Kaffa Cafe, a lonely walker on this lonely planet!
For years after I joining the website and forums abroard where we can meet the baristas, home-baristasm, and coffee professionals, we had been still alone for the good coffee and espresso drinks.
In Chinese phrases, we say that it is the coldest when you are at the high level of development. It is what we have to be, and let us be there.
I cannot conclude that the effects for the trainees from other training of baristas, while for us, it is so nice to have more and more trainess to have their own cafes opened aorund different cities in China. And for those who follow our suggestions, their cafes must have the high quality espresso drinks from the first day of their openning. No more time needed.
After two opened in Hainan by one of our trainees, now one is going to open in Shenzhen, and another one is in Harbin, again, following another which was opened a couple of years ago.
In Guangzhou, the coffee market is going down, and one can see only the cafe closed, not opened. The next wave will come after the new cafes opened by our trainees in near future.
A couple of years ago, I and our colleagues were worried about this, due to those cafes with rather poor coffee drinks are opened fast, to decades of cafes in a year. But now, the market is down and everybody is quiet, and looking at the coffee market without investing any. In this case, our trainees' cafes are going to open one by one, steadily.
Go, go, go, Kaffa Cafe is going, without any respects and worries from those who used to drink coffee and may know more about coffee, and good in business in this free market. We are practicing a new, or maybe in fact, the oldest business spirit for success.
While everybody say NO, some people are copying from us but in terms of many different sources like taiwan and abroad. Our standards are also going to the people, the baristas, and the cafes finally. The world is changing, and the earthquake may occor some day.
Recalling to the posts in the beginning of 2006, we knew only that we are learning. But, one day, we were surprisingly to find that we are just in front. Why the world is going so slowly?
Wait, and see. What will happened, in near future.
In Chinese phrases, we say that it is the coldest when you are at the high level of development. It is what we have to be, and let us be there.
I cannot conclude that the effects for the trainees from other training of baristas, while for us, it is so nice to have more and more trainess to have their own cafes opened aorund different cities in China. And for those who follow our suggestions, their cafes must have the high quality espresso drinks from the first day of their openning. No more time needed.
After two opened in Hainan by one of our trainees, now one is going to open in Shenzhen, and another one is in Harbin, again, following another which was opened a couple of years ago.
In Guangzhou, the coffee market is going down, and one can see only the cafe closed, not opened. The next wave will come after the new cafes opened by our trainees in near future.
A couple of years ago, I and our colleagues were worried about this, due to those cafes with rather poor coffee drinks are opened fast, to decades of cafes in a year. But now, the market is down and everybody is quiet, and looking at the coffee market without investing any. In this case, our trainees' cafes are going to open one by one, steadily.
Go, go, go, Kaffa Cafe is going, without any respects and worries from those who used to drink coffee and may know more about coffee, and good in business in this free market. We are practicing a new, or maybe in fact, the oldest business spirit for success.
While everybody say NO, some people are copying from us but in terms of many different sources like taiwan and abroad. Our standards are also going to the people, the baristas, and the cafes finally. The world is changing, and the earthquake may occor some day.
Recalling to the posts in the beginning of 2006, we knew only that we are learning. But, one day, we were surprisingly to find that we are just in front. Why the world is going so slowly?
Wait, and see. What will happened, in near future.
Comment
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Comment by Peter Tam on May 17, 2008 at 11:26am
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Jason,
I had seen on CG, someone had visited you and gave you a very good comment. I do like to hear how is your understanding about espresso, specially those different from the most people of the industry.
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Comment by Jason Haeger on May 13, 2008 at 11:30am
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It doesn't show much. It shows me a graph of subjective opinions.
There is nothing empirical about that graph. What is the extraction ratio? What does (deep) mean?
What's the percentage of robusta in the blend? What are the other components in the blend?
What characteristics are present to determine the height of quality?
All that graph does is give an illustration of what you've been saying for years. That you think espresso blends without robusta can never bee as good as espresso blends with robusta.
There are no facts to observe. Only opinions.
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No comments about it?
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I try to put the graph again.
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Jason,
Let me come back to our topic here.
About our Coffee Theory, it cannot be explained in a few words, because it is not as easy as most people imagine.
Probably I can give some examples.
