I was born with an affliction: a poor kid with expensive taste. I remember, at around thirteen years old, going on a shopping trip to the mall with my mom to buy a pair of khaki pants. I found a pair that I loved, but they were way out of our price range. So we spent the rest of the day going from one department store to the next trying on less-expensive khakis that I’m sure were perfectly fine. But I’d already made up my mind. And apparently I was a brat.

After I started my first company out of college and transitioned from football to adventure sports, I decided I needed a four-wheel drive SUV. So I hightailed it to the Land Rover dealership to purchase the safari vehicle of my youthful dreams. During the two years I spent out west before returning to Tulsa to open DoubleShot, I basically lived out of that Discovery. I saw some amazing places and learned to live a simple life, but I still harbored the dream of being rich. And famous. My business plan boldly forecasted rapidly escalating sales, following a path I predicted in my early-20s: that I would be a millionaire by age 33.

From 2004-2007, I lived very primitively. And by the end of my thirty-third year of existence, despite expectations for my life’s fortune, I was destitute. I’d grown intimate with poverty, dodging debt collectors and the repo man. Still to this day, my fight-or-flight instinct kicks in whenever my phone rings. But I’ve subsisted by escaping into the wilderness or a good book, making things instead of buying them, self-reliant in all things, finding pleasure in simplicity and nuance.

I spent a couple of years peering into that other world. My girlfriend at the tail end of my 30s lived in a mansion, took airlines instead of long drives, and opted for luxury accommodations in her travels. She didn’t think twice about dining at expensive restaurants and could easily afford extravagances I’d only dreamed of. I’d learned it was difficult to be happy when you can’t pay the bills. But during that period of my life, I discovered that satisfaction comes from earning, and there’s more delight to be found in small luxuries than extravagant ones. 

I can spend hours in a creek bed picking up rocks. Sit in front of that wonderful Moran at Gilcrease staring off into a painted landscape that takes my imagination on a meandering journey to a place of freedom and serenity. I cherish a good book more than a night on the town. And an amazing cup of coffee … I wouldn’t trade it for the best wine in the world.

“Affordable luxuries,” we call those. Even the most expensive coffees we’ve ever sold don’t hold a candle to the price (per milliliter) of many folks’ everyday wine. We have an idea of what coffee should cost and it’s not the same as our idea of what things like wine should cost. Wine almost always comes in the same size bottle, so at least you can compare one to another. Coffee bags have gotten smaller, with most companies selling 12-ounce bags or the new trend of 10 ounces, usually for the price of our 16-ounce bag of coffee, if not more

Oftentimes when I drink wine, I think all winemakers must’ve gone to the same school. It’s like that in coffee too, but our school sucks. Roasters tend to be baristas who got promoted (like a bartender being promoted to vintner) or business owners who got the automated system (I don’t know if there are wine-making machines that you can dump grapes into and then let the computer do the rest). Roast profiles all copy each other, probably letting AI do the job, and produce a bunch of coffee that might taste good to some judge at a Coffee Quality Institute event but doesn’t taste good to me.

It’s a tough business, I’ve learned. Now, I’m not in it for riches. I gave up that dream a long time ago. I don’t want a boat or a membership at the country club. You don’t have to worry; I won’t show up at your cocktail party. (I wouldn’t even have anything to wear.) No, I do this for an entirely different reason. I do it because I actually love coffee and everything it stands for.

But let’s take a step back.

Coffee grounds are simply smashed-up coffee beans, which are the roasted seeds of coffee cherries. They grow on trees in the tropics, and the best ones are at high elevation on mountainsides in places like Boquete, Panama and Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. It’s even grown inland from some of your favorite tourist destinations in Mexico and Costa Rica.

Until global warming creeps up into the Rockies, we’re probably going to have to continue buying coffee from the tropics. Except for Hawaii, the United States is not in the tropics. So, apart from over-hyped Kona blends, we aren’t able to grow our own coffee. I travel to places like Colombia, Nicaragua, and India in order to get to know the land and the people who are responsible for the broad range of coffees I roast. Like the people who grow the coffees, each one has unique characteristics, bringing the aromatics from these exotic origins to your morning cup.

