monday morning observations

monday morning, 10:30am. i'm at the roasterie preparing the third in a series of five+ cuppings of five samples i received last week from el salvador. i am prepping the table, grinding samples and heating water when it hits me: i really enjoy what i do. i'm able to scratch out an almost honest living. and in this setting it's difficult to imagine doing anything different in life.

back to the coffee. when samples arrive i typically cup them over five or six days, comparing notes not only on defects and dominant flavor characteristics, but also tasting the maturation process that happens as each of the coffees degasses and begins to show age. this is a time consuming process but vital to what i do because 99% of my customers don't drink coffee from me that is only one day off the roast.

as the coffees age i also am able to concentrate more on the one or two i think i might like to purchase (if any), using the others as controls. i fidget with possible retail descriptors, imagining how i will phrase what i find to be a peculiarly delightful taste characteristic with a certain coffee on the table. i furrow my brow because a coffee i had relegated to the proverbial minor leagues after two days of cupping has pulled itself somewhat back into the horse race--probably not all the way back in, but enough to make it more of a complex operation than before.

as i work my way down the line of the single cup samples (no need for three or four cup samples by day three, as i pretty much know already what i'm getting into) i swallow most of the spoonfuls early on, as i still haven't had my morning cup yet and need a little push for the rest of the day.

i look up and see my two beautiful children at the computer, my lovely daughter working her way through simple addition sums on the computer while her older brother not-so-patiently tries to save her from the error of her ways. "Aden, six plus two isn't seven!" he says with all the force of luther or calvin, rescuing heretics from the flames.

i am a blessed man. i have a lovely and amazing wife; two incredible children who mature me and sharpen my vision of what is important in life; a challenging career starting and growing a still very small business. you realize from this plateau that money is really not as important as you hoped it would (could) be. yes, it is necessary. but it is not beautiful and inspiring and able to cause such lucid reflection on how life is and how it should be. it's just money.

it's a coffee tasting exercise. nothing more. not much less. but this day it helps peel back the veil between the plain material world we trudge through daily and the magical, spiritual and effervescent life that tingles and shines just behind that material mask if we only use the right eyes to see it.

you can't fight city hall

...or so the saying goes. i'm not sure the etymology of that saying, but the meaning is clearer to me these days in my long odyssey to become a law-abiding member of the san antonio business community.

mostly my frustrations come from what appears to me as a bunch of folks mired in thick bureaucracy of regulations and of mind. i guess you can get so stuck in a rut of how things have always been that it gets difficult to see past that.

the five regular readers of this blog are familiar with my journey to get my permits for our new roasterie. the good news is that we have not been asked to stop doing what we're (already) doing by the city until we come into compliance. the bad news is the list often seems to grow longer with each visit and concordant sign off by some city official, rather than shorter.

case in point: the health department. faithful readers of this blog will note some months back my complaint that caused me to have to spend $500 on a sink to wash a $5 scooping pitcher. another item on that list that the health department left with me that day was to have smooth drop ceiling tiles (i.e., impervious to moisture accumulation) over said sink area because of the possibility of moisture from the sink (that is used when i wash out that scoop once a week or whatever) creating mold spots overhead. no problem. some of the tiles in our place are actually already of the smooth variety of which they speak. i could simply trade out the ones over the sink and have done with it.

not so fast, say they of the department of health. when i arranged to have our final inspection with them, they (after two appointments, mind you, made by me and two no-shows, no-calls by them) said i need to replace ALL of the tiles overhead anywhere "food is being prepared," meaning basically over 3/4 of the roasterie. this is because, again, of the "moisture problem" as they were wont to call it. being the tightwad (and cynic) that i am, i naturally took it upon myself to gain some clarification from them as to exactly what moisture they considered to be a problem in a roasting business that has as one of its main necessities the consistent absence of excess moisture. i refrained from pointing out that the only real moisture in this place came from the item they insisted i purchase and install: the sink. further, i felt i needed some focus as to how moisture was such a problem in a roasting operation when roasters, by explicit design, are meant to eliminate what little moisture the food (in our case, coffee beans) have, on the way to a completely dry product. roasting, by definition, i explained, is the very process of going the opposite way of moist. "kind of like peanuts," i offered, which is more or less how i view my scenario, i explained, seeing how most of the time i feel as though i work for them (peanuts, that is). blank stare from behind glassy eyes. the inspector's sense of humor was about as dry as, well, about as dry as the atmosphere here in the roasterie, i guess. but no matter. off to the nearest home improvement store i would now have to go to buy the outrageously expensive, super-deluxe, ultra-dry, moisture fighting ceiling tiles. cha-ching. down the drain go a few hundred more bucks.

