currently brewing : onward

the thing about coffee is that it is humble. warm. connecting. and surely this also has much to do with the coffee shop itself.
connecting? yea. connecting us to others, while at the same time reconnecting us to ourselves (schultz, 2011). helping you find back your very own peace. assuring your soul that warm is still exist in the middle of a long cold day. giving you a refreshment to move on and rock the day.

i used to refuse the fact that coffee is good. it was bitter and black and gloomy. but thanks to starbucks who had changed that mindset :) with starbucks, coffee turns to be a good experience. hey, that gloomy black thing could indeed be good!

not only coffee though, starbucks actually taught me a lot of things. to dare to dream. to celebrate little things. to find comfort in small things. to actually live with people. to follow your heart. to put your family at the top of the list, even when your company has grown into a worldwide chain. to love people.


schultz indeed has done a superbly good job. and good books :D if you are into books, pour your heart into it and onward by howard schultz are really worth reading!

some says starbucks does not brew good coffee.
oh. who cares?
and answer this : if its coffee is not good, how could it be the largest coffee chain on earth to date?

no more romance?

found this in Toni Wahid's blog (He is a famous Indonesian coffee lover, coffee blogger, and a coffee master i could say).

santino brew

a newest product of PT Santino Indonesia, which is a super automatic espresso machine. wow. sounds heavy, no? 

one thing that caught my eye the most was the way it froths milk. look at that! what kind of steam wand is that? and it uses a plastic pipe. all you gotta do is put everything into place, and woosh. thats it. no feeling to measure how deep the wand in the milk is, no feeling how hot the stainless jug is, no adrenaline when turning on and off the steam, no smashing bubbles, no stir to smooth the froth. 

what a waste of romance!

though not a master in coffee brewing, let alone a barista, i highly appreciate milk frothing. it is one of the elements in brewing coffee that needs particular skills and feelings. its the most generous source of the coffee romance!

come on guys, you can do better than this.

pinky in action part 2 : french?

INT. STARBUCKS STORE - DAY
pinky takes big steps approaching the counter in her white shirt, pencil skirt, and heels, eager to be having her all-time favourite dark mocha fraps. her heels create noisy sounds as they touch the marbled floor.

CUT TO:

COUNTER

she mentioned her order to the guy behind the counter who had greeted her cheerfully. he offered the largest size of the glass, but refused by pinky who said 'ah no, thanks. grande would be good.' the guy asked whether he could serve the drink in a non-disposable glass, and she said okay. pinky paid for her fraps.

CUT TO:

PICK-UP BAR

pinky waits for her fraps to be ready, putting the $2 change in her maroon wallet. the cheerful guy places her order on the bar, tilts his head, and asks, 

'are you french?'

pinky smiles in confusion, answering, 

'nah. do i look french?' 

he shrugs and smiles back. 

'so where're you from?'

'i'm from indonesia.' 

he smiles again. pinky grabs one of the signature green straws and waves a thank. he gives a cheerful bye bye as she walks off to her sofa.

mission complete

just got home from tropical breeze exam this morning.

and how was it? let me tell one by one. stay tune :)

1. table setting
i have practiced this one an awful lot. and yes, its true that practice makes perfect! the highest proportion i got is from this. 10 minutes turned out to be just nice (it was quite disastrous in practices) and i could make it done in around 9+ mins. i changed my table cloth in one go (i did it two times in the mock exam), which was a nice beginning, and it did not touch the floor (it did touch the floor in every each and single practice i did *.*). score! however, i misplaced the salt and pepper -i did not know which one is left and right! haha. and one of my knives was slightly not straight. duh.
marks : 37/40

2. coffee making
this was disaster! hahaha. i was pretty confident once i stood behind the bar, but the level dropped to my feet as i read the card i took. MOCHA. bloody mocha. the one i avoided the most! too bad, nothing i could do since the 3 mins time has been started. everything was just fine till i stir my milk frothing. oops! some of the froth burst out to the counter (!). it grew even worse as i pour it inside the glass. half of it was froth. which is waaayyyyy toooo muchhhooo. groar. when i was pouring in my espresso, time left was only 50 secs. trembling, i tried to keep pouring steadily. and slightly before the alarm rang, i managed to serve it on the bar. dont even think about the cleaning. hahaha.
marks : 14/20

3. front desk
i was a bit desperate knowing how much disaster i made in the coffee making. if i could not make this one well enough, die. go home and fly kite. hahaha. but then, i could still manage to calm down (thanks, Father!). in 2 mins scenario reading time, i marked everything i needed to note, but ignore the preferences which usually would not affect the scenario. lesson learned : if you are told to read, read. ouch.
i printed the whole 8 files required 40 secs before the 10 mins time was up, without even realizing that my room type was wrong. once again fellas, read read read! dont be such a clumsy fool like me. ooh.
marks : 36/40

so the final mark would be ... 87/100!

YEAY! :D
thank you, Father. i love you lots!

coffee class = stay awake all night

indulging in kamil & erika's cappuccino

yesterday morning i had tropical breeze class. sounds cool, no? tropical breeze is my practical class where i learn lots of things, from picking up phone calls to making coffee. or officially from front office to f&b hehehe.

well, yesterday's lesson was to make a cup (or glass) of coffee. we were entitled to bring 1 litre of fresh milk for 2 persons. for we have 8 persons in our group, we bought 6 litres. and we learned the making process of 6 different variation of coffee.

joining this class got me thinking of how blur i was about coffee. i only knew how to order at starbucks hahaha. i couldnt even make a cup of coffee. all i knew was, making coffee means pour instant coffee powder, hot water, stir, add sugar or creamer as desired, and voila!

my teacher asked,

how many kinds of coffee bean are there in the world?
i thought there were about 6, java, sumatra, etc etc. i was close to answering
turned out to be only 2 (two!) kinds man. robusta dan arabica. robusta is strong in taste, while arabica is strong in smell. lucky i didnt shout out my answer!

whats the difference between cappuccino, mocha, and flatwhite?
die, i havent even skim the notes.
fortunately a genius classmate of mine answered. first difference was in the foam. cappuccino has the highest foam, about 15mm. mocha was about 10mm, and flatwhite was flat (it is a flatwhite, you see), only around 5mm. second difference spotted was in the serving glasses. cappuccino is served in a cup with thick lip, flatwhite in an exactly same size of cup with thinner lips, while mocha in a tall glass. the last difference would be in the chocolate powder. only flatwhite was served without chocolate powder.

and so followed by how to make espresso, long black/americano, flatwhite, cappuccino, traditional latte, gourmet latte, and mocha. in the first round i was to make a traditional latte. was successful. second round i was asked to froth milk for cappuccino. goodness, i failed twice. and it made me stressed out. all was successful except me! luckily there was a lot of spare milk that we could go for the third round. i was asked to make the real cappuccino. and it turned out to be … successful! i was happy happy joy joy seeing my foam rose high hahaha. felt like winning over a battle

in action!

even more fun, we could drink all the coffees we made. wetss you know we wouldnt waste the opportunity hehehe. one cup was circulated around so that we could try all the different coffees and because we had three rounds, we had plenty of coffee to drink. i drank till i got sick of it hahaha.

my lovely cappuccino!  

akh the coffee class was damn fun! so fun that i suffered staying awake last night from too much caffeine. my eyes refused to close. hiks.

sheryl and pinky  

 SLEEP SLEEP SLEEEEEEEEP!

photos courtesy of sheryl tan and kamil cwigon