You probably don’t pay any attention to the commodity markets. Or tax rates. When a vote comes around for a third-penny sales tax, you probably don’t even know or care what a third-penny is. So I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you don’t know what tariffs really are, and you might even think the US government is levying these taxes against other nations.

Maybe you like the idea of tariffs. Maybe you think we can bring manufacturing back to the US if we make imported goods really expensive. Everything you see at Walmart could be produced in our nation's factories, built by American hands. Perhaps you’d like to have a job on an assembly line. Probably pays pretty well, right? Maybe then we can isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and create a homogenous society like the pilgrims always dreamed of.

Tariffs are taxes charged to people in the United States who import goods from other countries. I pay tariffs when I import coffee from producing countries. I’m paying tariffs on The Coffee Purist book, which is being produced in China. When I buy coffee from other importers, they pay the tariffs. But guess what. That increases the cost per pound, so they charge me and I charge you. Trickle-down economics, Reagan might call it. We haven’t felt the full impact of tariffs yet because we’re all still selling through pre-tariff inventory, but little by little it’s creeping in and you’re going to take it on the jaw.

While the commodity market (a financial market that speculates in oil, minerals, agriculture products, etc.) plays a large role in the price of commercial coffee (think big brands like Folgers, Maxwell House, Starbucks, etc.), those traders only occasionally provide a base for differentials in higher-end specialty coffees like mine. I happen to be friends with most of the producers I buy from, so I pay them more-or-less what they ask, which is often double what the commercial market is paying. As the commodity market has risen over the past year, the high price of commercial coffee has driven up the costs of these big brands, and the rising tide lifts all the boats. Thank goodness alcohol consumption is on the decline. Perhaps we’ll collectively have the budget to spend more on coffee. (See graphic.)

But beware. Do your research and you’ll find that nearly every coffee roaster in the US claims to have relationships with the folks who produce their coffee. I’m not sure if everyone is simply using the same AI bot to write the “about us” section on their website, or if they lack the integrity to tell you the truth about their “ethical” sourcing. But very few have actually been to the places where their coffee is grown and even fewer know the people who grow it. If they did, they certainly wouldn’t hide behind names like “Southern Weather” or “Monarch.” Perhaps they would write the name of the producer on the bag. Or some other foreign word that causes you to try and pronounce it in your head over and over again, e.g. Lah Mee Nee Tuh, Bam Bee Toh, Moan Tay Leen, etc. (Those are farm names.)

With escalating prices, due to tariffs and commodity markets, a lot of “specialty coffee” roasters are choosing to buy lower-quality coffee in order to keep their prices in check. That’s an easy thing to do, particularly when you’re not friends with the producers. I could simply call one of the big importers and ask them to send me samples of a few big commercial lots, and even though the coffee wouldn’t taste as good, most consumers are price sensitive and care less about quality than value. If you look around at any coffee shop (mine included), you’ll see that most people are consuming coffee with milk and sugar and flavorings. (We only have chocolate — and even though most people prefer it, ours isn’t chocolate-flavored syrup; it’s actual chocolate). Milk and sugar and flavorings mask the taste of bad coffee. Bad coffee is the result of laziness, ignorance, or prioritizing money over quality. If our “specialty coffee” roasters continue to pay low prices and purchase low quality coffee for their production roasts, blending to hide the defects and the farmers, the small producers around the world who are trying to elevate their craft will have no incentive to continue striving for quality. And that will be a HUGE loss.

I do my best to honor the farms where the coffee comes from and the people who work hard to produce the coffees. I’ve tried like hell to develop relationships with people around the world who I trust to produce excellent coffee and who believe in the same ethics of quality, hard work, and integrity. I love the craft that coffee can be — using our hands to care for the coffee plants on the farm and to pick the coffee cherries off the trees when they are ripe. To feel the coffee on the drying bed or the fermentation tank to determine its readiness. Hand-sorting coffee beans for quality, removing those beans that might taint our delicious brew. Even loading the coffee into bags at the mill and carrying those bags on men’s shoulders to load into a truck or container. My hands turn knobs and push levers, pulling the trier to see how the coffee is progressing through the roast. I roast by hand and I use my fingers to comb the quakers out of the cooling bin as it spreads hot beans over a high-speed fan. I love a good hand-made pourover. It’s the way Juan Ramon makes me coffee when I’m at his farm (Montelin) in Mosonte, Nicaragua. That’s how I make my coffee every morning when I wake up, even using a hand grinder instead of electric. It’s the manual nature of it all that draws me to it. I’m blue collar through and through. But I have expensive taste.

