Ed Tesiny
eptept at gmail.com
Tue Mar 18 12:54:28 CDT 2014
Arthur, I know this is American but there may be some useful information here http://roastersguild.org/?p=about&sub=execCouncil On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>wrote: > As regular listers will know, a while back I declared myself Semi-Retired. > But now I want to try something radically new. > > Since I was about 15, I have been a coffee drinker. Since I was about 30, I > slowly matured into a coffee aficionado. I know instantly the difference > between, say, a Guatemalan coffee and a Kenyan -- hell, that's too easy -- > I can discern a Guatemlan from a Salvadorean. And I know some if not most > of the lingo that coffee aficionados employ; it's similar to the vocabulary > of wine lovers. One tiny exception is that in coffee, "acidy" is a good > thing (to most but not all palates). > > Anyway, I have decided to realize an ambition on my Bucket List, to wit, to > learn the art of coffee roasting, and to obtain a job performing this > magic. There are several companies in Toronto that perform this art. I'm > willing to go through the motions of learning to become a barista, but that > at most would be a step toward my real goal. > > I dug out a few versions of my resume, which list in varying degrees of > detail my 30+ years' experience writing software, mostly database-oriented. > None of this experience is in any way related to my new Bucket List item, > to become a coffee roaster. In this field I have no experience other than > the consumption of vast amounts of coffee from numerous nations, and such > knowledge as "espresso is neither a bean nor a drink, but a roast, which > can be performed upon almost any type of bean." > > Even of the back story. My question is, How should I pitch myself to the > one or three companies in Toronto that do their own roasting, and locally? > (In case you wondered, Starbucks is not one of them, since they do their > roasting not even in Canada, and the distance between roasting and selling > is crucial to maintain the highest quality: distance and quality are > inversely proportional. > > There's also an event-type called a Cupping, which to my knowledge none of > the quality-coffee sellers in Toronto practice. This is very similar to a > wine-tasting event; the participants do not swallow the coffees offered but > savour them, rolling the mouthful around the tongue to appreciate the > aspects of the taste (different parts of the tongue detect different > aspects of the taste, and hence the need to roll the mouthful); then the > mouthful is spit out as in wine-tasting. Since, to my knowledge, none of > the three vendors to whom I'm considering applying for a gig, I would want > to present Cuppings as a new marketing opportunity. > > So. How might I present myself as an aficionado with a serious desire to > learn the art of roasting, and lacking any experience in this aspect of the > business? > > Any suggestions shall be gratefully received. > > -- > Arthur > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >