04.26.13

In review: Chicago Roasters Jam

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an event that was the first of its kind in Chicago. The Chicago Roaster Jam brought together roasters all in one room in a roundtable discussion, which was then followed by a blind cupping. The jam was organized by Miss Shannon Steele-Knuckles of Passion House Coffee, Andrea Otte (Otter) of HalfWit Coffee and was part of the New Gotham Coffee Community list of events. Hosted at Counter Culture Coffee‘s training lab, a large group of coffee professionals and coffee enthusiasts gathered to hear [aggregated] decades of experience opinionated in one short span of time.Read More

04.25.13

Quick life update

Can’t believe it’s nearly May. Just bought the domain jennchen.com, which is unheard of. My name is SO common that I took about 2 hours to make the decision and outright bought it at $50. If you try going to the site within 48 hours of this post, you will get a “domain for sale” page. In the next few weeks, you may or may not notice a few changes to this blog. I’ll no longer be at thecuriousbean.wordpresscom… I will be migrating from a wordpress.com site to a wordpress.org site. The layout will yet again be different. I’ll also be reorganizing a bit to incorporate a portfolio & resume. The blog itself will still exist, it just might not be the first thing you see when you go to my site.Read More

04.02.13

Coffee trip across Michigan: One dozen shops

Last week, I journeyed across Michigan in quite possibly my biggest coffee crawl drive yet. In 3 days, I hit up a dozen shops and met an unbelievable amount of passionate coffee people. As a side note, I’m probably not the best person to travel with if you’re the itinerary type: I didn’t know I was going until three days beforehand, had only my sleep spots figured out, no real time tables, & meetups with people were either planned the day before or an hour before via Twitter.Read More

02.02.13

January dranks, eats, makes

We’re one full month into 2013 and for this week’s post, I’m taking a look at my drinking, eating, and making consumption in January.

So that idea that I wanted to try a new roaster (designated by NR) every month more than succeeded. Favorites are designated by asterisks. What did I drink/eat/make this month?Read More

01.28.13

Craft time: What to do with old coffee bags

Most people throw away their retail bags of coffee once they’re through with the beans. I tend to keep all my bags. Design fascinates me in every way, coffee packaging included. I’m a fairly visual person. I believe that branding and coffee packaging is just as important a consideration for a coffee roaster as the name, location, and bean quality. But that’s for another post. This post is about what I did with these bags that I’ve been saving for the last three years.Read More

01.20.13

Importance of barista competitions

This post was meant to be posted on Thursday (I wrote myself an editorial calendar. Will probably take two months for me to actually transition to it). But it doesn’t matter, it’s still timely and the past weekend’s Big Central has only reinforced my opinion below.

Three years ago, I was embarrassed to admit that I streamed barista competitions on my computer.  Now, I proudly shout it out:

I WATCH BARISTA COMPETITIONS.

ON MY COMPUTER.

BY MYSELF.

Read More

01.14.13

Emotions in life and workplace

At the time of writing this, I am 27 minutes away from my Twitter-peer-imposed writing deadline. It’s been a weirdly emotional 24 hours for me. I know a number of people struggle in their 20s and I know that life-stress can be difficult to manage.

A few months ago, a close friend was diagnosed with depression and for the 2nd time in my life, I had to figure out how to respond. Do I tiptoe around her? Do I check in everyday? I still don’t know the answer, but I try and listen/answer to every call and email.

Last night, I found out that a different friend was denied long-term disability, even though she has medical proof of suffering from PTSD. At the same time, I also discovered the fact that she had PTSD for the last six months. We had only been intermittently in touch. This dear woman was one of my biggest cheerleaders when I was deciding whether or not to leave a job I hated. Her PTSD has been a result of recently recalled sexual assault and medical trauma. She has since moved back to Indiana with her parents, but is still seeking help in paying her medical bills. Please consider making a small donation. *If you donate at least $20, I will personally come to your office [in Chicago] at a scheduled time and make you a cup of coffee. Anything more or less is still deeply appreciated.*Read More

01.06.13

Meta post: Coffee blogging about coffee blogging

A coffee professional once asked me rhetorically, “Does it really matter what coffee bloggers say?” Which, since we’re being rhetorical, let’s just ask, “Do bloggers actually have influence?” My answer to both is a definitive yes.

Let’s define “coffee blog” as “a blog which main topic is coffee.” Simple, right? There are a number of coffee blogs out there, authored by all sorts of people. Writers span a whole origin scope: coffee enthusiasts, home baristas, coffee businesses, equipment reviewers, individual coffee professionals (from baristas to green bean buyers)… this list goes on and on. By sheer numbers, there are tons of coffee blogs. But by quality and consistency for specialty coffee, I’d argue that there are only a few dozen coffee blogs.Read More

12.30.12

Coffee 2013 Resolutions

A couple of weeks ago, Oliver Strand’s column “Ristretto” (last post) ended and coffee lovers all around the world shed caffeinated tears. Since I want to write more often, need more blogs to read, and I work way better with others keeping me in line, #blogchallengewk1 happened. One coffee blog post a week with D. Nettleton (read), Maxwell Mooney (read), and Randy Levine (read). Anyone can join in- no prior writing experience needed. 

For the past few years, I’ve been establishing one NY resolution a year (instead of the 15 that I used to write & give up on within six weeks). In 2012, my general new years resolution was to make new friends [outside of work]. I went through the pains of setting up an OKCupid account (I don’t suggest doing this to find new friends), attempted to join Meetup groups, and said yes to many events where I didn’t know anyone… needless to say, random group meetings, random one-on-one meetings, random parties… they just don’t pan out into real friendships. The new friendships I’ve made this year have all come out of the coffee industry and I’m grateful for all of them.

I’ve yet to decide on my general 2013 resolution, but I do have many coffee goals that I want to achieve in 2013.Read More

12.10.12

Coffee Chemistry

Note: These are my thoughts & notes from a coffee event. Facts stated do not have linkable sources, but were talked about in the lab. If I made any errors, I apologize. Please let me know what they are.

I’ve been attending a lot of coffee events lately and forgetting to write up my thoughts on them. Last Wednesday, Counter Culture Chicago hosted 20 coffee professionals for an organic acid lab. The event was free and open to the public. I guess only coffee pros attended, because the phrase “organic acids” might scare off.. pretty much everyone. The lab was put together by Lydia Iannetti from the Durham training center. The first part consisted of simple, easy-to-grasp slides while the second part was all about tasting the acids.Read More