When people tell me they don’t like coffee, I say I don’t either. Because I can guarantee that the same coffee they didn’t like, I also don’t like. I’m not sure where a good price point would be for that commodity coffee. I suspect most producers are breaking even around $2 per pound, so for sustainability’s sake, it must be higher than that. But with the commodity market fluctuating around $4, it’s pushed specialty coffee prices into new territory. Specialty coffee is not commercial coffee. We are not Starbucks or Folgers. So what is the right price for specialty coffee? Right now, I’m paying a huge range of prices for coffee. Frankly, the cost of living is different everywhere I go. That’s part of the reason Hawaiian coffees are so expensive and Vietnamese coffees are so cheap. Living in Panama is not the same as living in Nicaragua. Hell, I could live like a king in Bolivia. So each producer asks me for a different price. I want them all to be successful and continue improving their quality each year. So I pay it. Do I think specialty coffee prices are too high right now? No, I think we’re used to paying too little. We all need to get accustomed to the idea that inexpensive coffee is not good coffee.

We have no way of knowing what’s happening on the local level for coffee producers, but I can tell you that exporters and cooperatives have power over small producers. So even when you see the C-market soaring, that may not trickle down to the farm level. When you buy coffee, whether you like it or not, you’re making an impact by supporting either low quality or high quality, either commercial or specialty. When you support low quality, you’re feeding into a system that doesn’t care about people, only about money. If you care about people, I’d suggest you carefully consider your purchases. (If you’re reading this, ignorance is no longer an excuse.)

Coffee bean prices at DoubleShot are going up. I’m paying more money to producers than I ever have. And since I’m not rich and privy to loopholes in the tariff assessments, we’re going to have to continue paying extortive taxes to the federal government. But I don’t see these prices ever coming down. Even though it pains me to have to charge my customers so much more money for excellent coffee, I’m happy that the farmers are finally making the profit they deserve. Our coffee has gotten better over the years because of access to better beans, acquisition of better equipment, and more experience roasting different types of coffees from all over the world. I’ve just gotten better at it. Better equals more value, and more value costs more money.

It’s still an affordable luxury.

I’m not like that. If you even considered me to be some sort of artist, I’d say I’m a production artist, at best. I design things that I want people to take home. I create pieces that are temporary and curious. My work isn’t supposed to be perfect, just interesting. I took a page out of Shepard Fairey’s book (of which I have a few) when it comes to posters. I started noticing his OBEY signs around Nashville when I was visiting friends there in 2003. I read Shepard’s manifesto. And I brought that ethos into the DoubleShot when I started creating my own works. It’s about asking questions. It’s about piquing curiosity. We want our customers to ask questions so that we can share what we know and what we do. So if you ever see something in the DoubleShot and ask yourself, “I wonder what that’s supposed to mean?” I did my job. Now go ask a barista.

Art is subjective. Even the definition of art is subjective. Mark showed me that some guy duct taped a banana to the wall and a collector bought it for some ungodly price. Methinks Scotch tape and a coffee bean could be next. But I remember once when a show went up on those 18th & Boston walls, I puzzled at the art and told Candice, “I could’ve done that.” To which she replied, “But you didn’t.” And that’s the rift. Some art is fantastical. Some art is simple. And just because you feel it’s beneath you doesn’t mean it isn’t art.

People just like us (only way tougher and more capable) scratched stick figures of people and longhorn sheep, bears, boats, snakes, and all sorts of things into rock walls thousands of years ago. Sometimes they used ochre and other times they tapped the rock in paleo pointillism like Seurat’s ancient ancestors. Today we put ropes and stanchions around these images to protect them from being defaced by bored teenagers, and park rangers lead interpretive talks about the people who lived and made art and died in these places.

To some, the geology of the walls is interesting enough, but to most of us it’s the art on those walls that draws our attention. Were the paleoindians defacing the cliff walls by making petroglyphs and pictographs up and down the desert corridors? Some primitive form of graffiti? Perhaps they were, but now we protect it as if it’s a Banksy stencil on a London flat.

