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S3E7: Finding Zen in Coffee Brewing: A Conversation with Nadia Park on Mindfulness, Culture, and Connections in the World of Coffee
777 Plays1 year ago
Ever pondered on the therapeutic benefits of brewing coffee? Introducing Nadia Park (@nadiaxcoffee), a proud Korean American, rooted in California, who stumbled upon the tranquility imbued in the act of drip coffee preparation. This newfound ritual has since infused joy into her daily life.
Join Nadia as she talks about her coffee journey. It moved on from just coffee to chats about deep topics. Her content has attracted many coffee lovers. Nadia believes coffee has its own language which can lead to engaging discussions and fresh insights.
Click on the link in our bio to listen to Nadia's story. Follow her today and be a part of her unique coffee journey.
You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google podcasts.
Follow Nadia Park on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/nadiaxcoffee/
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. We hope their stories inspire you because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
Guest Introduction: Nadia Park
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to I'm Not Barista podcast.
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm your host, Mickey. And today we have a special guest. Her name is Nadia Park. She's a Korean American born and raised in California. And she discovered this special meditation process of making coffee. So pull over, join us today. And we're going to talk about her coffee journey and her unique coffee brewing events online and how she helps people through her special coffee meditation.
00:01:03
Speaker
Good morning. It's great to have you here with us. How are you today? Good morning. Good morning. Good. Good. I have my morning cold iced coffee with me, so I'm ready for the day. We are so happy to have you here with us today, and we want to know more about you. Let's get started.
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah, well, we're to start.
Nadia's Coffee Journey
00:01:23
Speaker
So yes, hi, thank you so much for having me and for inviting me over. It's just so thrilling and exciting for me as well to share my story about coffee because I think I do have quite a different and interesting entrance into coffee as well. So excited to share that. But yeah, I mean, I can start with like who I am, how I started coffee and then go into my Instagram. I think that would be like the
00:01:46
Speaker
Most cohesive method to go explain my story. But yeah, so I am Nadia Park. I am a full Korean American born and raised basically in California. And then I went to the University of Pennsylvania for my college. And during my college time, my family moved back to Korea.
00:02:04
Speaker
So once I had graduated, I had just went back home and that home ended up being Korea. And I was introduced to this cafe that you see me film at every single day and was mind blown by this hand drip process, this separation hand drip where I'm actually able to separate the tannins and bad tastes, bad aftertaste and caffeine, even from coffee, from green beans, from roasted beans that already have caffeine in it.
00:02:29
Speaker
So this entire hand-drift method just blew my mind as someone who had already been kind of in the coffee industry for a bit and was like, I need to learn how to do this. So that's how I ended up kind of staying in Korea. Of course, I also worked a corporate job here at an IT company doing marketing and business strategy for two years. And then I was like, you know what? My passion is still coffee. I did my fair share of corporate job. I want to get back to coffee and see what I can do from there.
Coffee as Meditation
00:02:57
Speaker
So that's basically my background. In terms of coffee, how I got into it, I actually don't like coffee-ridden taste. Well, now I do, but that wasn't why I started. I didn't start because of caffeine. I didn't start because I liked the taste of it. It was more just the meditative process. So I had visited Korea for a bit. My aunt told me, let's go to this one-day class. A one-day class kind of thing is a very common thing here in Korea just to test
00:03:21
Speaker
like ceramics and flower making and all these different things, and coffee was one of them. So I went to a hand drip or a pour over just with Kalita Wei class that was just one hour of me, my aunt, and my mom. And I think it was just that meditative process of just creating these concentric circles that was just so healing to me as someone who had just been so busy studying all her life. I just kind of needed that.
00:03:46
Speaker
a mindless action. For me, that was just coffee. After tasting my first batch and my second batch and my third batch, just changing one little thing in my coffee pouring method completely changed the coffee. With the tips that I received from the burst at the time, it got better and better. I think it was just that thrill that just changing this one thing that I could control could change the coffee so much. I think I found some kind of joy in that and healing in that.
00:04:13
Speaker
And then of course, being able to compare Kenya, Guatemala, Brazil in one setting was just, oh, so this is what coffee tastes like. So that's kind of the introduction to my coffee tasting and pouring journey. So when I got back to school, I was part of a coffee club. I was doing brewing and a lot of the times these brewing events are for study breaks. Therefore students to come and relax and enjoy. And there was one time that we were in a center and
00:04:40
Speaker
I was brewing coffee. It was me and one other person just brewing coffee for a bunch of people who would come in from three p.m. to five p.m. Anyone who wants to come can come and just drink free coffee that we were getting, being from the local specialty coffee store.
00:04:56
Speaker
And as I was making coffee and talking to these people, I realized that we were talking about things that weren't necessarily normal stressors in our life. College kids, they're talking about internships, they're talking about final exams, they're comparing themselves to others all the time. It wasn't these things that we were talking about. We were talking about philosophical ideas, like what's your thought on this kind of concept? Oh, how's your mom doing? Is she all right? We were talking about things that were outside of school, outside of the normal stress things that happen all the time. And I was like, wait,
00:05:24
Speaker
I can provide this drink as a medium for communication between two people where we can relax and actually have conversations that we normally wouldn't have elsewhere.
