on his drink elsewhere. Chains have taught us that you can get any size of any drink, but when we make espresso to a recipe that suits that coffee, it changes all the drinks too. We can’t pull 3 double espressos for your 16oz flat white, we’re just not going to do it. And honestly, you shouldn’t want that either. You’d probably shit yourself.

“Some places you go,” he says, “the baristas put the coffee (portafilter) on the machine (group head) and walk away and do something else and then come back and hit the button, and they burn the coffee.”

This didn’t have much to do with what we were talking about at the time, but what I think he wanted to show me was that he noticed, and he cared. He felt that what he was served was an injustice and some upstart was touting snobby coffee that was shit.

I explained that you can’t really burn coffee that’s been roasted beyond 200 Celsius with 95 degree water, but what he had caught onto was that the baristas didn’t follow a recipe, and that they weren’t really trained to a very high standard – potentially. In any case, that it was a shame he was being served bad coffee, and had to just roll over and accept it.

“Everything we do is to a recipe. That’s why we don’t have a big food menu, its why we don’t over advertise. We want everything we do to be of the same standard, something we’re proud of. And when we are a little more ready, and have a little more to offer, we’ll really shout about it. In the mean time, we’re able to talk, much like we’re doing now, and get loads of feedback.”

Before this man left he shook my hand and thanked me. He may well turn into a walking advertisement for this business due to the positive nature of the conclusion.

If coffee is a part of culture the way everything else is – built with expectations, a language, and etiquette – then it only reminds me that when it comes to anything political (not governmental but affecting people and people-opinions) we absolutely must be patient. In such divisive times, of binary votes and misinformation, we can not afford to take a tantrum and walk away. If we don’t know, we only ask. If we do know, we pick our battles, and if we choose to battle, we never give up the high ground. We are persuasive rather than savvy. And rather than kicking the other off their illusion of a high ground, invite them up to yours for a cup of coffee and a chat.

Here’s to 2019.