If you look at the definition of graffiti on the internet, it’s defined as a form of vandalism, which is “willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property.” But graffiti artists aren’t painting in order to cause harm to someone, and in my opinion they aren’t “spoiling the appearance” of austere, grey concrete walls or decrepit, decomposing factory facades. A lot of these guys are really talented and invest a significant amount of time and money for specialized spray paint to decorate the undersides of our infrastructure. You may not like it because you can’t read it, and when you can, you don’t like what it says. You’re confused by Rebop, Mango, Swank Tabu and the like. And you don’t like being confused. Because, just like Shepard Fairey’s OBEY posters, you might have to actually think and consider the fact that mega-corporations are bombarding you with words and symbols every day in public spaces trying to entice gratuitous consumerism. Words like Nike and Pepsi and those ubiquitous golden arches are so prevalent that you barely even think about it any more; they’ve bored deep into your subconscious.

I’ve never been a big fan of paid advertising. It seems like a promotion lacking creativity when there are so many ways of getting your message out for free. Way back in the early 2000s, I’d put DoubleShot stickers in places they might not necessarily belong. And then a customer named Jonathan showed me how to cut stencils into corrugated cardboard with an X-ACTO knife. So I started spray painting the sides of empty Solo cup cartons with the word COFFEE and some with a primitive-looking DoubleShot logo, and zip tying them to telephone poles up and down Riverside Drive. People would see a sticker at, say, Turkey Mountain and then follow my kraft blazes down the river to our front door for coffee. Once, a city worker came to DoubleShot with a big stack of my cardboard signs and told me it was against the law to put them on city poles. I was thankful that he returned them, comped him a cup of coffee, and promptly went back out to zip tie them on poles that our governors have no authority over. Then I discovered the stencil burner and mylar plastic sheeting.

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll remember that most of the DoubleShot tshirts, hoodies, and trucker hats from the early years were painted by my dad and me with stencils I cut in plastic. We had a lot of fun airbrushing multi-layered stencils, and the designs were only limited by our imaginations.

My dad and I started restoring vintage cruisers and I created a new company called Native Bikes. We would disassemble each one and fix whatever might be wrong, sandblast the frame, and I would dream up a theme and paint scheme, oftentimes using stencils for flames, names, and patterns. The logo I’d created for Native was cut into an aluminum head badge, which branded the front of every one of our bikes, including my own racing bike.

I took that Native moniker with me on many mountain bike journeys. We painted my bike frame a metallic grey and baby blue with flames on the top and down tubes, and I named it nemesis. That bike and I felt like the nemesis of many cyclists, and our go-anywhere approach made us the antagonist to customs, regulations, and laws across the American West. The name stuck, and when I took to the streets with stencils in hand, it felt only natural to bring it with me. But I’m a minor figure (even a non-entity) when it comes to art.

I did attend a liberal arts college, where I was required to take an art participation and an art appreciation course. So I chose hand built clay (which found me crafting slab bowls and animated statues) and “Classical Gods and Heroes” (which introduced me to The Odyssey and all manner of other Greek mythological characters). In most forms of art, I’m better at appreciation than I am at participation. So I admire the 3,000 year old rock art in the Colorado river valley outside Moab. I appreciate the genius of renaissance painters whose work dangles on museum walls. I gawk at massive, corpulent black statues in Botero Plaza in Medellin. And I marvel enviously at the skill of people with aerosol paint cans who create whimsical, colorful, intricate designs in the nooks and crannies of public spaces, most of which you wouldn’t dare to go.

Like the Hindu rangoli designs on the doorsteps of homes I visited in India, street art is temporary. Government employees and citizen vigilantes are constantly blocking those colorful concrete paintings in drab grey and brown overcoats. I admire the art until it disappears, and then I wait for creatives to redecorate on some moonlit night. Like discreet billboards, our street artists are painting their tags in places you might have to look for. Oftentimes they won’t block out your view of the countryside, but peek out from the buttress of an overpass. That’s the way I like it. Art only found by the curious and observant.

And since I love free advertising, I’ve taken this opportunity to borrow my favorite Tulsa tag for a new line of products. Fittingly, this comes from my other company, Native Design, through an off-color project I call nemesis.