Talking about the blends, arabica w/o robusta beans? As you may remember or find my old posts, I showed a graph, indicating the tastes quality comparison between blends w/o robusta beans. In that graph, when the shots are not very well made, the pure arabica blends can be better than those with robusta; while when they were very well made, the blends w/ robusta (very well blended) may make great shots and the pure arabica blends can make only rather good, but not "very" good shots.
Many people say that arabica beans are always better than robusta, and the blends made of them must be very good. That is not true. For Chinese medicines, we know very well that two "good" things, when put together, may make a poison, and several extremely poisons putting together may make a "great medicine".
And second example, let's see the water pressure, which are not well explained, I think. Eveybody say that we turn the machine to the water pressure at 9.0 bar, and it must be the pressure we get when we make our shots. No, it is not true.
If one remeber what we say about the adjustment of pump pressure, we should remember that it is the "highest working pressure" of the pump, not the real working pressure. I do not know how many people paid attention to it. So, what we are doing is mostly influencing the "real" working water pressure.
I think, we need to see the confirmation about this explanation probably.
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Yes, so we are going to the key point.
Theoretically, people do not agree with our understanding. But, I still have to say here. It may not help to make a good shot, but to understand us, probably.
In general, ast least I hope, it is globally understood that the tastes of espresso is the only judging standards for good espresso. Second, how do we make it? If only we know what the problem exist and why they are here, we can solve it for sure, maybe not easy.
You may see my post in CG. It can explain something. Maybe it is better for you to read it first.
"Re: Simple and Effective ways to train a Barista".
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I really do wish you would draw out the details of the Kaffa espresso theory.
I'd like to run some experiments myself.
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Thank you for your patience and explanation.
Well, to be clear, I think I can explain in this way.
As I said in my post, we were totally learning, mainly from Italian experience, but also other info sources. After we compared with all we can see and find, we surprisingly found that we were better. That was a surprise, not our intention.
Last year in HK, we also surpisingly heard that Italian professionals with decades years of experience in a traditional coffee roaster comments "our coffee better than most Italian baristas". We know what a good espresso is and how to make it, due to our rather successful coffee theory. But we did not epxect that comment, what we suposed to be is only something at the averaged level in Italian domestic market. He is a production manager, has nothing to do with commercial neither friendship and similars. He had been more concentrated on the technical respects.
Even till now, we do not mean that we can make the best shot, but we can effectively train people what is the good shots and how to make it. This is the most unique and different because our "coffee theory" really works. Even myself cannot make the best shots than our trainees, because I always change the blends, the grinding settings, al so on, never for long time fixed in a definite blend, grinding, machine and so on. We just know what a good shot is and the way how to do it.
Among our trainees, there are some people who do not follow our advises and their cafes cannot be very good. I hope they can be better than normal at least. But for those trianees who follow our advises, their cafes can serve really good shots and other coffee drinks are also very good. For example, the Passby Bar in Beijing was very good after they have got our srevice. After a couple of years, it is someway out of control, due to their different or typical employee policy. So, they had some baristas not trained by us but only want us to offer them a simple training for free. But now, they would come back to raise their coffee quality as the beginning of our cooperation. In fact, the owner stoped drinking coffee when the shots became not as good as before.
About the home machine and its shots, we had the experience at the beginning of our coffee career. I had brought a home espresso machine from Italy in 1993-94, I do not remember well. It was used to make shot in our first cafe for about a year. We did make good shots with it, and a few of our friends always say that "you big machines can never make better shots than that small machine". It is something different, or just a memory.
Anyway, we do not want to say "we are better than others", but we have not found better as we are looking around till now.
I do not see many people who are concentrated on the quality of the shots, at least not in the right way we know. There are only a few post here or there which we are interested in. That is why I feel lonely. I have no one to talk and no questions to solve and nothing to think about it.
So, I spent more time to write our "Barista handbook" and mostly about the spirits and cocktails. I may also spend more time for wine, my next step.
So, are we the best in coffee? Who knows, and who cares? Whether it is or not, the market will answer this question. The clients can be only educated by the coffee drinks of the cafes where they can go and choose.
That is it, I suppose. The language is always a problem. If anything unclear, please forgive me and let me know.
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Sorry, I think it's an American slang expression.
Is this just a post in which you claim that your company is the best?
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Sorry, Jason. I cannot understand what you mean. You used only very simple words, but I just do know what it means when you put them together.
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