Obsessed

A Personal History Of Coffee

Cortado from Doce Cuarenta, Todos Santo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

The first time I drank a cup of coffee was straight up euphoric. I was in North Beach with my family. I was seventeen. Usually we’d head into the city to go to SFMOMA then head into North Beach, heading for Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Shop (a staple North Beach cafe) or Caffe Trieste, the epitome of coffee in San Francisco. My siblings all got lattes and feeling like trying it out, I got one too. It was served in a clear handled glass, something maybe more fitting for a root beer float. And I drank it. The taste, back then, was incredible, earthy but sweet from the milk. I loved it. Then, slowly, the caffeine started to hit. I could feel my body, not quite vibrating, but surging with awareness. It felt, in that moment, something like transcendence. I remember my siblings laughing as the caffeine hit me. My already hyper nature reached a new high.

Since that moment, coffee has been an integral part of my life. It has been a slight obsession, yes, with the caffeinated feeling, but also with the flavors, the ways that coffee can be brewed and made to taste similar and yet so distinct from itself. At that age I had no idea how to make a good cup of coffee and what went into that. I didn’t really know too much about how to roast coffees well, or even that you could taste the origin of a coffee or its process. I didn’t know anything. But I wanted to know. As time passed I knew I wanted to be a barista. I needed to learn more about how to make this drink that felt like one part drug and one part delicacy. 

A few months after I had that coffee at Caffe Trieste I moved to Eugene where I found the coffee was better, it seemed, in almost every shop. Even the corner stores had decent coffee. It felt like I had, just by chance, ended up in the perfect place to work as a barista. Unfortunately, every single coffee job I applied for I couldn’t get. Every job required at least a years worth of experience before working there, and even the Starbuck’s required six months. I still applied. I still got rejected. But I still could at least drink the coffee, Stumptown at one cafe was good, but the Wandering Goat, a punk/metal-head cafe who roasted their own beans, and sourced directly from farmers (no green coffee wholesaler middleman) all over the world, was by far my favorite coffee. 

I eventually did get a job as a barista a few years later, learning how to pull shots in Rhode Island. That job lead to another one, then to another back in California at Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station. That location is closed but it is also where I really began to learn how to taste coffee in a way that actually made sense. Then I ended up at Bartavelle in Berkeley, serving Portland’s Heart coffee up until only a couple of months ago.

Now, I’m writing and illustrating full time, but coffee is still deeply a part of my life. That seventeen year old kid drinking that first cup of coffee, is still transfixed as ever. I have my little pour over ritual in the morning. I have recipes I tinker with. I obsess now over water temperature in a way I never thought I would (I just thought I’d never have the patience for that kind of thing). I am, like my friends who are by far better baristas than me, comfortably obsessed, and likely will be no matter what I do to pay the bills. 

But thankfully, I still write, and writing can transfer to all sorts of places. Or, it can keep you in the same world you mostly left behind. By this, I mean I can still be a part of coffee by writing about it. 

And just last month, I was given that opportunity by Serious Eats, which you can read here or from the link below! It’s a short piece on why I love using the French press and why I think it is severely underrated by coffee nerds and everyday sippers. 

I would have never believed, as a little kid drinking a coffee at an SF staple, that I would someday be able to write about coffee. Now that I have, I can’t wait to write more.

HERE’S THE LINK! for Don’t Forget About The French Press

Also! read this seriously hot take/nostalgic reflection from Keith Bandolfi on bad coffee