Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the I'm Not a barista podcast where you can get inspired by real life stories from the people behind the cup. Join us as we talk about everything to do with coffee from having a career in this industry to brewing tips and how you can support this global community. Humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower the people behind the cup.
Speaker: Hello everyone, this is Miki. I am your host today. We are going to introduce you a new coffee friend. Her name is Anna Schwer. Anna is a barista from Mexico. She loves reading, music, and cooking. Anna also works as a volunteer content writer at the MDOT Barista. She writes coffee articles and stories for us. Anna found her own organization to empower people behind the local business. It's called Meets Local.
Speaker: Hello, and welcome. You should tell us how you began your coffee journey. Okay, well, I've always been an active fan of coffee. I've been drinking coffee ever since I can remember, honestly, my mom loves coffee. So I think that's like something I got from her.
Speaker: It wasn't until about a year and a half ago, maybe that I started training as a barista. I have always been a fan of coffee, as I mentioned, but I wanted to take my knowledge a step further. I wanted to see like what was behind the coffee, what was behind the cup that I was drinking. So I started as a barista in a coffee shop. It was a very fancy coffee shop and I couldn't train a lot because they wanted the drinks to come out perfect.
Speaker: And to me, for a moment, it was very frustrating because I wanted to work on my later skills. I wanted to basically know everything there was about coffee. And since they were very high end, they cared more about making their drinks look good than empowering their baristas. So I was there for about six months. Then the pandemic hit. We got laid off. And one of my
Speaker: Yeah, thank you. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one in that situation, but it was definitely a shock, especially for the other employees as well. Around that time, one of my friends wanted to start a coffee shop. She started just selling cold brew and baked goods, and she ultimately ended up buying a very good espresso machine.
Speaker: And one day I was joking and I told her, listen, if you want a barista, like I know some skills, I can come work with you. She was also a barista as well. So I told her that she could teach me, but at the time I was joking because I was looking for jobs elsewhere. And then one day she said like, Hey, do you mean what you're saying? Do you want to be my barista? Cause I really need someone. I was like, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And at the beginning it was just her, myself, a cook and someone working as a waitress. And now the team has tripled. And yeah, it was there when I really started getting to know everything that was behind the cup, the coffee service, the roasters. And what I liked about that job was that she really gave me like an active responsibility. She trusted my choices and she trusted what I was doing.
Speaker: And I ended up learning quite fast. Are you still there? Working there? No, I had to quit in December. This job was in another part of Mexico in Guadalajara. Now I'm currently living in Mexico City and I just started working for some coffee roasters, which is awesome.
Speaker: They're called group Exploradores and they go to the farms, they work on the plantation, they work with the coffee farmers, and they have their own roaster. It's amazing because I've been working as a barista for a year and now I can work with roasters directly and keep on learning.
Speaker: That's great. I guess for many baristas working in a coffee shop is their regular life. But then if you can work directly with the roasters and the coffee farmers, that's something else everybody wants to try one day. Yeah, exactly. So how's your job going right now? My job is good. I've been working with them for three days, so it's relatively new.
Speaker: Yes, you're getting the exclusive three days. It's amazing, honestly, because even though I keep reading and I keep informing myself about the coffee world, they've been working with coffee for about 10, 15 years.
Speaker: They also sell a lot of coffee products, like fellow products, Slayer, Akaya. So they have all these gadgets in the office that I can use. And it's like almost like a new world for me, but within something I already know. That's pretty cool. Like normally you don't have those fancy expensive machines at home, but now you have a chance to put a hands on. Yeah, exactly. And explore the beauty of coffee. Yeah. So tell us about what is the,
Speaker: especially the coffee community or in general coffee community in Mexico? Yeah, definitely. Well, here the coffee scene, the local community has been growing I'd say for the past five to seven years. Usually you'd find like the top two roasters and those two roasters would distribute their coffee beans to mostly all of the coffee shops around Mexico, right?
