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. Hello everyone, my name is Vicky, your host of M Now Barista podcast.
Speaker: Before introducing our special guest today, I have a very good news to share with you. Yes, you heard it. It's very good news. I'm so excited to announce that we are ready to ship out the Boring Guide Cardex by the end of this week. So thank you so much for your great support and patience. If you're new here, you still can support this awesome project. Pre -order is not available on Indiegogo. You can find more information through the link in our Instagram bio.
Speaker: Okay, so let's get to know our special guest today. Her name is Cyriara Yao. Cyriara is a coffee specialist, the founder of Cori Directive. She's also a coffee writer and her articles have been published in the coffee magazines such as The Perfect Daily Grind, Paris Magazine, and Solo Magazine. So let's get to know her.
Speaker: Welcome to I'm not birthday podcast. Hey, I'm really happy to be here. Um, yeah, how you start everything before you move to UK. Tell us about your, your life. Okay. Oh man. Um, so I, uh, I'm from Singapore. I grew up in Singapore. I lived there for 19 years. Um, and basically decided I wanted a change in scenery. I think as you do when you're, when you're growing up in a small,
Speaker: you know, small city and you know everybody and you're like, okay, now I want something different. So I decided to move to the United Kingdom to pursue my university studies. I, yeah. And then I kind of moved here when I was 19 on my own. Didn't have any family here. It was just really, it was such a big culture shock. And then read a bachelor's degree in linguistics, which is where my passion for like writing and languages comes from. Yeah. And then I think with coffee,
Speaker: I needed to pay the bills. So I was just like, I need to get a job. I feel like most of us start in the industry that way. We're just like, yeah, we just need something to like, you know, get money in the bank. I think it was kind of maybe two years into doing coffee part time, um, alongside my university studies where I was like, Hey, I actually really like this. I actually really like talking to people and interacting with them and, and making things with my hands.
Speaker: And after I graduated, I was like, you know what? I'm going to make coffee a thing. I'm going to make coffee a career. I think part of that was definitely me being really naive. Like when you're young, you're just like, I could be a barista forever and be a career barista. But obviously, unless you're in a country that pays really well for it, like, you know, Australia, for example, where people can genuinely be career baristas for a long time, that's not possible. There are just physical limits.
Speaker: I've been a barista. Well, I, I've known how to make coffee for, um, seven to eight years now, but I've, but I left the bar maybe about two years ago, not technically, I am technically not a barista anymore, but, um, yeah, like, so that, that was it. And I think since then, like I've worked in a couple of, um, you know, really good, like really high esteem cafes, worked in a variety of roles. And most currently I work for Alpro, uh, which is a plant based.
Speaker: products company in the UK, but I am their coffee specialist. So I get to kind of merge the best of both worlds and tell them, Oh, this, you know, this particular ingredient pairs best of your coffee. Oh, this is the kind of, um, this is how you should maybe adopt your marketing strategy to approach this group of people. For example, specialty specialty is super specialized. We've got different terminology, like you need to zoom in on all these little things. So.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a big part of my role. I do a lot of product testing, a lot of product training, and I also do a lot of brand ambassadorship. So at competitions or events, I tend to represent Alpro. It sounds like a busy life. I don't know where I find the time. What is your typical day like?
Speaker: Right now, oh god, it doesn't look it, you know, no day looks the same. So I tend to have products shipped over to me like beta products, shipped over to me from our factory in Belgium. And then I do some testing at home with coffee that I have. So for example, I've got the this is my mini the pride and joy of my life. His name is Larry.
Speaker: Yeah, I named him. Plus, he's such a trooper. Yeah, so then I do product testing. And then depending on, for example, collaborations that we have, I test on their machines as well with our products. Depending on whether it's like a coffee company, I test their coffee with our products. So there's a lot of that going on. Sometimes I do training for people.
Speaker: because of COVID, a lot of it's had to be virtual. But essentially, I'll run them through the specs of our products, the nutrition, what coffee pair is best, if they're not a coffee company, and if they're a coffee company, which products pair best with them. Yeah. And then I think I do a lot of ad hoc stuff. So for example, London Coffee Festival, there was a lot of needing to represent Alfa on the screen and things like that, and run interviews or be part of interviews.
Speaker: So yeah, it's quite a varied job role. Yes, since you have a very busy life. Back to university, you studied linguistics. At the time, what was your dream like? Do you have a plan which you want to do in one day? Oh man. I guess not to be a very direct. Yeah, obviously, being a barista was not top of the charts at that point. But it's funny because
Speaker: I know briefly from our evil interactions, we said we were going to talk about this, but one of the big reasons why I took linguistics in the first place was, well, obviously I had some sort of a talent and interest and passion for it. But a big part of that was because my mom wanted me to take it. Okay. Yeah. And I think one of the big things that made me realize I didn't want to do it was because I knew that it wasn't
Speaker: It wasn't something I wanted a career in. A lot of the options that were open to me after I graduated were things like speech therapy, where I'd have to like, you know, go work in a hospital and intern there and so on and so forth. And I was like, that's just not like, I think it's valuable. I think speech therapy is so valuable, but it's just not my calling. That took a lot of explaining to my very Asian mom.
Speaker: You need to be a doctor. I know, right? So I'm the first born of two children.
