Just a general idea of what's going on with my apprenticeship. Got into the shop at 6:00 A.M. and started up the roaster. I've gotten to the point where I (get to) start early by myself and clean things up and get the roaster started and ready for the day. Today was light, we roasted about 60 lbs. of Hue Hue. Mike comes down finally with coffee and a little something to eat. He reminds me (again and again) what I"m looking for in the roast and when to drop it in and when to take it out.
Mike starts things up in the shop and after discussing options and planning things for my future shop, we open his at 9:00 A.M. (that's right). Everythings goes smoothly and I take care of the roasting side of the morning then finish up and help behind bar till lunch. At 1:00 P.M. We close up for a two hour lunch (I freakin' love the hours here, you can get away with them and still make enough).
Except it's not our usual lunch then plan then maybe grab a 15 minute siesta. Mike gets a call around noon from a local tour guide. The guide brings tourists (mostly Italians) into the shop during the closed hours so they can get personal attention from a skilled barista on a machine from the motherland (Mike has a lever la Cimbali, they love it). So picture about 15 Italians crammed into this little shop all ordering singles, doubles, and ristrettos. While Mike trusts me behind the bar, he know just what these guys are looking for and want to give them exactly what they need. So he runs solo while I take everyones orders. Depending on their age, they order espressos how they know them: Ristretto, lungo, corto, double, normale. Mike smiles and nods and pulls beautiful shot after beautiful shot. Then some want to try the coffee. We pour out some Hue Hue and the expression on their face tells the story about this coffee: wow. Now, they all want coffee. Espresso, regular, ground for moka, drip, and professional machine. Then they see there's cacao. Well of course they need that too.
There's a time when your working and there's so much going on and it just keeps building. Mike calls this being "in the weeds". We were in the weeds. Fortunately they had another site to see and could come back later, so they left us frantically packaging.
The afternoon continued with more beans and brew to sell. We must have sold 20 lbs. of coffee today. To fully appreciate this, you'd have to see Mike's shop. It holds about 17 max with no elbow room and no hope of the barista getting out from behind the bar.
We finally close at a very late (haha) 7:00 P.M. Then it's clean up and talk shop. These are amazing times where I can sit and listen to a guy with 20 years in coffee all over the world tell me about shops, customers, and the heart.
Tomorrow we're off on a coffee run! We'll be gone to and a half days into farms searching for this years stellar bean. The harvest here is very late and a lot of coffee was lost in a big wind storm. I'm excited because Mike is visiting some farms new and old to him, so I can experience both of those aspects.
Meanwhile I'm still deciding how to get things started. The capitol this is still a question. How to get it. I could work for a year (I mean, I am a certified teacher) or try to get on with somebody as a roaster or barista and save up. Or I could just start as a roaster which would greatly reduce my startup costs, then continue planning and saving and buy little things here and there. I'm still thinking and praying about all of it.
So. That's my day. Almost two weeks in, and the rest of my life to go.