Speaker: But now that more coffee shops are evolving and coffee is becoming more of a necessity and consumers are actually looking for better coffee. Now you have more roasters. Almost every coffee shop here roasts their own coffee, which I think is pretty cool.
Speaker: There are a lot of specialty coffee shops here. They're mostly located like around the same area, but it's amazing. We have a lot of Latin art champions. Uh, there's a, there's a guy called Jorge Sotomayor, which is this year has been named one of the judges, uh, in the SCA competition. So he'll be judging and he's from Guadalajara. So I think that's pretty great as well. And people here in Mexico, we have a lot of foreigners here.
Speaker: Uh, whenever I visit those coffee shops, I'd say half of the people drinking coffee are not from here. So you, you hear French, you hear English, you hear Spanish. And that's pretty good because that means that we're doing something right. Uh, coffee shops are one to showcase Mexican coffee, but they're also interested in having a selection of international coffees as well, especially from Africa.
Speaker: but they try to base their entire concept out of Mexican coffee, local roasters, local coffee plantations, which I think it's amazing because most of our coffee, like you said, it's basically exported elsewhere. But I think it's pretty cool that they want to keep it here. Pay the roasters and pay the coffee farmers accordingly so that the coffee in Mexico can be tried elsewhere, but mostly stays in Mexico.
Speaker: That's good to hear. I just remember last time I talked with some friends from Brazil and they mentioned the situation there is many high -quality coffee beans or exported to Europe and the U .S. And so the locals actually drank average or poor -quality coffee, unfortunately.
Speaker: How's the situation in Mexico? Yeah, it is getting better. I mean, we still have those coffee chains like all around the world. But I honestly believe that the person that drinks coffee is like a more oriented and educated person than it was like six years ago.
Speaker: A lot of people just like know the type of coffee that they like. They just go to a coffee shop and they ask like, oh, do you have coffee from Oaxaca? Do you have coffee from Veracruz? And that didn't used to happen. And now people are actively looking for, you know, coffee that's been planted in Mexico, that's been grown in Mexico, roasted in Mexico.
Speaker: and to feel good because it's good coffee so people instead of saying like oh I want a fancy coffee from I don't know another part of the world you know I love this coffee from Oaxaca from Chiapas from Veracruz and I want to keep drinking it is it roasted correctly do you know the the plantation do you know the farmer do you know like what's behind the coffee that I'm buying
Speaker: It's so good to hear that people are more interested in specialty coffee and they are more educated. Tell us about your project. You have a project empowering the local community.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. How did you get this idea? Well, honestly, that idea has been in my mind for at least, I guess, seven years, five years, but I didn't start it until I was in college. I've always been a fan of Brandon Stanton's work. He's the creator of Humans of New York, if you have heard of it.
Speaker: Yes, big fan too. Yeah, exactly. When he started, he didn't write stories. He just took photos and uploaded to his Instagram about strangers. And I say, oh, that's pretty cool because now strangers on the street are not strangers anymore. And then when I moved to Guadalajara and I started school, I used to visit all these local coffee shops. And I went so often that I became friends with the owners, with the people working there.
Speaker: And my friends used to tell me that, oh, you should open a food blog or a coffee blog where you post like whatever you need or drink.
Speaker: But I felt that there was more behind the people in that place. I felt that I just couldn't be like, oh, here's my latte art or here's my latte. I really wanted to share the struggles and the stories and the people behind the coffee shops that I love. So I felt like, OK, why don't I take this concept that I've seen in humans of New York
Speaker: but then mix it with a little bit of promoting local businesses. And that's how the idea started. So even though most of the businesses that I promote, there are coffee shops because I love coffee. I also have businesses like clothes businesses, handcrafts, cereal waste shops.
Speaker: Honestly, that's how it started, just me knowing the story behind these places that I love and wanting to share them with the rest of the world, not only to promote them and so that they could have more customers because at the end of the day, that is the goal, to help them survive, to help them strive, but also because I knew that there were a lot of people out there that wanted to start a business similar to the ones that I was sharing, but they were afraid or they had doubts.