Speaker: I'm the older daughter. So you can imagine how much of a shock that was, I think, because she was expecting something, you know, she was like, Oh, you know, you can be a doctor or a lawyer when I was very, very young. And I was like, No, mom, I'm not going to be a doctor or a lawyer. And then gradually, we settled for linguistics. And then when I wasn't even going to do that, she was like, What are you going to do with your life? You know, and and then when I, you know, when I continue to do
Speaker: coffee jobs in a manager role in cafes and stuff. She was like, when are you going to get a real job? And I feel like a lot of people, especially a lot of Asian kids, get that if they're in what is traditionally considered a temporary role, especially in the hospitality sector. I've gone a lot of times from a lot of relatives, like, oh, when are you going to get a real career? I was like, no, no, no, this is my career now. This is it.
Speaker: In your mom's mind, you're supposed to be a perfect model, right? Yeah. Be a lawyer, a doctor. A dentist. Yeah, a dentist. It's a little bit of a stereotype, but it's just Asian parents, they expect a lot because they really spent a lot of hours in their life on their kids. Yeah. And I feel you. Yeah, yeah. I was born in China, so I had to understand how my parents would think about it. I wouldn't tell them that I'm working something with a coffee, and they're like, are you serious?
Speaker: Yeah, I get that. I get that a lot. So how about now? You are fully in the coffee industry. This is a real career. Your mom changed her mind about it. Her opinions changed? Oh man, it took a while. I've been in the industry for seven to eight years now.
Speaker: For the first maybe four or five, it was really push and pull. And I think the real shift came when I started to do writing in coffee. So I've always, you know, part of part of linguistics and part of writing was that I was always good at it.
Speaker: And then it got to the point where I was like, okay, maybe I could dabble in pitching some articles or, you know, starting to write. So I wrote, I started writing for companies like Perfect Daily Grind and then gradually expanded my port, my expanded my portfolio to include, you know, amazing magazines like barista magazine, solo magazine in Spain, Sprudge and things like that. And that was what I was like, Holy crap. Okay. Actually this could be, this could be a thing.
Speaker: It's still not going to be. I'm so talented. But the thing is, it wasn't ever going to be my main income. I was like, this is just a hobby that people are kind of happy to pay me for. It's just, again, a side hustle. But the funny thing was how much it shifted the energy that my mom had around this when I was like, I sent her. It's a very Asian thing. I did the thing where I collected all of the publications I'd ever written. Hang on. Let me just grab some. They're under my desk.
Speaker: I literally sent her like a freaking like packing copy of all the stuff I'd ever written and was like, here you go, mom. Um, and that was the point where she was like, Oh, okay. Keep going. And keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So then it didn't matter that that was, you know, a side gig. It was just that I, in her mind, she had reconciled the fact that I was using my degree to some extent.
Speaker: even though I was like, no, that's not my everyday job, but okay, I just wanted to show you, hey, you haven't just wasted. I think that's a big part of the discussion as well. The fact that they spent so much, I think Asian parents tend to spend a lot of money on setting their kids to university and saving for their kids' colleges. So they want to make sure that you're using it well, I think is where that motivation comes from. So for her to be able to see stuff that I've written, I think put her mind at ease.
Speaker: She must be so proud of you right now. You're doing very great. Aw, thanks. Like I don't know. I feel like she doesn't know what I do. There's still days when she's like, what do you do? What are you doing? Um, so yeah. She must be so proud. Sometimes I send something about job I do. My mom still don't understand. Oh yeah, I know. I, I still feel the same way. I still feel the same way. I went back to, um, I went back to Singapore briefly last year because of COVID basically was paid, um, was paid severance.
Speaker: from my job for a while and so I didn't have to work for a little bit. I could just stay at home. That was cool. Yeah, it was really nice. That meant that I spent a period of four to five months in Singapore and I haven't lived there in seven to eight years. Wow. I haven't lived there for a long time. For a long time. Yeah, nearly a decade. My mom, for the first month, she was like, do you want to find a job?
Speaker: No, I'm good, I'm good, just chilling. And then she didn't understand, which is another interesting thing, I think also generationally, she didn't understand freelance work. And I feel like this is very much a generational gap because I've spoken about this with a lot of other friends who do freelance, regardless of the job role, but we've had to constantly reassure our parents that there's always going to be new projects coming on.
Speaker: It's just a part of the freelance job, the nature of it. Whereas when I was doing some writing at home, when I was in Singapore, when I was doing freelance work still, she was like, do you need to be in the office for this? And I was like, no, mom, I get to be in my room. I get to just work from home. So that was very interesting to be able to show her what I do as well and to be able to show her, hey, this is still making me money, which is nice.
Speaker: Just last year, you went back to Singapore and that was after seven or eight years long time and you left to UK. What has changed there? Oh, man. So much like I have you ever have you ever been to Singapore? Not yet. Oh, you're gonna love it. Singapore.
Speaker: I think historically it's always been a very fast -growing country. We've really only been a legal entity of a country for 54 years, 56. I can't remember which birthday we celebrated recently. It grew from a small trading port into the
Speaker: the high GDP globalized country it is today. And it's super safe, super clean. It's always evolving. And even when I do manage to like visit it every couple of years, I'm always like, this wasn't here before. And that was like, that's gone. And this time when I went back, because I got to spend so much, so much more time there consecutively, it was very weird going around places that I grown up in.