then the inspection wraps. the inspector writes up my to-do list (again with me getting the feeling of my list growing longer rather than shorter) and the bill at the bottom of the form to get my permits comes to an additional several hundred bucks. when i inquire as to the nature of these extra, unmentioned-until-now costs, the inspector blithely quipped, "oh, that's for your food permit."

me: [insert sound of needle screeching on vinyl] "my what?"

them: "your food permit...so you can serve coffee."

me: "er, but we...don't...serve 'coffee' here. we sell coffee beans here. no liquids."

them: "yes, but this is a coffeehouse and you'll need a food permit to serve coffee here."

me: "er, actually it's a coffee roasting company. we have no plans to serve any liquid coffee or any other foods at this place--only to roast coffee and sell whole bean coffee here."

them: "right. that's why you need a permit."

me: "why again?"

them: "because you're serving food."

me: [in my quiet but firm voice, trying to crack the syllogism] "ma'am, i'm not trying to be insolent here, but i just want to understand and to be understood. we're not actually serving food. we're selling food people take home to serve themselves. the whole reason you don't see any tables and chairs and local art on the walls and cups and lids, or hear jazz playing in the background and stuff like that is because, as per the state guidelines, whole bean coffee is not considered a food because you can't immediately consume it on the premises after purchase. we purposely are not a coffeehouse because we wanted to avoid these very detailed and unnecessary (and expensive) food inspections. however, i hear you saying that i need to get a food permit anyway despite what the state tells me, and honestly, that's a little bit perplexing to me because it seems to countermand the explicit state descriptions on what is and is not considered a food, let alone add an exceeding amount of frustration to my whole business planning process. we've been very purposeful in our plans and frankly all of this stuff turns it on its ear."

them: "well, sir, i can see your frustration and i'm sorry for that. but rules are rules. don't shoot the messenger. i'm just doing my job."

me: "i can see that. well, alright, hit me with the to-do list and the bill, i guess."


and that was that. you. can't. fight. city. hall.

i guess i'll head down there soon, pay for my permits, arrange to have my new space shuttle ceiling tiles inspected, and, whilst i'm there, invite everyone down there to come visit us and get a drink at the grand opening of our new coffeehouse. i mean, if you can't beat 'em...make lemonade [?] or some such saying like that.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!", or, skyrocketing roasting profile comes to an abrupt and powdery end

they say it happens to everyone, that there are only two kinds of roasters--those who have had a fire, and those who will.

last night at approximately 1900 hours we joined the ranks of the former group in what was a minor but still disappointing episode of pyrotechnics.

as the regular seven or eight readers of this blog know, we have been building a 20-25 lb capacity roaster for some months. said roaster has been in the roasterie for the last couple months getting some of her final tweaks and touch ups put in place. i have also been consuming the 300+ lbs of "practice greens" i had purchased some time ago in order to help break in the machine and to learn its mechanics at differing volumes of coffee, as well as to continue to troubleshoot certain areas during simulated live batch runs. (this practice coffee is not getting sold, or even tasted really. it's simply fodder for learning.) last night i was in the roasterie for a quiet night of more work on the machine when the meltdown occurred.

i won't bore you with all the gory details of what went wrong when and where. suffice it to say that our technical design, while a very good one, will continue to need some tightening and adjusting as the machine continues to "break in." i am thankful, though, that my nigh unto religious equipment cleaning and maintenance schedule--in that, "take care of the goose that lays the golden eggs" kind of way--has meant no crazy fires in odd nether regions of ducting, and i hope this is the worst it ever gets.

naturally, this all happens a week after my engineer has left for the summer.

meantime, last night was a mixture of disappointment, frustration and, in a strange sense, excitement at experiencing something i've never yet experienced. unlike many roaster fires i've heard of that happen very quickly and leave the roast-person in a state of flux as events unfold fast and furious, i was well aware of the potential for the fire from an early stage and was even able to observe it for a couple minutes before finally deciding to snuff it out when it became obvious it wouldn't simply expend itself. i was lucid, to wit, even wide-eyed at "my first fire" until i realized the fire probably was going to go on for a bit if i didn't intervene. enter...the fire extinguisher. (i hate that white powder. it seems like such a failure, even though, as in our case, a couple tiny bursts on the trigger really, really get the job done.) i have heard from other roasters that it isn't so much the fire--which in this case was completely contained in the burn chamber space below the drum and in no danger of spreading--as the ancillary damage the fire's excess heat begins to cause. this was true in our case as well and this morning's task is to disassemble the parts of the roaster that were affected by the heat last night and to observe firsthand what damage the heat did and, hopefully, repair and improve them.

