Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2017

Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005

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Publisher Kenneth R. Olson Editor in Chief Sarah Allen Art Director Demitri Fregosi Powers Online Editor Ashley Rodriguez Copy Editors Erin Meister, Chris Ryan Photographer Jusuf Nurkić Business Manager Cheryl Lueder Advertising Sales Sarah Allen 800.296.9108 Contributors Tracy Allen Amy Close-Pepe Andy Freivogel Sarah Grant Jason "Double J" Johnson Alex Lambert Michelle Maisto Phil Markel Jessica C. Ornelas Alabaster Pizzo Jack Pollock Sarah Richmond Ashley Rodriguez Chris Ryan Casey Underkofler Joshua Vasko Brodie Vissers George Vukasin Jr. Editorial Advisory Board Nora Burkey, The Chain Collaborative Anna Gutierrez, Barista 22 Hidenori Izaki, Samurai Coffee Experience Heather Kelley, Stumptown Coffee Roasters Sam Low, Code Black Coffee Todd Mackey, Bolt Coffee Co. Mike Marquard, Blueprint Coffee Noah Namowicz, Café Imports Lorenzo Perkins, Fleet Coffee Sarah Richmond, Bay Area CoRoasters Craig Simon, Think Tank Coffee Jess Steffy, Square One Coffee Teresa von Fuchs, Genuine Origin Coffee Project Laila Willbur, Cherry Street Coffee House Barista Magazine 4345 NE 72nd Ave. Portland, OR 97218 phone: 800.296.9108 fax: 971.223.3659 email: info@baristamagazine.com www.baristamagazine.com Barista Magazine is published bimonthly by Ollen Media, LLC. Subscriptions are $30 in the United States, $45 USD in Canada, and $60 USD for the rest of the world. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Postmaster please send address corrections to: Barista Magazine, 4345 NE 72nd Ave., Portland, OR 97218. ISSN: 1944-3544 Copyright 2017 Barista Magazine. All rights reserved. BARIST A M A G A Z I N E E D I T O R L E T T E R always try harder I'VE BEEN REALLY STRUGGLING with some- thing lately, and I think it's best to just talk about it. In January, Barista Magazine was criticized for failing to represent the diversity of our special- ty-coffee industry. This came from blogger and barista Michelle Johnson on her site, The Chocolate Barista (www.thechocolatebarista.com). I was devastated. Scratch that—I was pissed. My initial reaction was defensiveness—we've made inclusivity and diversi- ty a priority here at Barista Magazine in the 12 years we've been publishing, and I'm proud to have provid- ed a voice for previously marginalized groups in our community. We've done this most visibly by champion- ing the voices of women in coffee. More than that, our small staff comprises forward-thinking liberals who practice exactly what we preach in our daily lives. One of our staffers, online editor Ashley Rodriguez, was maybe even more devastated than I was: Since assuming her position with Barista Magazine in the fall of 2016, Ashely—a Cuban-American—has built Barista Magazine Online into a phenomenal daily news site for the coffee industry by and about people from all backgrounds. Ashley and I talked a lot about Michelle's post. We talked to Ken about it. We immediately reached out to Michelle about it. We shared Michelle's story with our 100,000+ Instagram followers because we strive for total transparency. And, as you can see by the fact that I'm writing this letter, we're still obsessed with it. Always my better half in composure and perspective, Ken summed it up right away by acknowledging my upset, but moreover by calling me on my defensiveness, and giving me one line of advice that I'd do well to apply to every area of my life, but especially to my role as captain of Barista Magazine's editorial content: "Always try harder." Think you've built a diverse-enough staff? Try harder. Think your company policy empowers every single barista who works for you? Try harder. Think the leadership in your local and national spe- cialty-coffee community is appropriately refl ective of the people it serves? Try. Harder. We say, "But barista competitions are dominat- ed by men because men are the ones who want to compete." We say, "I wanted to hire a more diverse staff, but I only got applications from white peo- ple." We say, "You have to be tough in the service industry—no one's got time for hand-holding." Bullshit. We can and have debunked these as- sertions time and again in specialty coffee, and yet we still aren't trying hard enough. I'm not trying hard enough. There shouldn't ever be a time when we're fi nished with the trying. We at Barista Magazine are inspired every day by this coffee community, by the global citizens of this industry that exists to make the world a better place. After all, isn't the end goal to make specialty coffee as profi table and lucrative as it can be so that we can pay our staff and our producer partners better, and so that we can preserve the still-wild and green parts of the earth that sustain our trade, and our world? Thanks to Michelle's essay, I am inspired to be even more aware and in the moment. If there's anything the tumultuous fi rst months of 2017 have taught me it's that this awareness and desire to fi ght for change is a fi re that has to be stoked every day—that I have to stoke every day. This is the 12th-anniversary issue of Barista Magazine, and I can't express how happy we are that you're reading it. The very nature of maga- zines is that they have to be planned far in advance, but we make our own jobs harder by swapping new content in at the last minute on a regular basis in order to bring you the very most timely and rele- vant news and features we can. After an incredible response to Ashley's story "Basic Barista Fitness," in the February + March 2017 issue, we decided to follow it up with a feature on the importance of mental well-being, which you'll fi nd on page 102. Casey Underkofl er, head barista for Minneapolis' celebrated Bachelor Farmer Café, goes further into the topic of above-par service than we've ever gone, because, well, always try harder. Look for that on page 112. Coffee veteran Sarah Richmond interviews roasting companies that have undergone revitalization through rebranding in her story on page 116. At its core, redefi ning oneself is all about doing better, trying harder, right? In this vein, we asked our business columnist, Tracy Allen, to write about profi t sharing (page 94) and why folding your employees' interests into your company's growth projections could be a win for everyone involved. In small business, that stuff matters. That kind of thing can change lives not only for the better, but for the long run. So believe me when I say that when I urge you to try harder, I'm sweating it out, making mistakes, and trying to do better the next time right along with you. We're all in this coffee thing together— isn't it beautiful? 14 barista magazine

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