Speaker: being like, Oh God, like, everything's completely different. The things that haven't changed. Uh, the food scene. I know we're going to talk about foods and the food is just incredible. Um, we can leave it that part today. Okay. To the end. So the food is good. Yeah. The food is amazing. But, um, one thing that I was very happy that didn't change was coffee.
Speaker: Well, so the traditional kopi that I grew up on, so we still have these open air coffee shops called kopitiam. To go back and be able to drink that again just threw me back to when I was growing up, you know?
Speaker: It was really nice, but then the other thing that had changed for the better was the Singaporean speciality coffee scene. That was mind -blowing, honestly, to say the least. I went around and visited these shops, and so many of them have popped up in the last five years.
Speaker: So the scene has been around for maybe about close to ten years now like a lot of the older you know that the og folks when i went back to visit them have been around for a while but then there weren't that many. And really in the last five years so many you know so many baristas and coffee professionals are i would say our generation has started opening their own shops and like bringing bring stuff over and like.
Speaker: competing really well and so it was a real joy to see the scene grow so quickly and just bring some amazing equipment over amazing coffees, amazing ethos, like just yeah, it was amazing. So it was best of both worlds really to be able to go back and experience all of that.
Speaker: So, tell us more about the traditional kopi coffee there. Yeah. I remember I saw a picture on the internet. I never try it. It feels like you put, like, use a footer. It looks like a sock. It looks like a sock. Tell us more about it. Oh, man. Okay. So, kopi was a spin on, I think, maybe in the 17th to 18th century when the Dutch brought Arabican coffee over to the Malay Peninsula and they had brought
Speaker: these beans roasted tarrifacto, so they roasted them in sugar and butter.
Speaker: the traditional Italian or European sense. And this was so that they could preserve the beans and keep them from oxidizing so that they would last long and wouldn't go stale. And then the indigenous Malay natives saw this and they were like, okay, we can make this happen. It's very expensive to ship Arabica coffee over to Southeast Asia. So we can make this happen with the local beans that we have, which was robusta.
Speaker: So they did, you know, they replicated the same process. And this was the very first iteration of what we know today as gopi, which is traditional, like robusta, like deep, dark, robusta. And then gradually the, I think it kind of spread to different parts of the Southeast Asian countries. I know for a fact, for example, Vietnamese coffee is very similar. They roast it really dark. They add like condensed milk, which we do as well, and so on and so forth.
Speaker: So it's a very sweet, very dark, very bitter drink. And most recently in Singapore, our version of it is called Nanyang Kopi, and that was because it's like the South Ocean. Southern Ocean. Exactly. And a big part of the Kopitiam scene in Singapore was set up by Chinese immigrants that flocked to Singapore in the last, I want to say,
Speaker: 500 years, actually. And gradually, as Sainte -Pro started becoming more and more prominent in the Southeast Asian scene after the Second World War, more people kind of came here and started to set up that trade. So we have, you know, like Fu Jian Ren, Cao Toh Ren.
Speaker: like a lot of the southern Chinese population moved to Singapore and set up trades in textiles, in business, and particularly in food, which is very... Of course. Yes. I think they were primarily dominated by the Hainanese, by the Hokkien, and by the Teochew. So you see a lot of these
Speaker: cooking influences in the food that we have in Gopi Diams today. And Gopi in particular, this is very interesting because I found this out and I was like, oh, that's why it tastes the way it does. Because there was such a big migrant labor workforce, Gopi was the fuel they needed to get them through the day. But because there was such a high turnover, Gopi Diams needed to be financially
Speaker: Bible what could be done did which is very cheeky was that they would add maize cornflour like rough cornflour to pad out the robust as they were roasting and making that coffee.
Speaker: So the unique flavor that we get from Nanyang Gopi today actually does come in part from the maize that is added at the end of the process. So the way you make Gopi now today is with maize, sugar, margarine, not butter, margarine, and robusta coffee.
Speaker: And then you basically roast all that together, you dump a portion of that into a sock filter like you saw, and they have this huge, huge ass, like decanters, like pots things where they just brew and over extract them. And the way you order kopi, which is probably the most fascinating bit of all, is there's always like a base.
Speaker: like a base of that liquid. So the sugar, margarine mixture. And then depending on what you order, so for example, kopi would be this coffee with two teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of condensed milk. And then the, yeah, but then the interesting thing is depending on what prefixes and suffixes you add to that base,
Speaker: So for example, if I said I wanted a kopi or xiu tai ping, it would be this kopi, hold the two sugars, so don't add any sugar in. Oh no, don't add any condensed milk in. Xiu tai is less sugar, so add one teaspoon of sugar, not two teaspoons, and then ping is to add ice. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So then basically what I mean is there is a whole language, like a whole different language,
Speaker: That you that you order this traditional copy in so you can't go to the counter and order the way you would in a traditional, you know, Westernized Italian coffee shop. Like we don't use, you know, the terms espresso or lungo or strato.
