Barista Magazine

OCT-NOV 2013

Barista Magazine is your home for the worldwide community of coffee and the people who make it.

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cupping coffees, I was falling in love with coffee more. Eventually, I met with Soyuz through Andrew's reference, and I was hired as the chief roastmaster. SA: For the first time in 2013, the Soyuz Specialty Coffee Show in Red Square will include a slow bar. Why is this important? AY: Our goal is to spread knowledge to coffee consumers. I believe everybody deserves to have a good and correctly brewed cup of coffee. Russian people love to drink coffee. This year, we wanted to show them a different taste rather than just espresso. We explain to them what "single origin" means, give information about the farm, brewing techniques, and roasting. Slow brewing is the future of specialty coffee. If consumers learn how the single origins taste, and how they are brewed and served, I believe they will be looking to have more specialty coffee at their home or office, and they will demand quality coffee at the coffee shops. And the Russian specialty-coffee market will expand and people will have more awareness for what they have in their cup. trainee in the university department, or coffee. Those years were the most popular years of Starbucks in Istanbul and I sent an e-mail to their marketing department explaining that I would like to have an interview with them for my dissertation. They replied back and I had a great meeting with their Istanbul office. I was very impressed and wrote my thesis on Starbucks Turkey. During those years, I was already working at an NGO which was founded by my friends. I was the vice president, and in charge of projects for civil participation by young people and women all around Turkey. And I had more time to focus on coffee. I was lucky that I had good friends who really knew me and recommended that I pursue coffee professionally. One of my friends one day said to me that if I really wanted to work with coffee, why I didn't I apply to Starbucks, start as a barista, and then get a higher position in the company? That night, we ordered Turkish coffee and the plate was branded with the name of Turkey's first specialty-coffee roaster, John's Coffee. This is where I went on to start my coffee career. There are no coincidences in life. In the first months with John's Coffee, I started in the export department but I always wanted to be in the heart of the business, which was production. One day, the general manager offered me a new position in the R&D; department, and I started learning everything about coffee. That year, CafeMakers visited the company to give trainings, and I met with Andrew Hetzel [owner of CafeMakers]. Working with him was like a miracle for me. In each day that we spent together developing recipes and roasting profiles, and 58 barista magazine SA: What inspired you to compete in the Turkish Brewers Cup? AY: I thought it would be so much fun to compete with different people to see and learn more. I wanted to compete to be a good ambassador for specialty coffee and to represent my county in the world competition. But the most important part for me is to learn and have more experience, and to take another step further. Last January, I had my first origin trip to El Salvador with Regina and Drago. We visited our green-coffee supplier, JASAL, and other coffee friends. When I was at the farms, my total approach to coffee changed as I learned about varieties, farming, processing, and cupping. One night after a very tiring day at the farms, we were cupping around 20 different coffees of different varieties processed different ways. Two coffees popped up for me. One was washed Santa Julia and another one was the one I chose for my competition coffee for the Turkish nationals, Buena Vista Natural. The next morning, I had a discussion with the owner of JASAL about presenting his coffee in the competition. He was very excited, and we started working on my competition coffee together. SA: How uncommon is it for a woman to be in a leadership position, like you are at Soyuz, both for a Turkish woman and for Russia? AY: I think I have a different perspective because first of all, I am a woman in a leadership position, yes, but also I am foreigner. These two countries have similarities and differences. In my country, although we have problems with the general attitude toward women, there are a lot of women working in management and leadership positions. They have very good educational backgrounds and they are integrated into the global world. In Russia, in the beginning, it took sometime to prove myself. I was a woman and a foreigner, I don't speak the language, and I have a different management style. In these three years, it has changed so much, but still sometimes I get the same attitude from new people. Moreover, I am the type of person that I don't give up. Working at Soyuz, I have always had people's respect. At Soyuz I have learned that nothing is impossible.

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