Mission and Positive Energy
00:05:33
Speaker
So I think it was just that moment where I was like, oh, there's just something that I can provide to people. I can provide a moment of relaxation. And so that's actually how I got into coffee and realized that this is kind of what I needed to do with coffee. I need to spread coffee, make an area of relaxation a place where people can feel a little calmed down, a little different than their normal lifestyle. So that's how I actually fell in love with coffee. And then, of course, as I said, with the particular hand drip that I'm doing right now, it was
00:06:03
Speaker
this moment of this is crazy. Now I can provide coffee in the day, in the night, whenever it is, because I can actually physically with my own hand, take away a bit of the caffeine so that people who feel nauseous or have headaches or have severe heart beating with coffee can now drink my hand drip. So that entire concept was just mind blowing to me. Uh, and that's why I continue to study it. And with the whole Instagram thing, honestly, it was just, I make hand drip every single day. I have a nice background of a cafe for now and
00:06:33
Speaker
I have a lot of things on my mind. I have a lot of things that I tell myself and as someone who worked and went to a good school, went to a good company, and now just jumped out and is trying to do coffee, trying to persuade myself that this is the right path, that this is what I want to do. The most important thing for me is to make sure that I am grounded and I believe in myself because
00:06:54
Speaker
no one else is going to if I can't believe in myself. So these messages that I was relaying on Instagram are basically just messages that I needed to tell myself that day that I listened to and I appreciated or I learned recently that I thought maybe you know other people might want to hear it. So that's kind of how the Instagram started. I didn't expect it to be so like healing and meditative for a lot of people.
00:07:16
Speaker
But that's just kind of blended in and I think that's just the kind of person that I am. And yeah, I just didn't want to make educational content. I never won a Brewers Championship. I never did a Barista Championship. So there wasn't that kind of...
00:07:30
Speaker
visible credibility that I had. And as much as I would like to explain things, I think those are for other people. And for me, it was more of how can I emit positive energy through coffee and bring people to a place where they felt just a little bit better and more calm about themselves and also learn coffee in the process. Wow. Thank you so much. Actually, I had the list of questions that I wanted to ask, but you answered all the questions already.
00:07:58
Speaker
What is so amazing that I can just learn so much about you within five minutes. So actually we have some common friends and they told me that Miki, you have to check Nadia's account. Her Instagram is amazing. It is more like you are chatting with a friend while watching her video. It's so amazing and it's very, very different from everything else that you'll see, coffee related content on Instagram. So how is your Instagram community going so far?
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I actually created the separate Instagram because on my personal Instagram, I realized I was bombarding everyone with all of my coffee photos going to this place, going to that place, making coffee. And I was like, okay, you know what? I'll create a separate cat. So I only had like 100 people, just like personal friends and followers. And I realized, you know what? I make coffee, so let's try posting. Of course, it was slow at first. Getting up to that thousand mark, I think,
00:08:52
Speaker
was the most difficult enough without a couple of my videos for someone who only had a couple thousand was hitting over 10K for about a month. And I think that really helped boost it up for a bit. But yeah, no, it's really cool to see how
00:09:05
Speaker
kind people are. Like some people have already done like drawings with me. I have that particular posture that I have all the time. So I think that, you know, it's visually something that people are like, oh, I can actually draw that out. So receiving those kinds of kind words and gifts and people trying their best to be positive. Like I can tell from the comments that these people normally aren't people who are full self confidence. They don't have everything, you know, perfect in their life. But through these words that I'm explaining to them, they're trying their best to try to relate
00:09:32
Speaker
and comment and being able to build that. And of course, I've already had customers come into the cafe saying like, Oh, I've seen you on Instagram, or I go to like coffee events like, Oh, do you do Instagram? Yeah, I mean, I'm on Instagram. So it's pretty cool already seeing feedback from like the coffee community that they have like, seen it. And then they said, Oh, it's really interesting what you do. And you speak English. So that's cool.
00:09:55
Speaker
Well, it must be so amazing to have such a supportive and cute community of followers on Instagram.
Inspiring Followers
00:10:02
Speaker
They like you so much, apparently. Is there anything particularly memorable message or DMs you received? Ooh, most memorable one? I think it's just the fact that like I was kind of down in the dumps with myself.
00:10:24
Speaker
I don't remember the particular one. I think it's going to be pretty difficult to find right now. But yeah, they were basically the gist of it was I was really in the dumps and I was basically giving up on myself. But after seeing your content, it kind of reminded me of what I need to do and how I need to think. And for me, as someone who had already gone through the whole low self-esteem, low self-confidence issue myself and had gone through therapy,
00:10:49
Speaker
an open book. I'm very open about this kind of conversation. It's very difficult to tell people to feel better about themselves in a way that doesn't make them feel bad. It's very difficult to say, oh, you should pick yourself up without enforcing that on someone, especially for people who are struggling through different issues with themselves. It's hard to accept anything other people say.
00:11:13
Speaker
Um, kind of like when someone passes away, it's like you are, are the loss of words that you just say, I'm sorry. But for me, I feel like saying, I'm sorry is just do anything. And I think that's the same with people who are giving up hope on their dreams or, or just, you know, not in a very conditioned or not in a good condition, or even just people who are mindlessly going about their day, but clearly have a potential to do more.
00:11:35
Speaker
It's very difficult to go into them and actually touch their hearts, but I think those kinds of messages are like, okay, so I'm relaying the message in a way that is helping, not in a way that sounds like it's nagging. So I think that was.
00:11:49
Speaker
kind of the key message for me saying, okay, Nada, you're going in the right direction. Yeah, yeah. Watching your video feels like a process of meditation. It's like your energy and your talks, healing people. Do you think this is because of a Draper coffee or will you make espresso will be different?
