Inspiration
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A simple, small and cosy cafe serving coffee and nice food was what I had pictured in my head for three years. I had wanted to open up my own cafe for a long time. I wanted my cafe to be specialised in good coffee as I saw it as a perfect pairing to food. However, I had no experience in this most volatile business in the world.
I started my research on coffee three years ago. I did lots of readings and met up with a few coffee suppliers to discuss about the different types of coffee and the production of coffee. I remember reading online about a Norwegian coffee roaster, Tim Wendelboe. I even purchased his book ‘Coffee with Tim Wendelboe’ from his website. He is a famous Norwegian coffee roaster and he has a cafe named after him in Oslo, Norway. The book talks about his journey in becoming a coffee roaster. Tim Wendelboe travels around the world to learn about coffee and spends lots of time educating coffee harvesters in producing high grade coffee. Good quality and top-notch coffee beans are hand-picked by him and supplied all over the world.
Duane Sorenson from Stumptown Coffee Roasters is another great inspiration for me. Duane started his remarkable journey by investing all of his money into a used coffee roaster. The key to his success is hiring right people. He always looks for people with an artistic touch. These people have soft skills and passion that are unable to be taught during any training. Duane has changed dead neighbourhoods of Portland, OR into vivid areas with great cafes and restaurants. Soon after succeeding on the local ground in Portland, he has started opening cafes in Seattle, New York and Los Angeles.
The link between these two persons is their passion and clear vision. They both serve only highest grade coffee. Actually, in their cafes they serve only coffee. That is a remarkable accomplishment to serve only coffee and achieve such high success. Their passion and love for coffee really inspired me. I wanted to set up a cafe with such good quality coffee that would complement the food on my menu.
I had an interview fixed for a job in an Italian restaurant in Singapore. When I was there, the interviewer mentioned that she needed a ‘sommelier’ for the restaurant. It set me thinking that I had little, or rather, no knowledge about wine despite drinking many types of wine throughout my life. So, I went home and started doing my research on wine. There was so much about wine that intrigued me. From the harvesting to production to the tastes. And so I read more and more and got absorbed into it. I actually found it very interesting. And soon enough, I saw myself doing the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) course.