Speaker: So in that way, it was for me, like a perfect tool to say, Hey, if you're reading this and you think of yourself and you want to start a business like this here, it's possible. Read of their struggles, read of their successes, read of how they make and how they forge the path that they're in.
Speaker: And that's basically what inspired me. I believe what you're doing right there is more important than just bringing your business because you're sharing their knowledge, their tips, and you are spreading this information to help more people to start a new business. From an economic perspective, I think in the long term, this smaller business will create more job positions and it will help the local community to thrive.
Speaker: Oh yeah. That would be like the ultimate goal. You know, I have had people write me and say like, Oh, thanks to the story. Thanks to you. I've now, I now know like five more coffee shops, or I went to them. Oh, I know the owner and I've never talked to him, but then I read about the story and I decided to approach him. You know, it's kind of like erasing the gap between the consumer and the person or the people behind the business that the consumers in, because most of the times I think.
Speaker: When we know that someone's the owner of a certain coffee shop and we see them, I guess for me, sometimes it felt a little bit terrifying, like, oh my God, wow, he's there. But I'm afraid to talk to him. But what I want to achieve
Speaker: from people reading the story is to close that gap you know like coffee owners and entrepreneurs are just like you and me like they started somewhere yes and we shouldn't be afraid to close the gap to ask questions or even like you said they share their knowledge and they're basically sharing their knowledge because they love what they do
Speaker: Yes, exactly. Sharing is caring. That's very important for the local community. Talking about the stories, do you have any particular stories standing out the most for you? My God, that's like asking me to choose from my children. Yeah, I think I have two. One's from a coffee shop and the other one is from a used clothing store. And I'll talk about this one first.
Speaker: Whenever I always ask like this question and it is what does success mean to you? And for some people like success means money or means opening more shops or just like.
Speaker: having their their business open. But when I asked this person like, hey, what does success mean to you? She she became quiet. And she said, like, you know what, we've been trained by by society to have this concept of success as money or to keep growing or to do better.
Speaker: And she said, but sometimes success simply means like getting out of bed, you know, getting out of bed when you don't want to get out of bed, opening when you'd rather stay home or keep on going when you rather want to quit. And to me, that really resonated because here I was getting all these answers, which are not wrong, like to keep growing, to do better, to help support this and that. But she was really honest and vulnerable. And she said, you know, success to me means getting out of bed every day, even if I don't want to, even if I don't have the energy.
Speaker: and for people to open up to a stranger like me like that.
Speaker: It's awesome because that means I'm doing something good and that I'm trustworthy. And also that she didn't care if one or a hundred people would read her story. She knew that some people would be identified by that, by the concept that we don't have to be productive all the time. It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to take care of our mental health. It's okay if our biggest success today was getting out of bed or taking a shower or even eating something.
Speaker: And I think compared to the rest of the stories, it is a very raw and unique answer.
Speaker: Yeah, I believe so. And nowadays, every people are chasing bigger houses, better cars, latest iPhone, and then success could mean a lot of things to different people. That's true. And then when you talk about success could also mean smaller things like daily things, wake up in the morning and go to work. It's a new perspective of seeing how we see the world. Yeah, exactly. So that's one of your top story. What is the another one?
Speaker: The other one is actually one of the coffee stories you shared of my friend, Daniel Tezir from Oromaya Coffee. And I've always say that's one of my top stories because I've learned so much from him. It's amazing. I'm sure I'm not the only one. He and his father own a coffee shop in Guadalajara.
Speaker: But they're actively working with a coffee plantation that was the first coffee plantation to get an organic certificate in Mexico City back in in Mexico, sorry, back in 1970. And he is an engineer.
Speaker: And he was telling me that he loved coffee. He loved specialty coffee, organic coffee, but he wanted to make coffee in a more sustainable way. And that's why he kept educating himself. He now sells that type of coffee in his coffee shop.