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, so I do have like SCA certifications and stuff like that. So I do
Coffee Styles: Espresso vs. Hand-Drip
00:12:16
Speaker
know how to like do basic stuff with an espresso. I mean, back in the States, I was working at a coffee shop. I didn't like latte art, an espresso. A very controversy opinion is that I'm not a fan of latte art competitions, because I think it's unfair that people judge coffee based on art. Like I can't draw for life. So for me, I'm like, I can't do latte art competitions. I don't like latte art competitions, because why judge coffee at art? But I mean, it's also
00:12:39
Speaker
I feel like it's very much an art competition, not as much of like a coffee taste competition, right? Which is true. Yeah. And so for me, I think I geared towards more of the brewers side. But yeah, I mean, in terms of coffee, if I do espresso, it's a lot more loud, I guess. That would be the nature of it. It's just the handkerchief. I do this for about eight minutes. And in eight minutes, I can talk about two different topics and just chat with you. Whereas an espresso is I kind of have to turn my back to you and make this coffee.
00:13:07
Speaker
And yes, it would be exciting and I'd love to be able to present that and like share the journey as someone who it seems like a professional in coffee, but actually can't even do a Rosetta properly. I think that would be very interesting for people to see like that contrast. Oh, coffee pouring even, coffee making is so different. Like just because you're a barista does not mean you can do everything. I know, right? I'm not barista. Okay. So I want to ask you, what is your, um, typical work date like?
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, so actually, my coffee isn't like my only main job. I do a couple other things on the side. But yeah, in terms of coffee, if I go to the cafe, yeah, I mean, all the coffee that I make myself is roasting. So I'm basically not necessarily like a server. I'm basically the CML of this company. So all the coffee that I'm making are beans that I roasted myself.
00:13:59
Speaker
Um, but I, you know, after three to seven days, I roast myself. And yeah, I think it's just that moment where I decide, okay, so I roasted a batch of beans and this one, I think I tried in this method and then this one I tried in another method. I tried tweaking things a little bit in terms of the heat. Um, and.
00:14:18
Speaker
But taste testing those and figuring out differences and trying to figure out what's better for this particular coffee. And eventually, if that particular coffee, right now, I'm working on a beans that we don't even sell at the cafe. But if there are certain beans that I try and we enjoy them, you'll try to bring them in bigger batches in the future.
00:14:36
Speaker
That's what I mainly do. And I also, you know, I work on our YouTube, so we have a separate like Pona Buono channel on YouTube. I have my own. So I work on those as well, just editing homepage. I work on also the outsource, out, out, what's the word? Like, I only know this word in Korean, it's called dapu. Sending beans off to different customers. We worked with a couple influencers. There's one person who
00:15:03
Speaker
is a mocha pot fanatic and just came to our cafe one time and he's like, I'm a corporate worker down the street, but I love your coffee and I do things on mocha pot, but that's the subscribers. What can we do together? It's like, Oh, that's really interesting. I wonder what our coffee tastes with like the mocha. Like I don't think that we're properly tried a collaboration with him. So working on these kinds of different marketing
00:15:23
Speaker
materials, our Instagram, our YouTube, things like that, our homepage. That's the kind of stuff that I'm working on. So I kind of use the space, the cafe as like my workspace. And then we also have a couple, you know, regular customers that come in. And so when they come in, it's like family, basically. I think this cafe in particular, because it has such a unique hand rub, and we also serve geisha coffee.
00:15:44
Speaker
via Dutch coffee in the same kind of concept and method as our hand drip. There are a lot of people who will come just for that coffee and have been coming every single day for the past five years since I have known this place. So you're a very busy person, work at a very busy cafe. Tell us if you have to pick one, one thing that you enjoy the most. What is it?
00:16:08
Speaker
I think it's when the people come in. I have two things actually. One is the people and one is with the taste testing.
00:16:15
Speaker
Let's start with a coffee first. With a coffee, when I do taste testing, I have a horrible sense of smell. So all of my coffee and aroma, with people, all the baristas, we like to say, oh, this tastes like oranges and this tastes like blueberries and whatnot. But I actually, when something was burning in the house, my mom would always be like, can you not smell the burning right now? It is burning. Can you turn it off? I didn't smell anything. So I have to actively pay attention to what I'm smelling to be able to smell it.
00:16:46
Speaker
In order for me to develop this smelling, the flavor notes, and all of this aroma, I had to trade myself. It's something that I tell people, you aren't going to be able to taste oranges if you don't taste oranges. Start off with, do you think it's sweet? Do you think it's more acidic? From there, is it a honey sweet, or is it a chocolate sweet, or is it fruit sweet? Then that's how I trade myself to get into that.
00:17:10
Speaker
Because I trained myself so much in thinking that way, whenever I do do taste testing, I think of images. So I don't know if you've seen a couple of my bean describing videos before. There's one on Kenya AA, top Rukiara gold, and one on Chinga Queen. So these are both Kenya.
00:17:28
Speaker
And I like to create stories on them, so whenever I taste coffee, it's not, oh, I taste lime, I taste pine nuts, it's, oh my gosh, wait, I feel like I see a 30-year-old woman knitting in her cottage home, but she's not lonely. She's very excited for her friends to come over, and that thing that she's knitting is a huge scarf, but she's so peaceful with herself. It's not raining outside, but it's not too, it's not in the middle of nowhere.