Speaker: you use a completely different language. And this language is a mixture of all of the languages of the people that set up Copicomps. It's mixed with a lot of cultures there. Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. No, no problem. I think a lot of people are very funny, very fascinating just to imagine how it's made. And based in UK, can you find Copicomps anywhere? Yes, you can. So a friend of mine, so for this article that I think you were reading in Fresh Cup,
Speaker: I managed to interview someone who had brought Gopi over to the UK. He's not Singaporean, but he went to Singapore and he fell in love with it and he brought it back. He came to visit me over the lockdown period where we had a socially distanced coffee. He brought some of the Gopi over.
Speaker: And he brought like a little sock for me and he brought me condensed milk. And I was like, this is amazing. The only caveat with that, so his name is Robert Chauhan, and he is the CEO of Gopi House UK. The only caveat with the Gopi that he has is that he doesn't have maize.
Speaker: And he doesn't have that corn flour in. And he was like, that's because it just doesn't, it just doesn't sell very well. The UK setting, like a lot of people are unused to that flavor profile in their drinks. And I was like, damn it. But other than that, like if you add the sugar in the condensed milk, it tastes very, very similar to what I would have at home. Might speak. Yeah. Might speak. Earlier we mentioned that you were a barista for a while and could you share some
Speaker: challenges that you met before as a barista? I think so. I had never done coffee until I moved here. So I hadn't done coffee in Singapore, for example. I think a big part of it was in the beginning, the low wages.
Speaker: I feel like that's still a... It's very common. Exactly. That's still very common today in hospitality. But on top of that, you have a very... It's a very manual job. It is. And I think that there's a fine line between people saying, oh, if you're not up to the manual job, then maybe you shouldn't take on the job. But there's also, okay, there's that and then there's like...
Speaker: exploitation of people so you're asking them to work you know ten hour shifts or asking them to do like six day streaks and that's just not sustainable if you want a healthy thriving hospitality workforce so i struggled a lot with that like just being so exhausted to the point where you being paid very little.
Speaker: You're also continually like physically and I guess mentally exhausted as well. It's very mentally exhausting to have a custom to be, to be customer facing. Yeah. A lot of the time. And sometimes you have to mitigate what comes through the door. You know, like sometimes customers aren't the nicest. We've all had stories like that. And then on top of that, because those were all knock on effects, I didn't have the energy to pursue career progression opportunities or pursue, you know, training or take courses. Like it.
Speaker: That just wasn't everything. And I think the defining moment for me, like realizing that because thinking, oh, because for a while I was thinking, oh, you know, like, this is just part of the job. Like, I'm very happy serving customers, like, it'll be fine. But the moment I realized that I was unhappy with these conditions was also the moment I realized I wanted more.
Speaker: from my barista career, which was like, Oh, like I maybe I do want to go into training other people. Maybe I do want to compete. Maybe I do want to be a manager or want to learn how to roast. And that's the point when I realized I wasn't happy with just being a barista forever. Like I felt like there were more things I could pursue.
Speaker: So we were not happy with being a barista. You didn't give up. You didn't just go to some other industry, for example, be a doctor, but you decided to stay in the coffee industry. I mean, there were times when I was seriously tempted.
Speaker: Just because there's so much a lot of these problems that I've mentioned, I just baked and structurally, you know, into the system, you know, things like employee welfare and HR and wage, like a lot of that's tied up with legislation as well. So it's not something that I can just say, Oh, I'm just gonna rally a movement to change it. Like a lot of that, you know, you have to unionize and you have to, you know,
Speaker: I think in the UK, we were recently talking about wanting to elect a minister for hospitality, because so many hospitality businesses have been completely ruined by the United Kingdom's COVID response. So, you know, we were talking about that. And I was like, well, yeah, we don't even have a union for hospitality here. So I don't know if that's a tangible dream. So yeah, for a long time, I was like, you know, switching back and forth between maybe I should pursue something else. Maybe I shouldn't.
Speaker: A big part of why I didn't was probably also due to fear and insecurity. I didn't know if I had the skills to make it in another industry, like making a career break, but also a big part of it was I did genuinely like coffee and I did genuinely like the people. Um, I loved learning more about the product. So yeah, there were, there were a couple of things, like a couple of saving graces that, um, kept me here. So I'm happy that they did.
Speaker: Is there any specific name that comes when you're talking about what keep your stay in the coffee industry? Well, specific names would be too many to name. But I think a big part of those were friends and customers. So people who have been through the same thing and understood how good, also how bad it could be to be in hospitality.
Speaker: were mentors and role models who could say to me, it gets better if you stay. Also people who were deeply interested in social justice issues. So interested in the same things beyond coffee. Because I think sometimes you can get really swept up in the latest equipment, or the newest gear, or who's won this competition. And then we forget that. Well, it's about the people who produce the goods, producers at Origin. It's about the people who buy the products.
Speaker: know, customers. Yeah, I just think sometimes specialty, especially like the highest levels of specialty can get very disconnected from the day to day. So yeah, like the people that were deeply interested in, you know, making coffee a more equitable place, a fair place, a more welcoming place for everyone more accessible. Those are the people that told like, you know, told me, hey, you're doing a good thing here. Like these are reasonable things to want. And a big part of your frustration with
Speaker: coffee and wanting to leave is because they haven't been addressed yet or they haven't been changed yet, but you can be that change. So stick it out. Yeah. Things get better. Wait for a bit. Yeah. And you mentioned that when you were a barista, there were not much training, right? Because I guess it's just expensive for the owners to provide like proper trainings.
