Denez(a barista @Simon's) and I had a long conversation the other day about where the shop has come and where it seems to be going. Part of it is that Cambridge, MA for all it's diversity is a great area to test out this coffee as a culinary thing. The truth being that nobody had done it yet. Going into a little coffee place in Inman Sq. where they had a one group, an undersized plastic tamper, and 4 demitasse cups lonely, unused on the top of the machine gave me perspective. At Simon's, we currently keep 20 demitasse cups on the machine during the summer... and we run out. I want to illustrate the evoloution of this shop. Simon's went from drip coffee/bowls to espresso in two years. A fantastic thing if you think about it.
Denez proposed one thought. People want this, they really want this. They are clamoring for this, but they just don't know it until we show them. We've been culturing and nurturing this move towards espresso and in the end we just didn't know that people were already searching for this independent of us... sometimes unknowingly.
It really is a fabulous thought. People want better drinks, often they don't know what drink they want until we help them satisfy that want. Sometimes it's an evoloution of trying different drinks on the menu, sometimes it starts with a simple question 'What do you recommend?' All I have to help them is to choose an Ecco ristretto, a Terroir SO, or a guest something else on tap....
Thought for the day... Barista as a Sommolier isn't too far from the truth.
-Jaime