roaster fire. check. done it. hopefully i can tick that off the list now for good as i now go in today to work on eliminating by design that flaw i knew was there but didn't know was there in that quantitative way.

blah, blah, blah. we had a fire at HQ last night. we're all safe and sound, but now we've got cleanup and fixin' to do.

covering the $495 spread

been an interesting week. monday was a holiday but tuesday marked the day inspectors for our new roasterie would start descending on our humble operational headquarters. in all, there were six division inspectors who would need to give their john hancocks saying we were good to go: building, mechanical, health (food), fire, electrical and plumbing. no problems, i figured. i'm sure we won't be 100% in the clear; but we should have at least enough stuff done to merit at least a provisional okay. plus, i'm articulate enough to snow my way through the rest of what we may lack. and that's pretty much how it went down. but not before long stretches of boredom and doubt. everyone was supposed to show up on tuesday. but oh yeah, these are bureaucrats. nothing happens on time or according to plan. and we pay them several hundred dollars for the privilege.

first, let me say that inspectors are worse than the cable guy. we always thought the four hour window of arrival the cable guy gave was bad. these inspectors say you have to be there between 7:45am-4:30pm. no clue when they might arrive. and you'd better be there. if you are gone for a quick lunch and they show...toast. if they arrive before you in the morning, God help you. and calling them is no help because they never return their voicemails. now, normally all this wouldn't be so bad. i have stuff to roast and ship and there's still plenty more to arrange in our new space. except for the bottom sentence on the envelope they give you to hold all your inspection paperwork which reads: "It is unlawful to occupy the premises until all inspections have been cleared." i got really hung up on the meaning of the word "occupy." did that mean we couldn't have any of our stuff in there, even if it was practically all in piles (which it was)? did it mean we just couldn't be up and running, making money at what we do? could i fire up the roaster and service my wholesale accounts? would the smell of roasted coffee tip them off that we had already jumped the gun? what would my lie, er, excuse be for the smell? would they believe that the place had already been freshly painted before i got in there? i decided to keep everything in a sort of working funk, stuff piled in corners or under other junk that i knew i could use but that looked, to the casual, non-coffee-industry observer, just like a pile of stuff. functional disarray, i called it. if we jumped the gun, or looked as though we were jumping the gun, no soap. back to square one.

i was really concerned about this issue and worried they would find my level of moved-inness to be illegal, thus voiding my application and sending me to said square one. i was worried, alright...that is, until the first inspector showed up. six hours into my wait, mind you. his visit took all of four minutes and was a breezy pass. my first one down. after that i could breathe a little easier, having suddenly remembered an age-old truism: bureaucrats simply don't give a hoot. they don't care whether or in what stage i am "occupying" the premises. honestly, i doubt half of them cared at all whether i called for inspections or not.

at the end of day one i had three inspections down and three to go. electric gave me a provisional green light, granted i got some minor stuff switched around. the building inspector literally spent all of 45 seconds in the place, asked what other inspectors had already shown up, said, "you're looking good here," and signed off. it was the final visit of the day that got me a little riled. the mechanical division inspector showed up, made a bee line toward the vertical ventilation stack for the roaster(s) and began rubbing his thumb and index fingers on his chin in that quizzical way. after about 30 seconds of that he said only, "um, no." to which i said, "um, no, what, sir?" to which he said, "where did you get this?"

me: i built it.
he: you did?
me: well, yeah. me and my father in law.
he: how?
me: well, with this 4" and 8" double wall ducting, those braces holding the ducting to the rafters, that aluminum tape, that flashing and those screws holding said flashing to the roof and the rain guard up top of it."
he: how does it work?
me: (i explain some of the technical aspects of the roasting and ventilation process)
he: um, no.
me: um, no, what, sir?
he: well, you gotta have a licensed and bonded contractor build that for you.
me: why? it works. why should i pay someone else to do what i can do for free?
he: where are the specs?
me: what specs?
he: the specs from the roaster.
me: what specs from the roaster?
he: the specs telling you how to build this thing. i can't sign off on this unless i see the roaster manufacturer's specs saying this layout isn't gonna burn the whole building down.
me: no disrespect sir, but isn't that the fire marshal's call?
he: well, i still need the okay from the roaster manufacturer.
me: i...don't think the roaster manufacturer is in the business of doing ventilation specs. they do roasters, not ventilation systems.
he: i can't pass this, then.
me: then what am i supposed to do?
he: get the specs from the roaster saying it's okay to build it this way.
me: um....er, well, would it help you if i just turn on the roaster and show you how it works?
he: no.
me: well then can i just call my roaster manufacturer now and get him on the phone so he can tell you we're okay?
he: no. i need to see the specs.