00:17:54
Speaker
but she's excited for her friends to come over and she's sipping on tea. So that is the image that I get right now with this particular roast of the Costa Rica West Valley that I just brewed or that I roasted. So that's kind of the, my own, I guess, images that I create to relate to coffee. And I feel like in that sense, like people are like, I have no idea what to talk about. Like how am I supposed to understand what that like tastes like? But these images are immediate to me. And I think that's really, it's very fun for me to do on my own.
00:18:23
Speaker
So that's one thing that I like to do. And of course, it's the people that come in. There are some people who come from abroad or from Korea who completely fall in love with our coffee or are just coffee fanatics and want to learn more. I can tell from the language that they have surrounding coffee or their previous experience how much they are into coffee and how much they want to learn coffee.
00:18:47
Speaker
and being able to talk to them about their previous experiences with coffee and associate it with my coffee and tell them like, hey, I had to leave America and not go back because of this coffee. Like this coffee is the reason why I'm staying in Korea because I need to see this to its maximum potential before I leave.
00:19:05
Speaker
And so being able to relay that message to these people like, oh, so this coffee is special. What makes it so special? And being able to have that conversation is really interesting. People from, I guess, the most recently Saudi Arabia, a couple of customers had come to Korea for about two years. And they're both working in Silicon Valley of Korea, Silicon Gyo, Techno Valley. And they came to the cafe and was like, oh,
Cultural Exchange Through Coffee
00:19:28
Speaker
I just want to buy beans. And I was like, oh, OK, sure, sure. But I'm making hand trip right now. You want to sit down and wait for me? So I had this little chat with them.
00:19:34
Speaker
gave me a coffee and they were completely mind blown they're like have you had a raving coffee i will bring you a raving coffee so next time they came they brought like a full-on kettle they brought like five packs of dates they brought the sesame paste that they have to dip in the dates in and they were like with this Arabian coffee you have to have it three times so they bought their little
00:19:53
Speaker
little cups from home that we kept breaking the cafe. Here's like, here is your cup. Here's my cup. You have to have three cups. And it's like 9 p.m. And I usually don't have caffeine, but this has a lot of caffeine in it. Dipping dates. And they were like, oh, we also have pave chocolate here. Take that. We also have macarons. Take that. So just this gift giving that I was able to receive from that little hand rub taste that I was able to provide them, these kinds of experiences that I don't even realize. And I'm I'm touching these these moments of
00:20:22
Speaker
heart to heart that I get to have with people that I don't even realize it's that much of a big deal to me because I see this every day and I deal with it every day. But being able to receive that and see that love in people's eyes, just being able to provide like, hey, you are such a great barista for us, giving us this amazing coffee, I want to give back to you. And so being able to receive these gifts are the endless surprises that I receive at the cafe.
00:20:48
Speaker
What a story. Coffee is amazing and coffee brings people together. When you're travelling in a new country and when you visit some coffee shops, you talk to baristas and sometimes you can become friends instantly. And that is something truly amazing about the coffee and the coffee community.
00:21:08
Speaker
i guess that's what that's the reason why so many people purchase rusters and they have been in the coffee world for more than 10 years or 20 years and they never leave and i think that's a magical part about coffee and the things beyond coffee
00:21:26
Speaker
And and I have to say that you are a true artist and everything you do on social media, the information you're sharing, the talks you have with your audience, that is a real artist thing. So thank you for that. Let's explore more the artistic side of you and your magical storytelling power. How would you describe a coffee flavor or a coffee note to someone who have never experienced those in their real life?
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the clear examples is it's really important, I think, to discover the kinds of foods that the other person is very familiar with. For example, when I think sweet, maybe it's like an American thing, but for me, sweet means chocolate. Whatever sweetness I taste in coffee, when I say, oh, this is super sweet, it means I taste lots of nuts of chocolate.
00:22:18
Speaker
There are other people in different cultures that when they say it tastes sweet, they're thinking of fruit sweet, or they're thinking of honey sweet. So it really depends on when we're talking about like, oh, there's high levels of sweetness. What level of sweetness is that? So because I think it's difficult to talk about that, I always go back to these images. And particularly in the Asian countries, sweet potato is a very common food. And so in my Kenya AA, Rupira Gold, one of the biggest things is
00:22:47
Speaker
I like to describe the coffee as you're a little kid at a campfire. Your entire family is there with you, but you're already finished with your entire meal. You're just sitting by the fire because you know you have your sweet potato waiting for you. The last grilling sweet potato, and you're the only one staring at the fire waiting for that to be cooked. And the entire family is in the back. You can hear their voices, whatnot. But you're sitting there, blanket around you, waiting for that sweet potato because you know how good it's going to taste.
00:23:16
Speaker
And when it's finally done, you, you are the one that has to, you know, take it out of the charcoal. You take it out and you wait for it to cool down. You're super excited. You can't, you know, wait for it. So you kind of peel it open and as you're eating one.
00:23:29
Speaker
You wait for the others, and as you peel the other ones after you've munched on the current one that you're already eating, you see this layer of honey. Sweet potatoes, after you grill them, have little bits of honey that come out of the surface of the skin. It's that honey that you're so curious about. What is this? Is this water? Is this honey? You don't know. You taste it as a little kid, and it's super sweet. That honey is the taste that you get in the sweetness of this coffee.
00:23:57
Speaker
So being able to describe, I guess, that honey, yeah. That's like magic. How could you do that? This is mind blowing. Yeah. So I think it's just, yeah. So describing to people like, oh, it's like that, that honey that you taste after, you know, you grilled your sweet potatoes, everyone, I think, has been keen to that kind of coffee. Like, oh, I have no idea, but that sounds great. Like I know what sweet potato tastes like and I know the sweetness of a sweet potato. So I'm gonna try that.
00:24:25
Speaker
And people come back and feel like, I really tasted sweet potato. This is amazing.
00:24:29
Speaker
Well, that's unbelievable. When you talk about the sweet potato, the sweetness, I can't really relate. Anyway, I wanted to talk about, since you have a very special background, you're a Korean-American, and you used to stay in the U.S., not in Korea, you know both cultures, but you know, coffee world is pretty much dominated by the English-speaking people, let's say. There are a huge, a few very, very important people in this world speaking English from the U.K., from the U.S.,
00:24:58
Speaker
whatever they say become the next trend most of the time. Where do you think this will lead to the rest of the countries who don't speak English? Let's say we have a lot of coffee people in Korea who don't speak English, they only speak Korean. And we have people in Colombia speak Spanish only. So what do you think the coffee world is like in your opinion should be? Or what is the perfect? Is there any perfect balance? Or yeah, what is your opinion about
Global Coffee Trends and Identity
00:25:25
Speaker
this? Yeah, so I think for sure I do agree that like everything
00:25:29
Speaker
in the world follow. And being in that culture and then coming out and seeing that, I could totally see how everyone's following that trend, whether they are conscious of it or not. Most of the time, I don't think they realize like, oh, this is the trend that America's doing, so we need to follow it. It's just like, America sets the standard and everyone's like, that is what good coffee is, so we need to follow that. So that's kind of, I think, unconsciously people are going towards that. But the thing is, I don't think it's necessarily just because they speak English and the Korean people don't know that.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's such a global and widely available world now, where just because you speak one language, people in other places won't be able to accept that. And I think just by America having its place in the world and already developing so many standards of coffee through, of course, like the SCA, for example, people just follow that naturally, whether they're from countries that don't speak it as much. And so even if they don't speak
00:26:21
Speaker
primarily English in that country, there will still be people who speak English in those countries, especially in Korea too. There are people who speak English very well. There are people who think that that is better, and so they will follow what is better. And everyone in America has seen it as better than Korea, whether they acknowledge it or not.
00:26:42
Speaker
And so the people who take the lead here in Korea as well, people who don't speak the language very much as well will follow that. There are also going to be coffee shops that don't follow that, like myself, for example, just because America is doing its thing. It's great to be mindful of that because we need to still have conversations around this type of trend, this trend of particular coffee roasting, particularly, you know.
00:27:07
Speaker
the industry. But just being knowledgeable about that and just making sure that we are following the traditions that we want within ourselves, not like traditional methods, but just our own culture, our own tradition is very important. But I think the necessary thing for coffee shops who don't want to participate in this particular trend that the coffee is going, really need to have a clear message and idea of what they want to present.
00:27:32
Speaker
Whether it's a product, whether it's a type of brewing, whether it's a type of roasting, they need to have a clear image of what they want and why they think it's important or else they're also going to be swept away by the trends. Yeah, that's true. I want to know, is there any special flavor that you've tried in Korea that you don't find anywhere else? Flavor?
00:27:57
Speaker
When you say flavor, I think just immediate thinking of the Korean flavors of Starbucks. Really? Yeah. I think in terms of there are a couple latte differences. I think in the States, for example, lavender lattes are a huge thing. Cinnamon lattes are a huge thing, but they don't really have any lavender lattes here. It's pretty hard to find actually.
00:28:23
Speaker
And they're more on the grains of coffee. I don't know, it's like five grains, I think it's what it's called in English. Making a latte out of that is a very big common drink here. So it's more of using the grain ingredients in Korea. I think there are a lot of tea-based as well. Like, omija, I think, is one kind of tea. But so these are different beverages, I think, that are more common from the historical tea culture.
00:28:49
Speaker
or like the healthy drink culture of Korea that kind of blended into coffee. Right, culture difference, right? So tell us more about the coffee community in Korea and if you have to compare with the US and what is the main difference? Yeah, so I've actually heard, I mean, I think
00:29:10
Speaker
The States is so big that it's hard to describe the community as one particular style. But I do hear a lot of people talking about toxicity in America, about how they have to leave the coffee culture, the coffee industry, because they can't deal with the toxic culture of it anymore. I actually wrote a paper on coffee snobs back in college as well, because I was like, why do coffee snobs exist? And why do they have to enforce their beliefs onto us? Why is this a phenomenon?
00:29:37
Speaker
So I actually did my own research on that and found out that different cultures and different regions have different versions of coffee snobs. But I think the specialty coffee shops in the States was kind of a place where if you go to a specialty coffee shop, it is the high end. You are rich. You are, you know, everyone who goes to these places where are going to have strong opinions. And I don't think that is as true here. People are like, oh, I don't really know the taste of coffee, but they're not like, oh, you're better than so they don't have that kind of
00:30:07
Speaker
differentiation i think in korea as much and someone that i talked to recently told me that in the states versus in korea the states has really really high like they're already like specialty coffee they did a lot of research but they're also very like independent coffee shops that kind of just sell coffee like it's the 1980s um so they kind of stick with that so it's hard to find like but in korea all the different coffee shops that you go to are so
00:30:40
Speaker
I can't think of the word in English again. There are big companies that have taken the market of very, very cheap coffee, but there's also a big market already of people who have found out specialty coffee. So no matter where you go, you aren't going to taste trash coffee.
