I’m sitting writing this at my favourite coffee shop.
When I arrived, I ordered my coffee, sat down at my usual table, got the laptop out and started flicking through some emails.
As I casually worked, I watched the barista, Casey, make my coffee. When she is when she is at the machine, she has a certain posture. She is at work.
She arrives with intent.
Casey is focused and does everything with purpose. Every action is deliberate. It has it’s place within the sequence of steps that is required to make a double espresso.
I’d wager that in her mind, Casey has a visual respresentation of what a perfect coffee looks like. She knows the process that is involved in creating this cup, and she is able to influence the controllable elements of this task; the temperature of the water, the coarseness of the grind, the amount of ground coffee, the time of extraction…
She seeks feedback from her performance as she goes. From this information, she can make micro adjustments to the controllable elements.
The amount of care that Casey takes with making a single cup of coffee is what make her, and this coffee shop, extraordinary.
Simon G. Cooper 