Speaker: And as far as I understand, I'm not barista and it just broke coffee at home. In order to get those certificate, you need to pay certain amount of money, right? And also the time. So for baristas who already don't have much money, so reach that level, it could be a big problem. I know that you started to create directive. So what was the motivation behind that?
Speaker: So the motivation behind that, like if I can pin it down to a specific moment was actually a combination of literally all the things that you've raised. I was in, so my last barista job that I was deeply, deeply unhappy with was actually a very famous cafe in London. And I worked there and I was just so unhappy because I had experienced some racist events when I was in there, which is not nice.
Speaker: like customers came in and would ask questions and I'd bring it to management and be like, Hey, I'm not comfortable with this. And they'd be like, Oh, you're overthinking it. This is too, like, you know, you're, you're just overreacting. So that was already a big red flag. Uh, there were instances of nepotism. Um, another, I think the name that we tend to know it by is like the coffee bro mates culture where people get jobs because they know people. And that was a big issue to me because, um,
Speaker: In this particular instance, my head barista had hired a friend of his who had moved over from Australia, and I actually had to sit down with him and be like, hey, I don't think this is fair. Why don't you advertise this job fairly?
Speaker: to someone in London because then you know that you could maybe hire someone who is a woman or a woman of color or disabled. Like, why have you gone and done this? On top of that, I was one of two full -time women out of a staff of maybe like eight to 10. So obviously that gender imbalance was quite obvious. And then the final straw was when I asked for training and progression opportunities. This is a cafe with a training center in the basement. So they were already structurally set up for that.
Speaker: Yeah. And I was like, I, you know, I'm happy to fall into my time. Like I will sit like I like I'll be happy to just sit in the background and learn if that's okay. And they were like, no.
Speaker: I was like, well, I want to compete. And they were like, what can you bring to the company on top of that? And I was like, these questions don't make sense to me. They don't make sense to me. Yeah, so it was a very toxic workplace. That was probably the breaking point where I was like, do I want to leave? Do I want to leave this industry forever because it's terrible? And I had so much anger and resentment when I left.
Speaker: And that was how the core directive was formed. It was formed out of my anger and my resentment. I was like, this is not fair. It's not fair to a lot of people who are not white, who are not cis men. I don't want who I am to hold me back from what I want to do. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one feeling this way. And then I did some research. I started pulling together my contacts. And then in November of 2018,
Speaker: So I left that job in August 2018 and in November I organized and ran a little like launch party like a soft soft launch in London to see you know who'd be interested maybe like this whole feminism thing isn't isn't very popular like I don't know oh my god like so many people turned up like I think we packed out the place with like 60 people. Wow there was a lot of people.
Speaker: A, resonated, B, felt represented, C, felt seen. And that was a eureka moment for me. It was like, oh, people care. It's not just about the latest brewing kit. It's not just about who's won what. It's not about who gets the deals or whatever. Oh, shit. It's ordinary people who feel like they're not being represented. And a big part of that were women, were people of color. And yeah, that was eye -opening for me. And we officially
Speaker: launched the Core Directive as an organization in January of 2019. Since then, we've run, you know, different events that focus on inclusivity and accessibility. So a couple of these will be like our grinder maintenance and espresso machine maintenance workshops, where all like those are closed events where it's like just women. So I'm like, okay, any women who want to learn how to fix a machine come down, like we'll do these for you.
Speaker: And then we have the open events where it's stuff like, bring your own regular. That was a cupping that we did, where every barista had to bring a maximum of two regulars, two regular customers, and cup with them so that they could get to ask all the questions about coffee that they don't get to ask in a normal cafe setting because it's so busy. I'm just like, everybody come down. This was pre -COVID, obviously. So everyone was slurping out of the same bowls. It was disgusting.
Speaker: But yeah, yeah, like, um, so stuff like that. We did a, we also did some work on, um, the constructing the flavor wheel. We ran like an alternative flavor wheel cupping where we had some coffees and then we had this like huge buffet of fruits, fruits that were not Eurocentric. So it was all the fruits that I had grown up with. So stuff like jackfruit and star fruit and durian and like mangosteen.
Speaker: It was because I found very early on in my career that I would drink a coffee and be like, ah, this tastes like pomelo, or this tastes like, you know, magazine or lychee. And people would be like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: What are those? Never tried. They're part of my tasting vocabulary. What makes my tasting vocabulary less valid than yours? Also, another funny story was I didn't know what an apricot tasted like until 2018. I never tasted an apricot in my life. For me to be telling customers, oh, this coffee has notes of Bergamot and Jasmine and apricot. When I didn't know what apricot was,
Speaker: was just hilarious. I was like, oh my goodness. And it was because apricots are not readily available in the tropics. And I just have never tasted one. Yeah, so then deconstructing that flavor wheel was so fascinating to see a lot of people, like a lot of my friends, a lot of my white British friends, be tasting these and being like, oh wow, this is an experience. And I'm like, yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker: For some must be mind -blowing. Yeah, it's funny as well, you know, like one of the earliest articles that ever wrote on flavor, I was actually interviewing Dale.
