It’s 2:00AM in Chicago and I am experiencing the wrath of jet lag post-World Barista Championship. You may or may not know that I am the exiting Chairman of the Board of the WBC and when compared to past WBC events, I am pleased to say that Tokyo’s was unparalleled in many ways. Not only was there record attendance but the spirit of all of those in attendance was one of complete camaraderie: between the Baristas (of the record number 45 countries), the volunteers, the committees, and the WBC Board. It was a shining example of why Specialty Coffee can be so great when stripped of unnecessary politics, posturing, and chest thumping. The competitors were skilled and humble and the judging was serious and careful, and I am honored to have been a part of it. Last, and certainly not least, the folks at the SCAJ put on a rockin’ event with a beautiful stage set up and spot-on camera crew. Many thanks to them.

I enjoyed a number of glasses of beer or sake (or other) catching up with my coffee friends from around the world, theorizing about the power of great coffee and how it can truly be world-changing. All I can say is that it was just plain great and reminded me of why I do this in the first place, for a love of the coffee and a love of the coffee people. There was no swagger, no “I’m more independent”, or “I’m bigger/smaller”. There was professionalism and humility and integrity. At the end of the day it should be about how great the people that bring us the coffee are and how great the coffee is. We should be about the coffee and that’s it, right?

I am sitting drinking a glass (ahem, bottle) of Torrontes (an Argentine varietal) from a wine maker named Susana Balbo. The label is Crios and the vintage is a young 2006. To me it smacks of summer in all of its Midwestern-thunderstorm lusciousness. “Crios” means offspring and in the case of this wine refers to Susana’s children and wine. The funny thing is that my mom (one of my heroes, more on that some other time) actually gave me a bottle of this wine a couple of years ago and I’ve been a fan of Torrontes ever since.

I still think Crios is probably the best Torrontes I’ve had, but I’ve also loved some bottles from another Argentine producer, Norton (yes I know, like the British motorcycles). I drank many a bottle of that Norton staring off the deck of a rented house in the cars-up-on-blocks part of New Buffalo, Michigan (a community that is right on Lake Michigan) watching fireflies in the midst of a thick summer night on a La Fuma chair getting eaten alive by mosquitoes but somehow not noticing until the next day. There are even some shockingly cheap organic bottles of this varietal that can be picked up from that large natural food supermarket (down the street from you if you live in a major city) that go well with, well, almost anything you’d like in the summer.

I am by no means a wine expert, but I must say I do like the stuff in most all of its manifestations. I frankly am lost with all of the French and Italian stuff (Mr. Ron Cook, President of La Marzocco, sure knows his way around Italian wines so ask him if you get the chance) and tend to dig wines from Spain, the U.S., Australia, and South America. Maybe this makes me a wine idiot. If that’s the case, then so be it. Other coffee folk that seem to know their way around wine are Tim Castle and our very own James Marcotte.

So what does a life (I guess 14 years of mine, so a hair shy of 1/3) in coffee get you? Rocks to turnover. Some you’re glad you did; some you wish you hadn’t. It all starts when you turn over that first one with your first real trip to origin… and when I say “real” I’m not talking about a whitewashed version of a coffee producing country. I’m talking about a place that makes you a little uncomfortable with how good you’ve got it, a place where you’re dirty dusty and tired like most of the developing world, a place that won’t be ignored and won’t let you go back to your quiet normal life, a place that demands you do something about it; until you’ve seen it, you cannot possibly understand. So go see it… at all costs. I promise you will never be the same. If you are, you need to get out of coffee fast.

If you turn over the rock of ever-improving quality, be prepared to never be satisfied. Revel in the pursuit. Many (alright a few) have heard me reference the story of a famous Cambodian chef, born of royalty whose family fled during the time of the Khmer Rouge. He eventually landed at Le Cirque in New York as the chef de Cuisine and then up and left with little notice to head back to Cambodia. He was said to have been found on the steps of his family’s home peeling a mango. When asked why he left, he claimed that at one point in his life he had the perfect taste, a taste from a mango that combined the perfect combination of sweet, salty, sour and bitter all in one bite, and as a chef, he had been pursuing that perfect taste his whole career, never to find it again. His story ends nicely with a dish he prepares for the author, which supposedly presented a perfect taste. Sadly, (or perhaps marvelously) coffee is the pursuit of the perfect taste we will never reach… be it brewed (Clover, vac-pot, French Press, Eva Solo, what-have-you) or the even more preparation-heavy espresso. But that’s alright if you can live with it.

That’s all for now. More on what a life in coffee gets you later. I’m going to get back to that bottle of Crios Torrontes.

Early morning flight today: 6:00 A.M. from Chicago to Los Angeles. That only means that I am already here at O’Hare at 4:30 A.M. Not much good about that. As you may or may not know, I am the founder and CEO of Intelligentsia Coffee. The purpose of this blog is to hopefully illuminate (for even just one person) the challenges, frustration and satisfaction that one finds in running and growing a high-end (boutique?) coffee roasting company with both wholesale customers and one’s own coffee bars/retail stores. Along the way there may (or may not) be some commentary on restaurants, inevitable ramblings about my daughter (Scarlet, now 5) and wife Emily, as well as general commentary on Chicago and Los Angeles, two cities that I enjoy for rather different reasons, perhaps beyond the obvious.

As it stands, we have three coffee bars in Chicago and a roasting facility (Roasting Works) in Chicago. We have been working on opening a coffee bar in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles and a Roasting Works in the Glassell Park neighborhood. The process of opening in Los Angeles has been a bloodletting in terms of both time and cost. To say that getting through the licensing process in Chicago is comparatively easy, only reflects on how achingly slow and disorganized the various public departments are in L.A. Each should open in the next 30-60 days, power and permits, ahem, permitting. We have been working on them for almost a year. But as they say, hopefully the juice will be worth the squeeze. I think it will be.