00:30:58
Speaker
for lack of better terms. Like everywhere is very decently well done. And I think that's just the nature of Korea is there aren't as much diversity. There isn't that much diversity in the culture itself. So everyone is doing specialty coffee. So everyone needs to do specialty coffee. Everyone is doing cafe, pretty Instagram cafes. We all got to do that as well. So everyone has a base standard of what they need to have. And so when you go to cafes in Korea, it's hard to find something that tastes really, really bad because you're just going to get like that mediocre coffee no matter where you go.
00:31:27
Speaker
And I think that's just the natural culture just because we're a more, I don't know, it's green versus in the States. There are lots of different cultures and different backgrounds. And yeah, I think those are the biggest differences that I found.
00:31:40
Speaker
Right, right. We know much about the fast-growing coffee community in Korea. The market is growing fast and people are really into high-quality coffee.
Customer Feedback and Preferences
00:31:51
Speaker
So as a coffee professional, let's say if you visit one of the coffee shops that are supposed to be good, but it's not that good, what would you do? I probably just wouldn't finish it and leave.
00:32:03
Speaker
Usually when I taste something that's bad, I kind of watch the barista before I even get the coffee. I'm like, what are they doing? How are they brewing? Oh dear, that's what they're doing. And I kind of like expect the taste of the coffee already. Yeah, but most of the time just like, oh, okay, well, let's see if the beans taste any good. So if the coffee tastes bad, then I'm like, okay, how do the beans taste at least and see if
00:32:26
Speaker
Is it the brewer's fault or is it the roasting's fault or is it the type of roasting level that it's done and slash brewing together that is creating this kind of result. So I like to kind of also take that as a moment to, you know, as what not to do when I brew coffee as well. But yeah, most of the time I don't tell anyone, I don't tell the burst, I'm just like, okay, well, I'm not recommending this to anyone. Maybe their other coffees are better, but this one was not that great. So just, I can't, I can't.
00:32:53
Speaker
Wow, when I go to different coffee shops, when I found the coffee not so good or as good as I expected, I would normally go back to the barista and ask how the coffee was made and try to understand the process. And of course, there's always a great opportunity to talk to the barista and get to know the coffee shop, et cetera.
00:33:21
Speaker
And actually, most of the time that I found first are very, very friendly. And many of them are very open hearted. They want to talk to you. They want to share everything they know about coffee. And sometimes you just make friends like that easily. That's why I love coffee people. They are pure, friendly.
00:33:43
Speaker
And it's just so amazing to talk to baristas and really encourage people to talk to their local baristas, you know, pick a topic when they are not so busy. I think they're always willing to talk to you. I think it also depends on what kind of cafe you go to, though. Exactly. If you go to Starbucks properly, they don't care. They don't have the time to care. They don't care.
00:34:05
Speaker
Sorry, I really want to talk to you, but you know, I have like a 25 espresso to make. So have you experienced the cost customer came to you and I complain about the coffee. They don't taste good.
00:34:17
Speaker
Oh, it's happened before too. Yeah, people have said... So what would you normally do? I like to first explain, oh, you are completely right. Whatever you taste, whatever you smell is what you smell and what you taste. So whatever I'm providing, these are purely just my personal thoughts and opinions of this. Whatever you see on a package or whatever is not the full story. These are just what the general people who've tasted this coffee
00:34:41
Speaker
of taste from this coffee but yeah like you're totally fine whatever you had today for lunch for breakfast last night will also change your taste buds and that might also affect the way that you're drinking your coffee this particular coffee might also not be your taste so there are so many different kinds of coffees that will provide different you know
00:35:01
Speaker
aromas and flavors and coffee, but this one might not be your style. So I kind of like to talk them through like, Oh, okay. So what is it about this is that you don't, you know, you can't taste or what is it about it that you can't know that you don't like.
00:35:14
Speaker
being able to grasp onto those and understand like, oh, this person actually prefers this kind of coffee, or this person has been brewing coffee in this particular way. So they're used to feeling those kinds of flavors as the good flavors, and this is different. So I think it's just a matter of addressing the fact that like, oh, that's totally valid that you can feel that way. This is the way that we make coffee, and these are like opinions that I've created. But if you don't like it, then that is how you don't like it. If you think it's too bland,
00:35:45
Speaker
then I can add more coffee to your coffee. So because I make coffee in an extraction, a lot of times people like to say that it's too light or it's too dark, for example. So in that sense, we'll add more water or we'll add more coffee, and that in itself will change the aromas and flavors of the coffee pretty drastically. And a lot of people are like, oh, okay, now I feel like this is, yeah, that's the extent of feedback that I really provide, yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
I guess if you work as a barista or in a coffee industry, you will understand how hard it is to handle a customer like me. I'm not barista.
00:36:19
Speaker
And now I'm checking your Instagram and I see you have a wide range of topics. You talk about coffee, you talk about fear or failure, go crazy and compare yourself with others, personalities.
