Bob's Blog #5 - Where’s Waldo is for Wimps

Ok, so maybe that title is a bit harsh. I am sure there is someone out there drinking a rich cup of TPDCC as a pour over (wickedly good choice btw) and perusing a book right now trying to find that visually impaired guy in the zig zag beanie.  I truly mean no offense.  

Maybe a better title to this blog edition would be finding Waldo is a hell of a lot easier than finding which part of the world the absolute best coffee is from.   See ??? Way too long of a title.  You’ll just have to give me a pass on this one Waldo fans.  

So... coffee is like people and wine; it is eclectic, that simply means it draws from the world around it and thus it’s character is created.  Coffee however, unlike wine or people, can generally cure a headache rather than create one.  The roast profile (the direction the roaster takes the coffee bean) is also going to play on how the character is received. 

A cinnamon roasted Uganda, for example, to me is a lot like watching Steven Seagal star (before he was the aging chubby guy doing bad plot movies in Prague) in a dramatic movie that requires heavy crying about his character’s trials of gender identity.  Doesn’t fit, right?  However, place him in a fist-to-the-face, bravado 80’s action film, complete with one liners, endless ammunition, and gratuitous explosions and you’re rocking a dark roasted Uganda.  Personally, I am a fan of the latter.  Uganda has some specific character traits from the farm that we source our coffee from, such as cacao and molasses, that I personally enjoy.  The flip to that is I also really enjoy our light roasted Brazil with character traits like stone fruit and a nutty finish.  Brazil is a bean that is usually roasted very dark; however, we take it so light it’s almost a cinnamon.  We are talking about completely different parts of the world here without even touching Indonesia or Central America.  

The nugget I hope you grab here is that the search for the perfect cup of coffee is just that, a search or journey.  Just when I think I have set my tent in a certain country or a certain roast profile as my favorite, I taste something else from somewhere else and my tastebuds pull up stakes and I’m off again.  You could spend your whole life trying new coffees, ways to roast it, and serve it, and it would not be a wasted life.  Certainly, better than looking for a socially awkward guy who doesn’t want to be found.  I say leave him be, he’s probably searching for a cup of Joe. 

May your life be as rich as the coffee you drink!