Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
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That work is continuing in strong strides with WCR, a collaborative nonprofit association dedicated to growing, protecting, and enhancing supplies of quality coffee while improving the livelihoods of the fam- ilies who produce it. This most recently includes the development of The World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, the largest collaborative research project on coffee's flavors and aromas ever done, which is the entire basis for the revised Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel just released by the SCAA. It's available for free, along with tons of other informa- tion, at www.worldcoffeeresearch.org. We at Barista Magazine have wanted to showcase this legendary cof- fee leader for more than a decade. Given his current work with WCR, we couldn't think of a better time to feature Tim—his dedication, his wit, his candor, and his legacy—than now. Sarah Allen: Let's backtrack a little to before your coffee career began. What kind of kid were you? What were your interests? Tim Schilling: I was always outside in the "woods" as we called it. Just big expanses of Southern pine forests, boulders, and creeks. Just aver- age in school, no bookworm. Played "army" and dug huge holes in the ground to make underground "huts" where we later learned to smoke things and drink. I was interested in insects and reptiles. Collected them. Raised them. Dissected them. Fascinating stuff as a kid. I also drew a lot, and did some sculpture at one time. SA: What was coffee like in your household growing up? TS: Coffee was big. Every morning the smell of Maxwell House filtered all the way down to my basement room. Big families needed those big percolators back then. Nice hissing/bubbly sound, and great to watch the coffee go from clear to brown to black in the little bubble thing on top. Big memories. Good ones. I started drinking it at around 12 years old. SA: Can you take me through the time between high school and when and how you got on track toward your career? What was your focus at university? TS: I was not going to university after high school, I barely made it out of high school! Hated it. I didn't care about university. I had a job wash- ing cars on a used-car lot in downtown Atlanta, and they offered me a better job in the parts department selling Ford auto parts. It didn't take me long to figure out that that was pretty lame. I was 20 years old, and I had reached the top of the parts department ladder. I was sitting next to 60 year olds [who had been] singing "praise the lord" for the past 40 years. I couldn't really see myself there in the future. I had a friend who went with his church to Brazil and came back and told me how great it was. I was also into gardening at that time—com- pletely fascinated by it. So I finally decided that I would try college to do agriculture or biology or entomology. I had to go to night school for two years while working in auto parts to finally get into the University of Georgia in the department of agronomy. I worked at the farm at the university to help pay for my college with a little $2,000 school loan. I also had my own little one-acre farm that I sold vegetables [from] to complement my farm job, and in two more years I graduated as an agronomist. Since I didn't really like Georgia agriculture, I went to the Peace Corps office and they said, "Hey, agriculture, no problem, where you wanna go, boy?" "Brazil," I said. It was all I knew! So when gradua- tion day came, there they were, and off I went to Brazil as some kind of agricultural extension officer. I didn't know anything but what the hell, Clockwise from top le : In the nursery at Starbucks' Alsacia Farm in Costa Rica in 2014, Tim looks at breeding materials. Tim relaxes in his living room a er a hard day of breeding peanuts in Maroua, North Camaroon. In 2003, Tim poses with his wife, Michele (at le with shoulder bag), and daughter Manon, with Mr. Emmanual Rwakagara, the president of the COOPAC cooperative in Ginsenyi. 114 barista magazine