Content Creation Approach
00:36:35
Speaker
I want to ask how do you run your social media? Do you have a specific media plan so that you know what to talk every day? Honestly, they're just from conversations that happened that day. So I think I
00:36:47
Speaker
whatever conversation that was interesting to me. I'm like, oh, that was a really cool conversation. Maybe I'll remember that and talk about and see my opinion of it. There's someone that I met that was really depressed because of they were so focused on just making money for their shop. They're just so focused on proving to others that they could make it by opening up this shop and
00:37:12
Speaker
because they weren't making the revenue that they thought they would in the beginning, three months in, they're already like, oh, I don't know if I can continue this. So it's kind of seeing these kind of experiences of people that I know in my day to life, day to day life, also the books that I read, the audios that I listen to like podcasts, for example, I will just pick those good messages and save them just on notes on my phone. And in terms of scripts and what I say on camera, I don't script anything, I just kind of have
00:37:41
Speaker
the title and I just talk and with editing skills I'm able to you know take out my ums and whatever's but yeah so I actually don't really have a script I just say okay so if we're talking about for example the personality test my opinion of personality test it's clear I know that a lot of Koreans like to ask what is your MBTI like on the first meaning of someone like it's like what is your name almost but
00:38:05
Speaker
There are also people who are very, very, they hate people asking that. They're like, why are you judging me on a personality test? Like I don't, why are you judging me on an EBTI?
00:38:14
Speaker
And I also feel like those kinds of strong reactions aren't necessary. People are asking because they're curious about how to socialize with you, but there are also people who rely on it too much. So I've had an opinion about it already, and it's just something that someone asked me that day. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. I haven't talked about it. Yeah, maybe I should talk about that as well.
00:38:37
Speaker
and talk about how it's also helped me in my life and see how we can just take the good stuff out of it and apply it to our lives. So, yeah. You are good at multitasking. I can only imagine if I were you, I would...
00:38:52
Speaker
Totally messed everything up. I forgot the timing, forgot the water temperature. We do every day, you must have a muscle memory for pouring coffee, but have you ever like forget about things? Yeah.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah, actually, yeah, it's happened. It's happened. Yeah. It's been it's become such a habit though, the brewing, like I know what I'm looking for. I know what I have to do to my coffee. So if I do like lose the timing, for example, if I'm so excited about talking about particular topic, I'm like, Oh, shoot, I forgot to like, poor, like it's already like sinking down a little bit. I'm like,
00:39:27
Speaker
Um, but I try to recover from the next steps. And so there are times where I do like full, like two, three pulses of pores where I don't talk at all because I'm trying to recover from like me talking way too much. Um, and then, yeah, but I think it's just the natural process of this hand drip method that it's, it's like at least six minutes to eight minutes long.
Adaptive Brewing Techniques
00:39:48
Speaker
So during that time.
00:39:50
Speaker
I get to come back to it and fix my problems if I do end up talking a little bit too much. But I try to talk in the areas where I allow myself more time during between brews. So that's how I kind of manage it.
00:40:03
Speaker
I guess you don't follow any specific complicated recipes, right? Because they are hard to follow. But I guess you must have one recipe or a way to brew coffee, right? Yeah. So yeah, I don't use a recipe at all. The only recipe that I would say I use is the fact that I use around 80 to 100 grams of coffee per pour. The water is up to boiling and I'll take it off of boil, put it in my kettle and just use that depending on the roast level, depending on the day. For example, if I want a little bit more acidity, if I want
00:40:31
Speaker
If the coffee was a little over roasted, then I'll decrease the temperature a little bit. For example, I'll adjust that. So the only adjustment I'll do for the kettle itself is I'll pour out some of the water in a different cup and put it back in, because that will decrease the temperature. Or in the middle of my brew, because it's so long, the water will cool down, especially in the winter. Then I will put a linen cloth on the bottom of my kettle. I will add water in between after it's halfway
00:40:55
Speaker
done. So that's how I adjust the water temperature in terms of the recipe itself. Yeah, I've been getting so many questions about my recipe, but I don't use a scale at all. The only moment where I weigh anything is the coffee, which is 80 to 100 grams, which I don't even weigh anymore. I just kind of eyeball it with the
00:41:14
Speaker
with the cups that we use. And I kind of measured it yesterday because so many people have asked about it. So I will be posting a video about me actually measuring my coffee to prove that I use 80 to 100 grams of coffee soon. Yeah. And then also in terms of the pouring, it's kind of
00:41:30
Speaker
It's a generally if you start from the center you go outwards concentric circle come back in to the center stop So it's like two circles out or three circles out depending on how much I need to expand it and then come back in so that Pattern is always the same, but I think that's pretty much the same with all the brewing
00:41:47
Speaker
methods out there, it's kind of like go out, come back in, same thing, make sure the water doesn't sink down and pour as soon as it reaches its peak before it kind of starts to, you know, the water starts to drip down. So those are the only really things that I look out for. The different beams will hold water in different ways. So how much water it will consume. And depending on that, it's a matter of how fast do I pour in the water.
00:42:15
Speaker
And how often do I pour it? Where do I pour it? Do I pour a little bit more outwards or do I keep it in the center and raise the coffee up a bit more? So those are the only things that I'm looking at. But yeah, it's a huge conversation with coffee itself. I'm just looking at the coffee, looking at how it's dancing, seeing areas where it needs a little bit more water and adding water in that way.
00:42:35
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, this entire process, though, I've actually sent to a research facility to test how much caffeine is in a cup. And Korea standards of decaffeine and America standards are a little bit different. But in terms of the Korean standards, it actually fits in the decaffeine category. So already done all of our testing as well.
