why not follow me?
Hello what is on your bucket list?
78. ✓Work as a coffee roaster.
Have always been a lover of coffee ever since that first sip of my dads coffee and the homedepo when I was 7. And to truly love something you need to know where is comes from and how it is made.
My alarm is going off again and it’s 4 AM, there’s no sun and there ‘s no body else awake in the city. It’s a nice feeling to wake up and there is so early you feel like you are pricey to a different world. Like there is a filter over your eyes.
You may be asking why am up at this beautiful hour. is it for a exercise?
NOPE
Is it to do my morning prayers?
NOPE
The reason is very simple I was working as an intern in coffee House helping roast the beans and pack them.
But back in my bed with my god awful alarm ringing. I slap it like it called me fat. And it fills my room with the silence of the night. I slide out off bed and get dressed in something light I quickly go to the bathroom brush my teeth and do my business. I known that I only have a 20 minute jog to get to work before have to start so I am in no rush
That is what I like about the early morning you can move at your own pace.
After brush my teeth and taking a piss I quickly have a sip of coffee before a leave. Sadly the coffee is the cheap shit. I can not afford the good stuff yet. It is so funny I am drinking 15 cent coffee at home but making some of the nicest coffees in the world.
I put my shoes on and hop outside, it’s chilly the whether wakes me up more then the coffee the I was drinking. I quickly run down the six flights of stairs that hang of the side of my apartment building to get out into the main street. Once I get there all I can see is deliveryman and some late-night cooks that are drinking there stress away. I laugh and smile look at them knowing the feeling. I say to my self “ I know how you feel bro”
As I’m running the sun is starting to come up, It warms me a little. In just a few mins I make it to the front doors of the café. It’s beautiful, it’s huge like a complex of some crazy cult.
My heart is beating fast this is the first day and I am going t try and jump in to the deep end. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do all I know is coffee will be a big part of my life for the next few months.
I walk around looking for the doors to the roasting house. And I find it not with my eyes but with my nose. Once I find it I knock.
KNOCK…. KNOCK
Lol that is the sound of my hart at the Time as well as my hart in my chest.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see once the door opens. A Bouncers, Bikers, Ninjas, who knows. But a kind woman with a big smile opens the door and says good morning in perfect English I give her a hug and say good morning back knowing that probably looked like a deer in headlights. she smiles and tells me it’s going to be okay.
After a few mins I felt like family we start chatting about why want to volunteer she likes my excitement so she says I can shadow the head roaster and do anything he needs me to do. I agree and shake her hand then she takes me to meet the head roster.
We walk to get a coffee I order a latte she gets a long black. Then she takes me to the roasting house. Once she opens the door and I get punched in the face with the small freshly roasted coffee. And my hart skips a beat.
I know that this is my home for the next few weeks and I cannot be any happier.
This skinny looking gentleman comes up to me and shakes my hand is a firm grasp. He looks at is wrist watch and check a Batch of beans. Then with out a change of beats he is back to chatting with me.
He smiles and let me know that he’ll teach me as much as he can over the corse of three weeks
He tells me I will be learning coffee history, coffee science, data analysis and how coffee roaster works
But the coolest thing he tells me is I will be about to try lots of coffee form all over the world and from hundreds of plantations
He even tells me I can try and mix different coffees to trying to beautiful blend just like how the ancient mixers use to mix scotch.
By the end of the day I am vibrating. My girlfriend at the time probably loved it. ( LOL SEX JOKE)
I had so much energy and so much passion for what I was doing that I realise that it’s true in some sense that if you find a job you love you never work a day in your life. Other than the fact that you work every day incredibly hard because you’re so passionate.
Day in and day out all I am learning is coffee and coffee roasting and what it take to make good coffee. And the time is flying almost as fast me after my 3 cup of coffee.
But just like everything good in life my time comes to a end. The last day is looking me dead in the eyes. I’m extremely sad.
I wake up and run through the motions dress,brush,coffee. And in what seems like 5 mins I am standing with my boss in front of the cool room, he is telling me that we are going to be picking up some green beans from cool room we do this every day stand in a cool room similar to what they would put wine in. It is nice compared to the hot sun.
I love the green bean coffee room there is row after row of coffee beans form every corner of the world. I walk in-between the isle and graze my hand over the bags and in those few steps I touch china, Ethiopia, Brazil, Jamaica and Indonesia. I love that just the story that these beans have been through is so vast. But I put that out of my head in 10 milliseconds. There is work to be done. My boss starts trowing huge sacks of beans at me as if we where a few sexy woman on a sleep over. After just a few mins we are done. And we cart the beans too are shop.
After we make it to the shop we start are day like every other with a latte. today we have a nice Columbian roast with full cream milk it’s funny by this time I can absolutely tell where the beans come from
I’m not professional but it’s interesting I can tell if the beans are from Africa, Asia or the Caribbean.
We get going on the roasting. For my last day there is a lot we need to do. We drop the first Bach in and start the beautiful process of art and science. After just a few mins of roasting the beans start popping just like popcorn and that intoxicating smell of coffee starts to fill are workshop. Then we check are clocks and the cooler of the beans and when the time is right we drop the beans.
We do this over and over 30 times a day on average. I help with some packing and cleaning after 8h of work it is getting late and I have to go home and make dinner.
We finished off are last roast and we share one more coffee. Me, my boss and the master coffee roaster. We shoot the shit and chat about life, Love and the things we want.
But just like all good things It has to end.
So I stand up and I shake hands and give hugs saying thank you for getting the chance to learn about coffee roasting.and ask for a small bag of coffee that I made myself they say yes.
After getting my coffee I go home bag in hand.
Back home. I’m sitting back on the roof of my building sipping on the coffee that I made as the sun sets over the city I think what a sweet life it is to be here and now.
I take another sip of my warm coffee it taste like sweet lemon and roses. And as I drink it I think about the travel that the beans went on and that I roasted it on my own and all the history behind this small cup.