Speaker: He's a barista as well, but you would never guess that he has all this training behind that he's an engineer, that he's also a chemist in a way, and that he has been analyzing the impact that coffee has on Earth with the water usage, the floor erosion. You would never guess that of him, but whenever you talk to him and if you want to know more information, he gladly gives it.
Speaker: Just seeing someone that's passionate for coffee not to be like, okay, everyone loves coffee, but what is coffee doing to our Earth, to the planet that we're living in? Are farmers using a sustainable way? Is it sustainable on the long term? If yes, why? If not, why?
Speaker: And when he figured out that there was a more sustainable approach to have for coffee, he just decided to pursue it and keep on learning about it. And I think that's amazing because it shows that he not only cares for his community, like I don't know, most coffee shops or most baristas, but he also actively cares about the world that he's living in.
Speaker: Everything that he uses in his shop are from local businesses in Guadalajara, from the chocolate, the coffee. Everything that he uses is a tool to empower other smaller business to have their voice heard. When the pandemic hit,
Speaker: and he had to close, he still wanted to keep teaching about coffee. So he had like a weekly Instagram events and interviews with important people involving coffee. So like the way you have, he did, he did so throughout the pandemic because he said like, okay, my coffee shop is closed, but I still want people to learn about coffee. I still want people to be interested. I want to provide people a sort of
Speaker: not escape, but I mean to feel that they're getting more involved and they're not just paying for something that they actively know the story behind it. How's your project going so far? How many people story have you shared? Oh my god, that's a great question.
Speaker: Right now, because of the pandemic here in Mexico City, restrictions are a bit tighter, so I've had to put a hold on it because it's not the same to be able to go and talk to someone and take their photo in their place as to do it remotely. I think I've helped share around 50 stories so far, which
Speaker: are not enough for me. I think I have shared around 50 stories so far. I honestly want to share more, but it's sort of like
Speaker: I still have a job, right? So that's like my main focus, but it's something that I want to grow. And I want to keep on sharing more stories. It's not only in Mexico. If I ever go traveling somewhere, if I ever have to move to another country, I'd like that to continue. That's why I named it Beat the Local. So like the local person, local store, local, wherever I am in the world. Do you do everything yourself? For example, you interview people, take pictures, write articles.
Speaker: Yeah, I do everything myself. I drive myself to the place. I take pictures. I interview them. I record the interview and then I type it in the computer. And my best friend and partner, she helps me edit because my goal with this is it's very easy to share a story if you are there with a person or if you're the one listening to it.
Speaker: But I think it's a little bit harder for people that only read it to actually get the feeling behind the story. So I always send it to her before and ask her, like, what do you think about this? Do you know what do you know what she means? Do you understand? Does it make you feel something? Because at the end of the day,
Speaker: That's what's important to me, you know, that the person that's reading the story can feel a connection and can feel like they're basically there with me interviewing the person and listening to the story. I think that's the main goal, you know, that even if you're reading it from Russia or from Mexico or from another part of the world, you feel like you're there and you feel connected. It makes you feel something. Stories should make you feel something. We also share Star as you know,
Speaker: And I don't do everything myself, unfortunately. So I have to ask around our interns, volunteers like you who could ride and who are willing to help make a contribution to the global coffee community. About your project, Meet the Locos, what do you see the future will be like? Honestly, in the future, I like it to be like, almost like I'm not a barista, a sort of nonprofit organization.
Speaker: So that not only can I share the stories of the people but also help them in need you know I've had stories there that are still in meet the local of businesses that are no longer existing because of several reasons. And whenever I look at them.
Speaker: Even though I know it is not my fault, there's a part of me that feels a little bit of a failure because I share their story. And I would love it that in the future, I was able to say like, you know what, I have this fund, I am a nonprofit organization, or we have this Patreon account where people donate so that I can help businesses like yourself stay afloat or help with whatever it is that you need.