Speaker: Dale Harris, who's one of my friends. He was very kind to share this information because I asked him, okay, Harold, if you want to be a sensory professional, what is the thing that you should do? What's your top tip? He was like, taste everything. Taste everything. Don't even have a judgment on it. Just taste it once. You never have to taste it again in your life if you don't like it, but taste it at least once. His memory was that he went to China
Speaker: on a business trip, on a coffee trip, basically was in a cupping situation and had people saying, oh, this tastes like durian to me. And he was like, what's durian? And he tasted durian for the first time. And I was like, what? I mean, I hope you like that experience, because I love durian. And for those of you who are listening. It's a very popular nation. Yeah. A lot of people in Western, they hate it. Do you like it, though?
Speaker: Yeah, I like it. I love it. I love it. And it also goes back a little bit to kopi as well. So a lot of people, when I, when I tell them about kopi, they'll be like, Oh, but like, that's robust. And you mix it with sugar and milk and like, that's shitty. And I'm like, no, it's not shitty. It's just a different, it's a totally different occasion.
Speaker: It's a totally different experience. Like the same way I would go to Starbucks. I still go to Starbucks. Like I order what they call a caramel macchiato because I love the drink. Like it's a dessert drink for me. I know it's not necessarily coffee. So many kinds of flavors there. You normally don't get an especially coffee shop. Exactly. So, you know, but it's just like a drinking one thing doesn't make me less of a professional than if I just drank.
Speaker: like 90 plus Arabica, like it's totally different.
Speaker: I mean, you're a professional used to go to Starbucks from time to time. I think that's, that's a great idea. You should never, just because they fought law with the certain kinds of coffee, you give up the rest of the whole world there. So yeah. And I think like, uh, I actually picked someone's brain on this recently. So when I went back to Singapore, one of the places that I went to visit and, um, who I interviewed, um, was better coffee was a, it's a training academy in Singapore, um, run by this lady called Pamela.
Speaker: Basically, the Academy does all of the CSA courses, does the Q grading courses, so on and so forth. But at the same time, recently, in the last two or five years, they implemented a copy
Speaker: preservation program, where they would teach, you know, modern young baristas like ourselves to make traditional kopi. So they have this like bar set up, which is super cool. It's like a hybrid bar set up. So there's like the, you know, your mythos and your VA and stuff on one side, but they also have like a traditional kopi young set up on the other. That was so valuable to me because kopi was such a big part of my memories growing up. And it's a big part of the, the larger Singapore heritage. Um,
Speaker: And I would hate to see it be replaced by more and more upscale Westernized coffee shops. I think that they're completely different things. So preservation of culture was and is super important to me, and I was very happy to see a better academy set those up.
Speaker: It's true. We should be more open -minded when we're talking about coffee. Try new, different, even people put sugar or condensed milk there. Give a try. Yeah. And there are more coffee in this world, not just the coffee we like to drink. There are so many other kinds of coffee. And just because the people who drink that kinds of coffee don't speak English, it doesn't mean they are not tasty or that they're not good. Yeah. And remember, in one of the article, you mentioned that coffee there.
Speaker: Euro -centric in nature without taking into account of different, you know, in experience, metrics and of quantity. Could you tell us more about that and based on your Cori directive, what have you done in terms of those parts? So, like I mentioned, we did the, like we did that cupping, which really helped to broaden a lot of people's perspectives on what you can and what you can
Speaker: tasting coffee, which is very cool. We also regularly talk about some of the things that make coffee accessible. And a big part of that is taste versus visuals. So I know a lot of people are very easily impressed by latte art. And I can also see the overlap of why that is. So the only reason that you can pattern well
Speaker: is because you've made milk that is perfect in terms of taste. Like you've steamed it to a perfect temperature, you've made it the perfect texture, and that's why you can pattern with it. So if you can pattern with it, it's a sign that the milk is good. However, I think a lot of people, particularly the women that I've had the pleasure of working with, beat themselves up for not being able to do good latte art. And I'm like, well, I don't know if that's necessarily the case anymore because you,
Speaker: I would be very happy to drink a coffee that was pulled very well. The shot was perfect. The milk was perfect. And if you just did a simple heart for me, great. That's all I need. That's all I want. I guess I would be impressed if you did a double -headed swan. But at the end of the day, it's something that's going to go in my belly. So that's one thing that keeps coming up a lot.
Speaker: And we try to make, we try to bring those values of inclusivity and accessibility into all the areas that we work in and all the companies that we work in, all the people that we work with. So that's one of those things anyway. And based on your experience for new baristas, who cannot for expensive courses where they should start or should they go? I think, um, it's interesting because the internet in general being a wonderful place, um, is a great leveler of information, you know, information democratic.
Speaker: in the sense that I can go and Google how to take apart a Baratza and I wouldn't have to pay any money for someone to teach me how to do that. However, I think there is something to be said for the exorbitant value of courses. So a lot of the courses today that are on the market are under a big governing body. And they're very, very pricey. I know we mentioned this earlier in the call. They're very pricey for regular baristas. And I don't think that's entirely fair because you are here to serve
Speaker: your community of coffee professionals. And if, you know, more than half of us can't afford to attend those courses, then who are they for? And also at least in the last few years, I'm seeing this disturbing trend and this from a personal point of view, like I'm seeing this disturbing trend of in a job application, people specifying that you need to be, you know, like SCA Foundation certified.
