Standing in the hot sun sweating, waiting for the doors to
open to Coffee Con, I thought about all the awesome coffee I would get to try.
I was excited. I was becoming less excited by the minute though, as they opened
the doors 20 minutes late. By then we were all so hot that everyone was just
looking for ice coffee. I, having a baby in tow, took my time and started at
the first table. It was a SteamPunk brewer managed by men in beards and leather
aprons. I didn’t get to try the coffee because they were still dialing in the
machine.
So I went to the next table, Temple Coffee. The coffee was
pretty good. The rep I was talking too was down playing manual brewing in
comparison to their super top of the line automatic brewer. Fine. Whatever. I asked
him to walk me through a tasting of his coffee and right off the bat he burned
his mouth. I joked about it, because I do that all the time. I think I embarrassed
him though. He rattled off a memorized description then kind of disengaged.
What a shame. I had high hopes for his presentation with a name like Temple
Coffee.
My buddy was pushing me to make it to the next table because
there was a coffee he wanted me to try. I settled the wife and baby into a
couch and made my way to the table. It was Proyecto Diaz Coffee. I picked up a
cup of the Oaxaca, Mexico coffee. It was fantastic. He had his Yirgacheffe,
because everyone had to have a Yirgacheffe, and then another South American.
The other coffees were good, but didn’t stand out. The Oaxacan coffee was
unique among all the coffees I drank.
I was lucky because the table kind of cleared out so I got
to spend some time listening to Fernando. There was something that made me want
to listen to him. His passion went past just good coffee; it was the love of
his family that came through. He told me about how his grandfather still owns a
small Coffee Farm in Oaxaca and how it is his labor of love. His coffee
business is a connection to his family’s roots.
What I drank was not just a delicious cup of coffee, it was
a story. We hear all the time about coffees that “help the farmers.” This was
someone with a direct family line to the farmer who lives in poverty and is
trying to help his grandfather. Did it make the coffee taste better? Maybe, but
I liked it before the story. I loved it after the story.
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