Speaker: Because ultimately, that's my goal. It is amazing to give voices to the people, but I think it should go behind that. So it's almost like what you do. I'm really inspired as well by that. And the goal for Meet the Local is to reach that point, to be able to help in a more financial level, not only on exposure and empowerment. For us, it's all about coffee. Coffee brings people together, we believe.
Speaker: And for you, I guess coffee is a part, but you have more stories to tell, wider range of stories than us. So how's your current life? Like at the moment you work and you have your project going, what else do you do daily?
Speaker: Well, I work. I have like an office job, but involving coffee, which I guess is good. I do that in the mornings, in the afternoon. Right now I have a couple of stories, the last ones from Guadalajara that I still need to keep working on. So I'm working on those as well.
Speaker: And I'm really working on making content for, from my brand, like for myself personally, for my Instagram. I've gotten a lot of opportunities there and I wanted to keep sharing the coffee shops that I discovered here in Mexico city.
Speaker: And yeah, my day basically looks like I wake up, I go to work, I come back, I cook because I love to cook. I'm staying here with my mom, I'm taking care of her. So I'll be with her and then I'll start working on either photos from ItaloCo or writing the stories or even just helping organizations like yourself.
Speaker: with writing. So yeah, basically, it's that whenever when the restrictions in Mexico City are a little bit safer, when it's safer to go out, I'm pretty sure they'll start posting and sharing stories from businesses in Mexico, because we do have quite a few actually, there's a lot of them. Thanks for sharing. What kind of music do you listen to or books do you read? You seem a very busy person at this moment. But yeah, tell us more about who you are.
Speaker: Oh, I love reading, honestly. Like right now I had to get rid of most of my books because I moved. I got rid of around 200 books, maybe. And I still, if I look that way, you'll see like my, I can see my books, the ones that I kept. When I first started reading, I was reading like most literature, you know, fantasy. I was probably middle school, so that was the goal.
Speaker: But now I'm really interested actually in books about success, business, coffee. I read literature as well. One of my favorite books is called The Company of Women by Grace Bunny. And it's a huge book where she interviews women in businesses and asks them about their personal life and struggles. So kind of like Meet the Local.
Speaker: But with that, and I also love Malcolm Gladwell. He's the writer behind Blink and Outliers. So it's like he writes books that makes psychology and business with stories as well. I really love those. Regarding music, going to concerts and music festivals was one of the things that I loved doing most during the pandemic.
Speaker: I just, I love going to concerts. Right now, I'd say my favorite bands are mostly bands from like the UK or US. Some of them are the 1975. I don't know if you've heard of them.
Speaker: And even if I'm busy, I try to make time for myself to at least read one chapter because I've noticed that it is something that really helps me stay grounded and focus and stay calm. You know, when you live in a very hectic world, I think it's always a good idea to find things that ground you, even if it's listening to music, reading, doing yoga.
Speaker: And most important question, your favorite coffee, how do you brew your coffee at home? Honestly, right now at home, I'd say it's a cold brew. I'm a big espresso fan and I do not have an espresso machine at home. Maybe that is a goal in the future to have like a fancy one so that I can make myself coffees. But I'm an active fan of cold brew. It's really hot in Mexico right now. So I basically drink that like water every day.
Speaker: However, when I visit a coffee shop, I love flat whites, espressos, macchiato, you know, I really like to add milk to my coffee just like a little bit. I haven't been making it myself. I buy it, but I would love to make my own cold brew as well. I think there's a lot of possibilities if you start making your cold brew yourself. Yeah, but whenever I go out, it's like a macchiato or flat white.
Speaker: Sometimes an espresso, if I really do like the coffee shop I'm in, how about yourself? Actually, I use a lot of pourerware. I like it. It's easy to use and it's very interesting. You just need to change a little bit of the recipe and you can have very different coffee. Oh, yeah. And I also use Aeroprise.
Speaker: I really like the experience of using different boring gadgets, for example, Mellow Drip, Little Drip, and all of those little add -ons just give you, they make your boring more interesting and more fun. Yeah. You know, it's, it's actually like.