Speaker: or something like that. And I'm like - That's important. Yeah. And I'm just like, hang on a minute. Like I was a barista way before it was, way before it was trendy to be taking these courses. I wouldn't say that I don't know how to make a coffee. I didn't get certified until very, very late in my career. Why do people feel like they need to place that requirement there? Because then that's just some sort of, that's kind of like unnecessary gatekeeping. You could have, you could have like a barista, an amazing barista,
Speaker: who has never been certified, who is good at their job, who has great work values and ethics. And then they would be like, oh, they would see this job and not be able to apply because they don't have foundation experience. And foundation is foundational. So I feel like it's unnecessarily eliminating a lot of people that could be a good fit for your job. That's also not very fair. And at the same time, attaining your certification in some aspects can be seen as just the
Speaker: a formality, a lot of the most amazing vorices I know have never been certified.
Speaker: They've gone and won awards and things like that. I always find that very interesting. The one thing that I did find very valuable, but then again at the same time would not have been able to afford on my own, was when I got my Q license. I only got that because my company Alpro were very kind to sponsor me for professional development. A couple of grand on my own, I would not have been able to do that.
Speaker: It's definitely a good business when more people need a certificate, they get more money. But then if you talk about coffee, it's not just drink, right? It means the community, people behind it. And then when you talk about how expensive those courses are, I'm thinking, not just the courses. Think about the gears we use. The new is the gears. It's, let's say, a server. I think it's at least 20 pounds.
Speaker: For one, if I think about same thing, if you buy a similar glass, maybe not exactly the same shape, but something else similar you can use in a supermarket, probably one or two pounds. Oh, dude, this kicked off a discussion. So for the core directive we have, we're on Discord primarily because that's the most like organized way we can keep our messages and channels and things like that. So it's been really good. And I was asking around for cupping bowls.
Speaker: And yeah, and I got these pink spoons. I'm like, they're just six spoons, right? I just I had done some I needed to I needed to buy some of this equipment for my work. I remember just looking okay, like I just looking on coffee sites being like, okay, I'm gonna have to
Speaker: Wow, I'm gonna have to fork out like 84 pounds for this? Like, what? You know, and then I was trying to look for these particular branded cup and bowls, which I will not name. They were all sold out. They're sold out all over the UK. And I was like, great, I can't find them. So then I, you know, asked my, my Discord, I was like, does anybody know of any like viable alternatives to
Speaker: these very expensive cupping bowls. And these expensive cupping bowls are actually the cheapest out of all the other cupping bowls in the coffee universe. I was like, this is madness. And literally, the stuff that I got was amazing, like the other options. A lot of people suggested like Derelex.
Speaker: For example, a lot of people suggested Nisbits, which is a big wholesale company where a lot of hospitality people get their equipment. So they were like, you can try sugar bowls, just buy sugar bowls. And I was like, yeah. I didn't think about that. That's pretty cool. You could use a rice bowl. I could use a rice bowl. That's the thing. I was like, I just need to get them in bulk.
Speaker: But I want to hear what people's cheap options are. And literally, in the end, I settled for like IKEA. I love IKEA. Good option. I love IKEA, bless. I settled on IKEA like six glasses, 200 gram glasses, for $250. I bought like five sets of them. I just went, OK, I'm going to spend all my money here. And I was just like, how democratic is this? Like being able to share information with other people that will not put you out of pocket.
Speaker: And then I literally wrote like, wow, coffee equipment is overpriced. It's really overpriced.
Speaker: I think it's one of the, one of the thing I hate most, I love coffee and I want to learn more about it. But then when you think about your wallet and you look at those expensive cupping boat, like a spoon, my, my wife bought me one took 10 times or 20 times more than a regular one you got for a supermarket. She knows that I love coffee, but I don't, I really don't do cupping. I'm not professional, but she bought it anyway. And she said, you will like it.
Speaker: Sure, I like it, but how much you pay for it? She told me the price. I was like, I love you, but you don't have to do the things. The bad part is it keeps a lot of people who try to get into the coffee industry. They just scare them away. If you look at how expensive a cupping bowl, let's say, or a special mug from a certain brand, and then coffee actually is the cheapest one.
Speaker: Yeah, and even then, oh God, don't even get me started on the fact that I don't think producers are paid equitably or sustainably at all. We complain about high prices for coffee, but none of that money is getting back to producers where it matters most. I am more than happy to pay more if it means it's going to be passed down the chain.
Speaker: You're right, I would 100 % spend the money on people than I would. We don't have a strong tipping culture here, but I'd be more than happy to tip someone for excellent service. I'd be more than happy to support a lot of the social justice causes that I find
Speaker: Coffee is a very good vehicle for like most recently one of my coffee exporter friends posted an appeal about Timor -Leste where they've experienced some like massive flash flooding and the fact that we are able to mobilize customers to care like customers and ourselves as well like to care about the people behind coffee is also very encouraging to me like it's not just the product that you buy.
Speaker: Let's get to know more about you. I think we're going to talk a lot about coffee and industry and what have we done. Tell us about how you make coffee every day.
