Add hot water and stir (or so I thought)

I thought it would be a good idea to give myself a head start by watching a lot of YouTube and set some sort of expectation before I walked in. I did full weekend shifts (7:30am to 4:30pm, Saturday and Sunday) as I wanted to complete my 100 hours as soon as possible (plus I wasn’t working so I had plenty of time to kill).

Naturally on the first day, my fellow colleague (now one of my good coffee friends) showed me around the shop and gave me a tour of what goes where. I was then given the honourable job of sweeping the shop floor, cleaning the glass doors, make sure the restroom was clean, unstack the chairs and wipe the tables. Not all fancy as you would expect, but that’s how it is when you work in F&B and hospitality. I learned over the years that when starting something new, don’t set any expectations as doing so will lead to disappointment. I mean, I’m 28 so not exactly young and I’ve been working since I was 18 so I get it. Sometimes you do tasks that you don’t like but it has to be done.

By this time, it was about 8am. No customer had walked in yet so I took the time to check out the shelf which held all different types of coffee beans. What astounded me was how many different coffee beans there were. Why were they different colours? Why does some labels say ‘Son La’ and others say ‘Da Lat’? Why do each of them have different scents? All I ever knew about coffee was that you add a spoonful of dissolvable coffee grounds into a cup, pour hot water in the cup and stir. That was the extent of my coffee knowledge so you could understand why I had so many questions. My colleague explained the different types of roasts (we sold medium, medium-dark and dark roasts), the reasons for roasting them differently and the profiles of each coffee bean. Really interesting stuff.

I was eased into coffee brewing, starting off with the pour over V60, a brew method consisting of filtering coffee grounds pouring hot water using a fancy kettle. I read through the recipe and followed through recipe, with the help of my colleague. The aroma from bloomed coffee grounds was something I never smelled before. Granted I hadn’t developed a taste for coffee as I just started but no doubt, the smell of fresh coffee was unlike any of the instant coffee I smelled before. And there you have it - my first ever brew that did NOT come from a jar of instant coffee.