Speaker: Throughout my training as a barista, I've always been taught a lot about the espresso machines, but not about like prover methods and other forms of extraction. So I guess that's why I'm not like such a huge fan in the moment of them because I haven't given myself the opportunity to try them to experiment with them.
Speaker: or to even buy and learn more about them, but I really want to. I've seen a lot of new methods like you said, V60, Chemex, and I know that there's a form of consistency and chemistry and magic
Speaker: where everything just comes together to create a perfect cup of coffee. And to me, that's very intriguing because it's not the same as an espresso. I think it's more of a hands -on experience to make your own coffee that way. And that's something I really like to pursue. Yeah, you will love it. I'm pretty sure it's more like you're being an artist of a coffee. For me, it's like my daily meditation every time I broke coffee.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And here, like I've seen all types of coffee, you know, when I, when I was in Vancouver two, two years ago, and I was just getting into, you know, learning more about coffee, I would see all these coffee beans that had these notes, uh, cotton candy notes or raspberry jam, or I don't know, mint chocolate. And I was like, wow, how can coffee taste like that? You know, I was pretty, pretty shocked at the, at the moment. Now it's, I guess it's kind of normal.
Speaker: Do still remember your first very good tasty coffee, like at the moment blow your mind away. This is something I never tried before.
Speaker: There's one famous roaster in Guadalajara that's one of the top four, three roasters. Uh, and I went to the one that had recently opened and I remembered ordering a macchiato. And the moment I had the first tip, like I had to put it down and it blew my mind because honestly, it felt like I was chewing on cacao nibs, like on
Speaker: Yeah, like raw cacao nibs. And I was like, what did I order? Like, right? Is this a mocha? Does this have chocolate or something? And I had to take another sip and it blew my mind the fact that it was coffee. But honestly, it felt like I was drinking chocolate. And that's how I knew, like, wow, OK, you know, coffee can basically taste like a lot of things. And this is how a good cup of coffee can taste like.
Speaker: I have one last question. What does success mean to you? Oh my God. I think success to me means, so yeah, success is that, you know, waking up with a purpose, being surrounded by people that you love and that they love you, helping the community around you to be better. And all those things combined,
Speaker: give you an income or give you at least means to a good quality of life. Is there anything I didn't ask you want to mention?
Speaker: No, I mean, I would like to, I guess, for the people listening, you know, the community can be very close minded, I guess, sometimes, you know, and I'd like to invite everyone to to be open minded about other people's experiences in coffee, for example, I guess now that we know specialty coffee and we as a baristas know what real coffee should taste like and
Speaker: look like we are very quick to judge other people you know people who maybe add too much milk to their coffee or sugar to their coffee but I think that coffee is a whole world and we shouldn't be too quick to judge other people and how
Speaker: they make their coffee, how they drink it. Instead, maybe we should guide them to say like, hey, you know what? This is how you drink your coffee. That's awesome. But have you tried this way? Because that's what I have seen recently with the hype of specialty coffee shops and single origins, blends, etc. That people are very quick to judge if you don't know a certain coffee or if you add milk to your coffee. I think that that's not about making community.
Speaker: more about like, hey, I'm better than yourself. So I think that even though coffee is a great community, I think we still have a long way to go in terms of acceptance. And instead of judging, be more of a guiding and educating the people around us, even if it is our friends, our parents, or just like a stranger in your coffee shop.
Speaker: Coffee brings people together, you know, even if it's just like friends, oh, I invite you a cup of coffee or do you want to go out with me and I'll get you some coffee. You know, it's the same thing that brings us together. It shouldn't be the thing that sets us apart. Today's episode, Anna delivers a very important message. Coffee brings people together to let's be more open minded and help others grow better coffee.
Speaker: Thank you so much for tuning in to the I'm Not A Barista podcast, where people get inspired and connected through coffee stories. If you want to join our community, then please subscribe for future episodes and follow us on our Instagram to get connected. Until next time, keep smiling and most importantly, keep drinking coffee.