Speaker: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. So usually, usually, I think especially in lockdown, everyone's developed kind of like a coffee routine. I used to do V60s a lot. That's my preferred method of brewing, just because it accentuates acidity a lot in my drink, which I love. I have been challenged by a couple of people to do AeroPress, and I'm just like, I don't really like the AeroPress. I feel like I should do better at it, but I'm just not.
Speaker: I would love to learn more about it. So that's one thing I want to challenge myself on. I'm a big, big fan of filter coffee. I'm a big fan of batch brew. It's nice to be able to get batch brew at home without having to go to a coffee shop. How much coffee do you drink per day?
Speaker: Oh, I'm quite safe, actually. Maybe, I'd probably say like two cups max, maybe three. Not a lot. I'm quite a sensible coffee drinker. Exactly. Three cups a day, really? Yeah, no, but also I find that the funny thing is that when you're pre -pandemic, like higher amounts would be a lot more justifiable. Whereas now, even if I don't drink coffee at all, like in a given day,
Speaker: I find I have a lot of energy because you just don't you don't spend it doing anything else like you're just at home like you're sitting at your laptop and stuff so yeah I do try to like limit my intake but now recently I've been going out a lot more and actually have needed the caffeine so that's good right so I have more questions and name three things you like most.
Speaker: who had bread, cheese, bread cheese and eggs. Did I ask your name free food? No, because I was like, those are also answers that overlap with what would you take with you to a deserted island. Like I would take those things as well. So I guess I do really like them. Yeah, I didn't mean for them all to be food, but I do like them all.
Speaker: So your top three are bread, eggs, and cheese. This is why I can't be a vegan. Yeah, they are my top. I'm surprised that coffee is not. I mean, coffee is OK. Coffee would not be top of my list of priorities if I needed to go to a deserted island. But yeah. Tell us about three things you don't like. Oh my gosh.
Speaker: people who are slow walkers, people who say I'm cute or like when someone says I'm cute because I'm actually, I'm like, I'm quite small.
Speaker: So I was like, Oh, you're very cute when you're angry. I'm like, No, I'm just angry. Don't call me that. And another thing I hate cleaning out my cat's litter box. Hate it. Thanks for sharing. I believe this is something very personal. Tell us about something about your career future. What is your plan in the future? What is your goal this or next year? Funny that I was actually asked this question like yesterday. I right now,
Speaker: I'm very happy with my job and very happy with the direction it's taking because our brand isn't necessarily the most popular brand around, but I always found more meaning in being able to make a change. If I had ended up with a brand that was easy to sell, was already very popular, I think I would have plateaued very quickly or stagnated very quickly as a coffee professional.
Speaker: But to be able to say, okay, I want to make some changes has been very meaningful for me. However, that is not in line of what I really want to do in coffee, which is I'd love to be a queue instructor or an R grader. Like I'd like to pursue Robusta grading at some point, just because I think that Robusta can be such an equalizer for producers. A lot of coffee producing countries already produce Robusta as well, but we tend to shit on it because
Speaker: It's not as good as Arabica. Well, but they're different things. So yeah, I'd love to be able to do both of those things in my career, hopefully at some point. Thank you. One last question. So maybe you can share some tips for barista who love coffee so much and also love writing and the pursuing career to become a freelancer, blogger, writer, any tips for them.
Speaker: Okay, so when I started out, it was literally by writing a blog, and I feel like a lot of people already do that. So A, start practicing just writing every day, even if it's just a little bit, if it's just a paragraph, just keep writing because it means that you're training up your brain to be better at finding words, better at finding things that express how you feel and stuff like that. And then the other thing is just to identify what you care most about in coffee or
Speaker: and or what you're good at. So for example, if you are a cafe manager and you want to write, you could start writing articles for yourself at home where it's like, OK, how do I create a positive work culture? Or you can write about how managing a cafe has been in the time of COVID. So identifying skill sets that overlap what you're good at and what you want to write about is super important. For me, that looks like
Speaker: So when I managed a cafe, yeah, it was very much those things that I just mentioned. But gradually as I became more and more interested in like social justice and activism, a lot of it had to do with people and movements around the world. So I wrote a piece for the recent magazine that was on, you know, Asian solidarity for black people in the United States in coffee. And we interviewed like coffee professionals who were black or Asian, Asian American.
Speaker: That was, you know, that was something that I deeply cared about that I wanted to write about. And then the third thing is just be gutsy, like send your ideas out, like pitch your ideas and get started from there. A lot of, a lot of the way publishing companies work is that they will take on pitches, um, for an issue that will be published maybe a couple months later. So then they'll give you a deadline. You just have to write and submit to it and then you invoice them and that's it. Like you will see your article come out.
Speaker: in print or online, you know, in a couple of, in a couple of months. So it's, yeah, it's pretty good as a, it's pretty good as a side hustle if you want to get into it, just because a lot of the people that I know who do it are very flexible, who also have main jobs. And also for me, it was a way to keep in touch with the industry and keep relevant and also keep advancing my knowledge and my skills. Even though I was off the bar, because I feel like a lot of the stuff, like a lot of the current trends and stuff, I had a better understanding of when I was still at Arista.
Speaker: But after that, I was like, okay, I need to find another way to stay real. Thanks for those tips. So if you're listening to this podcast, you want it right, love coffee, make sure you follow those tips and send some copies to your mom. Yes. Make her proud. Yes. Send it to your mom. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me.
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.