...and so it went for another couple minutes of back and forth. city bureaucrats. cannot see beyond the specs. no forest for the trees. seriously. stop to think for a minute and take a look at it and realize that it is probably the best darned built, most solid thing you've seen all day, dude. and realize that you probably see a bunch of crap-built stuff by so very many "licensed and bonded contractors." and stop once more to realize that all you really need to do is step out of the theoretical world of covering your a** and step into the world of a) turn it on; b) examine whether it does what we say it does and c) it poses no threat to anyone/anything because it's very simple, basic and safe technology; and you'll be just fine. but no. he needs. to see. the specs. now...i realize that this is for my own protection and whatnot, yada yada yada. but seriously. what is it that is so magical about having to pay a contractor? you will only pay more and have it done less well and then have to pay them again in six months to fix what they only should've done right the first time.

anyways, after day one we were 2-1. that evening (after bureaucrats go home for the day) i spent the next four hours roasting and bagging and got home after a 21 hour day. the next day, nobody showed up. i got up after 4 hours of sleep, sped over there to arrive on time...and waited the whole freaking day while NO ONE showed. doing nothing but watching dvd's on the computer, trying to "not occupy" the building, reading a book, listening to some new demo's from questions in dialect's summer release, doing a touch of textual analysis on the fascinatingly complex theological syllogism that is Romans 1-3 (it's in the Bible), eating leftover saltines because i was too scared to leave for lunch lest i miss someone, and so forth. wasted day on the inspections front. (if the shoe had been on the other foot and i had made them wait there...!)

thursday morning came the fire marshal. another two minute visit. another clear pass. why hadn't the mechanical division guy given his approval so easily, i asked the marshal? he couldn't tell me. suggested i appeal to his supervisor. i said i would. he said he'd come back in a few weeks to buy some coffee. i said he could have a bag on me. he began to get a scared look on his face. i realized he thought i might have been offering him a bribe. i told him to come back and pay full price when i was "occupying" the building. plumbing division inspector also came thursday. another quick green light.

all that remained was the health department. after three calls and voicemails to their department on wednesday and thursday and no reply, i could only assume they would show on friday.

and so they did. late on friday. as in, i was almost leaving for the weekend. and i received disappointing news. the long and short of it is that they expect me to pay $500 for a sink to wash a single $5 piece of equipment once every other week or so. no rats were dancing in the rafters. no cockroaches were squirming in the beans. the place was spotless and we were in tip top shape (that is, for someone who wasn't actually occupying anything). all except for the stainless steel scoop i measure beans with. not to code. filthy. full of disease and pestilence and every malodorous thing imaginable. at least that's how the inspector made me feel. in fact, the scoop is shiny and clean and has not a trace of dirt on it. and yet i will be required to purchase a full-on heavy duty commercial sink so that this scoop can be washed, then rinsed, then sanitized and put back into production. $500 for $5. sounds like a bureaucrat at work. no forest seen for the trees.

now, let it not be thought that i am anti clean or anti sinks. and in fact the sink is on our budgeted list of purchase items. only not for a couple months down the line when we actually begin to serve things using utensils and whatnot that require washing, rinsing and sanitizing, i.e, things that people will use to directly consume food. not this stainless steel scoop that will scoop beans that will then be roasted to well over twice the temperature required to kill any bacteria in any food item on the planet.

alas. if you want to dance with the pretty girls you have to dance with the ugly ones first.

it's true. moving into a new place will always cost you more and take longer than you think. even if you think about it taking longer and costing more than you originally thought. and in the final analysis none of this is a deal breaker or will be much more than a couple speed bumps on the road to a successful new plateau for brown. but it's fun (yes, fun in its own wretched, not-making-sense way) and you learn from it and become better. for now, though, i just want the green light to actually "occupy" the building so i don't have to be roasting in the dead of night.