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Note: these are not done yet, and are still being written up and expanded to a more functional running database by me. If you by any chance find this before i remove these sentences, then… please be patient with me, my goal is to flesh these out as I go, and this Shard would be a running diary/journal of sorts to keep track of my adventures within this passion. I already have notes on the majority of these roasters, along with their coffee sources and roast philosophies, I just desperately need to reorganize them into a coherent stream of thoughts for a complete blog writeup section. Thank you for bearing with me on this little adventure of mine.
BIGGER SUB-NOTE: I am currently in the process of moving, and thus all of my brew logs and other specifications are temporarily jumbled up and are existing in limbo for the time being. Once I am able to fully sort out my move, I anticipate more data will start to appear in the Home Brew Archive in a much faster rate.
On my active quest of exploring the world of coffee as an amateur scholar, I often struggle to find a coherent space to gather all my thoughts in detail on all of every single experience I’ve ever had with coffee. I’ve always wanted to archive pretty much every step of my coffee journey, from the coffees I’ve had at shops to the ones I brewed at home, to the ones I’ve had the fortune to brew and taste with my fellow coffee friends on various occasions. What I usually struggle with is the ability to take detailed notes quickly on the fly while I was instantaneously forming my own thoughts and analyses while tasting coffee during these experiences, and the rest of my recounts would be from memory when I do have time to sit down to type and log my experiences to the fullest detail that they deserve.
Moreover, as the perfectionistic explorer as I am, I want to log down as many variables as possible, with as much detail as possible, so I am able to extract (pun intended) loose running conclusions about certain observable characteristics about third-wave coffee, the different players in the game, and how their philosophies are demonstrated through their products and approach to coffee. And at the risk of repeating myself from my Austin Coffee Adventures shard, every roaster, every barista, every judge, every Q-Grader, every competitor, every business owner, every enthusiast, and even down to every bean, every estate, every roast, every brew, has their own unique story. And how those stories come together to create a rich harmonic story that is told through the very cup of coffee that is sitting right in front of you makes every cup a masterpiece of its own, regardless of how it may taste as a cumulative result. This story-driven pursuit is what makes specialty coffee specialty coffee, and is the backbone of this two-decade-young budding industry.
As a photographer, a scientist, an engineer, and an enthusiast, how I fit into the world of third-wave coffee is entirely personal, and that is by design. The third-wave movement has long had the philosophy of attempting to get at and drive home the origins of the cups of coffee you enjoy, and bring back the focus onto the entire process that brings everyone their delicious cup of coffee. That to me is storytelling, represented in the form of a rapidly-scaling sub-industry.
On my end of the cup, I have always been a storyteller, and I live for storytelling. My entire venture of photography on a cheaply-bought used collection of equipment that I haven’t expanded on for more than seven years centers around that one exact philosophy - storytelling. Whether it be telling the story of the city I live in from time to time, to the story of the people around me, to various observational commentaries on society. But to me, the most important story I need to tell, to myself and to other, is the story about myself. As I remember covering multiple times on the artist statements of various photography albums I’ve developed, the biggest mystery to me has always been the story of my own self. And so all of these passions I’ve embarked myself on are steps to embrace certain noticeable parts of myself that I hold so near and dear to my life, in a more concerted effort to paint the biggest picture of who I am. For instance, the story of me and coffee is one of family and roots and upbringing. Coffee has always been the glue between me and my home city (it is one hell of a privilege to have grown up in a city whose name is permanently attached to a style of coffee), my family, my friends, my childhood. The conversations had and the stories told through an uncountable number of coffees shared. So to me, exploring my passion for coffee is me embracing my roots, and furthering my story with coffee keeps me grounded (pun intended) back to family whenever I feel like I’m missing each one of my family members more than how I could find other venues to express.
Alas, I digress. Wanting to do all that I know how to do well, I’ve created this running-expansion shard I conveniently named the Home Bar Archive, or HBR for easier reference. I am hoping that it serves the following purposes: