I promise I'm still here

I feel heavily weighed upon by the amount of schoolwork and freelance work that's been thrust upon me this month. I'd made it a priority when I started this blog to write in it every day, both to keep up my writing skills and to take a deeper look into the coffee business, so I might appreciate this very time-consuming job a little more I suppose. I am lazy as well as techophobic by nature, so it's no surprise to me that I've been slacking in the blogosphere. Nonetheless, I made a commitment to myself several months ago to be regular with my posts, and I swear I'll try to adhere to that commitment more responsibly in the future.
I've thought about different ways to make the coffee business more prevalent on the web. Though I possess no internet programming skills or whatever of my own, I'm still a creative visionary, and I can at least generate ideas and manipulate others into executing them. Does coffeeshop.com exist? I was thinking it could be a web community devoted to coffee. Like there could be blogs by cafe workers like me, roasters, enthusiasts. I also think it would be cool to have a rating system for coffee shops around the country (or even the world) for hardcore addicts to rate the quality of service, espresso, brewed coffee, ambience and stuff like that.

Am I a bitch?

I was racked with guilt for most of today's shift. I waas mean. Sometimes you just have to be, when your workers are slacking and shit just isn't getting done. That's how it was this morning. I tried to be the good person, I really did. But these bitches threw it back in my face and made me suffer for my attempts at kindness. Hannah, who no one can stand, surprised me in the wee hours of the morn' by walking in to work (she was covering forit another girl on the shift). Since I know that no one can stand her, I did the nice thing by working side by side with her all day and putting the other two girls together. Thing is, the other two are friends, and friends tend to slow each other down at work, with all their giggling and gossiping and shit. I kept turning around to see what kind of shape Cafe Nasty was in while they were in charge of keping it clean (that's right, we don't have janitors- we do everything ourselves) and it was just a horrendous sight time after time. I got snappy. I couldn't help it! You should have seen. The garbage can was literally overflowing- to the point where they would put an empty milk container in and it would roll off the top of the dirty mound onto the floor. The nerve! So I definitely got huffy and bitchy. But then I felt really bad and apologized after the shift. They said they didn't notice me being mean and not to worry, but they were lying I know it.
Moral of the story is to not have two good friends working close together if you're in charge, b/c they won't do shit and then you'll have to yell at them and feel bad.

Back to my old tricks.

That was a nice little vacation. Now I'm back at work, like nothing ever changed. One thing I noticed during my adventures out west is that, no matter where I went, food service was slow and uninspired. I know what you're thinking- that service workers (myself included) are underpaid and underappreciated, the work is dull and dirty, so why would I expect enthusiasm from the young dude serving me coffee in the morning? I'll tell you why- because where I come from, if you fail to go that extra mile for each customer you serve, or if you show signs of laziness or that jaded coffee shop worker attitude you are toast. With all the training and effort we at Nasty put into cultivating superior work ethics in our employees, it's nearly impossible for anyone to last at the job without becoming just as psychotically obsessed with customer service as I am. Those that can't live up to the responsibility are quickly weeded out. Why do we even bother? The competition between hip, independent coffee houses around here is so minimal that I'm sure we'd still have a following even if we gave shitty service. But out west, I'd think it would be a different story. Isn't that where Starbucks was birthed? The shortage in efficient and friendly service extends beyond the coffee industry though. Fast food, nice restaurants, ice cream shops, they were all guilty in my brief experience in San Diego. I'm curious just how fact-based my assessments are. Mind you, I was only there for five days. But perhaps that fast-paced New York vibe radiates outward from the city and infects the entire eastern seaboard with its frantic energy. Maybe things are just different out west, and I have to learn to accept that. I don't know.

Greetings from San Diego!

I just thought I should write and let y'all know that the working girl has escaped for a little while. To the sunny beaches of California! It's my spring break from school, and I'm taking a few days off from Nasty as well. I'm actually staying at the apt. of two former Nasty workers. Giving them all the latest gossip from work because they don't get to read this blog. Okay I have to get back to drinking and flashing my honkers to that girls gone wild guy. See ya!

