Signature Beverage

At this time I find myself with a huge number of possible flavor combination’s based solely on the nuances of the coffee I am using. I am using a single origin coffee for my espresso and in many ways it is a normal,”Of course you would use that” coffee. I have the temptation to try and be overly clever with the coffee and presentation because of it’s being, at least based on recent popularity, a commonly lauded bean. But if there is one thing being married has taught me it is that you can think that you know a person inside and out but as you go through life together you discover new things about them and their character. You discover who they are in a deeper way. In my marriage this has been a huge blessing, icing on the cake. With this coffee, and I would argue all coffees, there is a certain sense of newly discovered character that hooks me in again and makes me enegizized as I watch that character unfold, and another energizing reality of how, if I am discovering something new now, just think of all I still don’t know, new flavors yet to be revealed that are currently hidden.

Now when it comes to a signature drink there is always this line that can be crossed, where on the one side there are flavors that compliment the coffees revealed character …(character can only be revealed by study and exploration…never by assumption…learning about my wife is based on my purposeful study of her so that I may not offend her by assumption and so that I can compliment her effectively)… and then the other side of the line where, because there is an assumption made about the coffee or we are inadvertently ashamed of the coffees character the coffee gets masked and dominated by additions that seek to fix something that was never broken. My first signature beverage was like this…Pumpkin, spices, heavy cream, maple syrup….I drowned the coffee. I killed it by my singular excitement over every ingredient but the coffee and thus the coffee withered away starved for attention. Since then I have learned to learn. I have found that when you explore a coffee and it’s character… any additional ingredient should be selected to function as either a magnifying glass or a complimentary tone…neither of which works well by themselves…Both of which are given meaning and purpose by their subject or by their company.

So now when selecting flavors for my signature I hope that the notes chosen properly magnify the flavors of the coffee I am using to equal a grand Crescendo that celebrates the character of the coffee more that the cleverness of the barista. Although it is a “Barista” competition…we are nothing without something to showcase and are therefore defined by it and should be judged both by ourselves and others by how we respect it’s already revealed, and yet to be discovered virtues. So here’s to a great and fun 2010 competition season…and as my friend Lars would say…Skål!

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