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"Espresso! My Espresso!"
An Ongoing Internet Novelette
by Randy Glass
- Copyright 2014 - All rights reserved
E-mail me at EspressoMyEspresso@gmail.com
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Fourteen Years October 22, 2000 – October 22, 2014 Wednesday, October 22, 2014 Fourteen years. A celestial measurement of the passing of what we refer to as time. As flexible as that may be, according to Mr. Einstein, it marks the age of this website as of today, October 22, 2014. Fourteen years ago I was still shopping for an espresso machine and grinder. It would be my first espresso machine and grinder. A genuine newbie in virtually every sense of the word, never having touched an espresso machine nor been in a home which had one other than a steam-powered, all-in-one. The first espresso machine I considered (and soon discarded as a choice) cost about the same as my last order of green coffee. When I started out, as Chapter 12 states, “Yes, You Can Roast! Who Knew?” I had no idea that you could roast coffee at home. With over 1000 batches roasted now, I have now been employed by a coffee-roaster manufacturer for ten months. Quite a journey, to say the least. I actually get paid to help folks roast better coffee. The odd thing about that is I still consider myself a neophyte in terms of roasting. Over the years I have met a number of professional roasters and their knowledge is so vast that it seems an impossible goal to me to achieve that level of knowledge and skill. Starting out, the Rancilio Rocky being my first grinder, my wife could not understand (and I along with her to some extent) why I needed to spend so much on a machine that “just” grinds coffee. Now, the burrs for my current grinder are about two-thirds the cost of that I paid for Rocky back then. That initial purchase of equipment (Silvia, Rocky, and the Hearthware Precision roaster), together cost less than the street price of my current grinder. This isn't about the road not taken, but more about the road ahead, unseen. When I started out I had no idea what the SCAA was. Looking back, I have attended eleven of their annual exhibitions and worked at nine of them! I could never have guessed that I would become a major factor in the coffee world, helping others to find their way along the road I had been traveling the last 5110 days (there were a few leap years in there, but that's a close-enough estimate). But that's likely the only predictable part of all this. I had been a teacher for twenty years when I started out and it was only natural for me to pass my accumulated knowledge along to others just as those who did so before me had helped me along. And I see that others whom I have helped on the various coffee forums are doing much the same now. One that I know of actually opened a coffee shop using beans he had roasted at home. Others write me telling me how much better their coffee is because of the knowledge I have passed along through this website. And on and on it goes. Dust in the wind. Don't fear the Reaper. Uncle John's Band. But I digress. Fourteen more? Years? Likely not. I'd be 77 at that point. But who knows? When I got married at the age of nineteen there were likely many who never thought it would last (my in-laws among them). At the age of nineteen how many of us could see four decades into the future? But forty-three years later we are still married, so lets all look forward to 2028 together. |