Yes, more MTV crap

They keep coming back, those psycho producers from MTV! I've gotten my head back on straight and done the right thing by giving them a definite no to being part of their little circus. That doesn't mean they've backed off. Just the other day, they were in the cafe with a random assortment of hipsters and beautiful kids they seemingly assembled from off the street to be in their show. They were loitering in and around the cafe, cameramen in tow, crowding the joint during our busiest hour of the day just to get shots that made it look like these random kids work for Nasty. They did this at the record store across the street as well. My boyfriend said that the producers went back there and demanded that the scruffy guys behind the counter shave off their nasty facial hair, wear some name-brand shirts and trucker hats (are those even cool anymore?) and basically just present themselves to be, well, different people while the cameras are rolling. Now, this place is not Empire Records. It's more like the shop in High Fidelity, if you wanna make that kind of comparison. There's no glam at this record store. The guys are aging, unhip, scraggly and withdrawn. I don't know if an Ashton Kutcher costume is really gonna do the trick. This may be why the producers suggested that they might bring in their own set of "workers" to be on duty while filming is taking place. In other words, MTV would hire sexy actors to play record shop employees in order to make their reality show more appealing. Should we at Nasty at least be flattered that they haven't suggested doing that to us?

Coffee Tasting

this is some valuable information about coffee tasting. I am not poetic enough to have written it. Someone else did. Enjoy!


tasting: terms and tools

Coffee tasters use four main categories to help describe and define a cup of coffee. These are acidity, body, bouquet or aromatic profile, and flavor.

* Acidity: this is probably the most important coffee-tasting term, and also the most easily misunderstood. Acidity in coffee tasting is a positive term that denotes a liveliness and vibrancy on the palette, bright taste sensations caused by sugars and other acidic compounds. Coffees are rated as high, medium, or low in acidity according to the overall presence of these qualities
* Body: body describes the texture of coffee and how it feels in your mouth. Density, surface tension, viscosity and other factors determine the perception of body, which is typically rated as heavy or full, medium, and light, depending on if it is thick and creamy or thinner and possibly watery.
* Bouquet: our sense of smell is very involved in the enjoyment and evaluation of coffee, before, during and after we actually taste it. Aromatic profile, or bouquet, is divided into four phases: fragrance, aroma, nose and aftertaste.

Fragrance is perceived in the gases arising from freshly ground coffee.
Aroma is in the gases from freshly brewed coffee.
Nose is perceived in the vapors arising as coffee is swallowed.
Aftertaste is in the vapors that remain after the coffee is swallowed.

* Flavor: flavor refers to the taster’s overall impression of body, acidity, and bouquet. In a general sense it refers to intensity and may also acknowledge particular characteristics such as spice, nut, fruit, or chocolate notes.

The physical tools of the taster are quite obvious: the nose and the mouth/tongue. Key flavors are perceived on different parts of the tongue. Acidity and sweetness are tasted primarily on the tip of the tongue, sourness and saltiness more on the sides, bitterness mostly in the back, and body registers over the whole surface. The nose is an equally important tool, capable of distinguishing between 2000-4000 different aromas. Much of coffee’s flavor is locked up in volatile, aromatic compounds, perceived both directly by sniffing in through the nose, and again during tasting as vapors rise up into the nasal cavity.

While some people are natural “palette people,” blessed with superb sensitivity, it is important to remember that with concentration and practice we all possess the skills to master coffee tasting.

cash register blues

yes, I'm blue. We got a new cash register in the cafe a couple days ago, and it's ruining my life. Our old machine was extremely, well, old. No computer screens, dirty buttons that you can hardly even read what they say. It was great. The new ones are big and clunky, every menu category has its own page in the system. You have to select stupid things like what type of milk or flavor the latte is made with and all that. Basically it's my worst nightmare. I like the simplicity of our old machine. Lots of our pastries didn't even have buttons, and we'd just kind of make up prices as we went along. Fortunately, we're sticking true to one of our guns at least by not taking credit cards. This is something people feel very passionate about. I do as well. At least as far as Cafe Nasty is concerned, I'm anti-plastic. There's something satisfying about denying someone his order at the last minute, just as the barista is pouring his cappuccino, because he thought he could pay with his card. We've wasted many a hot chocolate, etc. because of situations like these. Bad for business yes, but funny. I think the main reason bossy won't get a card swiper thingy is because the company has to pay a small amount for every transaction made with a credit card. And since most of our orders are under like $5, it just doesn't make sense to take plastic. Plus, the line can move a hell of a lot quicker when I don't gotta stand there like an idiot, waiting for the machine to process this asshole's card. What if his card is maxed out and I have to shred it? Oh, that would be satisfying.