00:42:52
Speaker
I think you're a person knowing a lot of stuff so that you can have very different topics to talk about during your brew. It's fascinating to know that how could you know so many things like the personalities, tasks, et cetera. I want to ask you, what kind of person are you in your life and what do you do to have fun?
Nadia's Hobbies and Interests
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I always liked reading. So, I mean, I like, I get a lot of inspiration from that. Recently I've been doing, I guess I think I had a moment where I was like reading self-development books, personal self-demo. So all of that knowledge also really helps today. And just like scrolling through Instagram, there's a lot of like, you know, encouraging success words. And I'm like, oh, this is an interesting topic. Let's see what I think about it and how I can twist it in my own words to explain it to people. So just my day-to-day consumption all turns into content somehow. But yeah, I mean, I've always,
00:43:51
Speaker
liked doing a bunch of things. I don't stay still. I move around a lot. I resent my hobbies, I guess. I like to work out. I did tennis in high school. But that was also because I am openly an otaku, and I like to. I watched anime and manga. So the Prince of Tennis manga came into my tennis. So I ended up doing tennis. I also do figure skating now. I do spinning. So I actually have a certification for spinning.
00:44:22
Speaker
And languages, language is a big thing for me as well. I think that's the starting point of everything. I lived in Japan when I was in fourth grade in Nagoya for a year. And so ever since coming back, I studied Japanese. And for the longest time, I was actually more comfortable in Japanese than I was in Korean and went out to like speech contests and things like that. And I was like, okay, well, I like my manga on anime, so maybe I can translate. So I did some translations as well in high school, just for fun of both anime and manga.
00:44:49
Speaker
whether the manga would legal or not, I'm not sure now. But I did it just to provide for the internet because I knew like this, oh, this is only content that's available in Japanese. We put that into English for everyone else to read. So yeah, I did that. And then in college, I did poetry translation. So I did translation from Korean to English, just because I felt like that was where I felt most comfortable with the nuances of the word. And I could also have conversations with my family, my parents,
00:45:18
Speaker
about particular poets and poetry that they had read growing up as well. So yeah, that's what I did in terms of languages and of course French as well, because that was my minor. So I went to France as well and tried the coffee culture there, but haven't found a very, very great specialty coffee shops yet in France. Would love to know if there's any more these days. But yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing the real you in real life. I want to say I want to be a friend. Can I be friends? All right. So you could do so many things and it seems the sky is only the limit.
Vision for Coffee Culture Change
00:45:54
Speaker
And I want to know what is your future plan or do you have any specific plan they want to share with us? So like I said, I'm not going back to the States because of this coffee. My dream in coffee was
00:46:06
Speaker
overtly changing the coffee culture. One person really can't change the coffee culture drastically. But for me, it was, I guess, stemming from my desire to make coffee a place of relaxation and not always about recipes and what's right and what's wrong. I wanted to provide a coffee culture in which we could appreciate more the different flavors that every individual is tasting. We could also introduce different methods, like just because you have a recipe, like you don't need a recipe for coffee.
00:46:36
Speaker
It's not necessarily to, you know, like just because you have this barista champion or brew is championship recipe in your hands, you don't use the same beans. You don't have the same environment. You don't use the same water. Every single little tiny variable is going to be different. So it's almost essentially impossible for you to replicate that exact same coffee that that brew is championship that brew is champion created at that stage. It's not going to be the same.
00:47:02
Speaker
So I think I want to continuously relay that message. Like, yes, it's great to be able to strive for better, but honestly, then what is better, right? What is great. So this kind of coffee culture is something that I want to, you know, spread. And of course, because I speak these languages, I want to be able to of course set up a cafe of my own.
00:47:20
Speaker
here in Korea, in the States, Japan, and France eventually, just because I'm like, I can speak the languages I'd like to expand this as much as possible. And I feel like just setting up a cafe is too little for me. I need to do more than that. So eventually, I want to engage myself in a supply chain as well, investing in different
00:47:38
Speaker
farms as well. A lot of farmers and farms in different countries, of course, it depends on where you are. They don't get to drink the same Americano that we drink every day. They don't have an espresso machine that complicated. They don't have a roaster that complicated. They don't have any of these materials. There are some places that still will use a motor and pestle to try their coffee and taste it.
00:48:01
Speaker
And my teacher went to Kenya before, he took a little mini-roaster, he took all of his hand rub, took grinders, everything to Kenya when he went for the harvest. And he made his own hand rub for the farmers there. And he brought back all these different gifts from these people, all these stories of engaging with the people, the farmers there.
00:48:25
Speaker
because they were so mind blown that this is the coffee that they're producing. And as much as we love to drink our coffee, a lot of these people have never had the best version of their coffee. So being able to provide that to these people is eventually, I guess, my humanitarian dream of mine. But yeah, those are the coffee goals.
00:48:47
Speaker
those information all the messages they are super important and we need to hear them more often and respect that i think that's also what amnabris is trying to do to deliver a message that coffee is not just drink it's not just about the recipe or the gears and we should pay more attention to the people behind the coffee
00:49:06
Speaker
And Nadia, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing so much. We really hope that more people will join you and work together with you and make things happen. I hope one day I can meet you in Korea and try your coffee and have a real conversation like this. Thank you so much again. Yes, of course, of course, come to Korea. Come to Korea, I'll bring you a cup.
00:49:31
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world. You're a part of our global community where we celebrate baristas and their craft in everything that we do.