Over the years, I’ve ripped off some of the best. Shephard Fairey, Banksy, the paleoindians, Maurizio Cattelan, Johannes Vermeer, Bob Bernstein, Rube Goldberg, Magritte, Gainsborough, Vettriano, Picasso… Boost.

I am the nemesis, after all.

More on the BOOST lineup at purist.coffee.

I am afflicted with a resilience and steadiness that throws most people off. But it comes with a downside. I have ideals that I chase, doggedly believing I’m going to change the world. And the world largely ignores me. Inside, I feel calm and uncompromising until I don’t. Then a figurative storm erupts inside and the acid rain of crushed hope pours down, washing away my dreams until I resign to no longer care. Because sometimes I feel like not many people in the world do care. And sometimes I wish I didn’t.

Yesterday was one of those days. It was all over my face, because I wear my heart on my sleeves. I was a bear, impossible to mollify. I barked and snarled and growled. I looked around for problems I knew I couldn’t untangle. I thought about issues I’ve tried to fix for years with no success. I resolved that I’d stop giving a damn, stop noticing, stop expecting. But the problem is, as a like-minded friend put it, I have high standards and I expect a lot out of myself and others. That’s a problem because I can’t just salve my discouragement by lowering my expectations of those around me; it would require lowering the expectations I have for myself as well.

I don’t have to lower my personal expectations because when it comes to getting shit done, I’m a machine. I could probably out-work my dad, which is no small conjecture. I learn fast and adapt and use tools I’ve developed over the years to ensure I’m doing my best work most of the time. I do not care what it takes to get something done, I will do it. My mantra has long been: “You can’t beat me.” Don’t even try.

So that leaves me in a quandary. I try to give people the tools to achieve excellence, but they don’t like my tools, don’t use my tools. I try to show people a better way, but people don’t want a better way. I remember when I was alive in Boulder Colorado, I looked around at the opportunity to give that community better coffee. They had decent coffee at places like Brewing Market and Peaberry Coffee. But Boulderites preferred the swill served at Trident over on Pearl instead. I knew I could make coffee that was better than anything ever brewed in that town, but eventually I realized Boulder didn’t want better coffee.

And sometimes I wonder that about Tulsa, a less-inspiring place to drink coffee - and maybe that’s precisely the reason we should be drinking better coffee. We don’t have mountains outside our windows to distract our attention. We don’t have world-class athletes rolling in on bicycles to meet up for a cappuccino. (We do, but even the athletes in Oklahoma have to leave in order for us to acknowledge their accomplishments.) We don’t have “cool” to obscure a lack of “good.”

A lot of people come to DoubleShot. Not every day. But the number of people who have been to DoubleShot must be in the hundreds of thousands, if not in seven figures. And in the early days a lot of those people came because the coffee was good, yes, but also because there was something in the air. Not just my air, but all those tall guys wearing tight black t-shirts brought something special too. Most of them came from a conservative Christian upbringing, like me, and I suspect they appreciated being in an environment with passion (a word derived from the suffering of Christ), rules and high standards.

Passion comes from the same Latin root as patience: an attribute my mother warned me not to pray for because God might grant that trait through long-suffering and adversity. But I didn’t need God to pepper my life with tribulation; if there is a path of least resistance, I choose the other. It’s one of the reasons I divorced myself from the church as a young adult. I’d been thinking about what type of person I wanted to become and what it might take to achieve that. I looked around, comparing people’s lives with the resulting character I saw in them, and it seemed clear that hard work and endurance were the keys to building the life I wanted. I saw that the life of ease tends to make people weak, negligent, and unprincipled. And the words I’d heard so many times growing up in church echoed through my head: “Let go and let God.” It’s a New Testament ideal, a far cry from the Old’s trials of Job. I saw that nouveau doctrine playing out in my church, with the faithful beseeching God to do things that only required a little clever rumination and elbow grease. And I knew our differences were irreconcilable. (What would my earthly father have said if I leaned on him to do the things I was too lazy to do myself?)

Around that same time, I was exposed to the ultra-wealthy population of Tulsa when I moved here from rural Illinois to become a personal trainer in Midtown. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the riches that these people had, and most of them came from generational wealth, compounding the divide between us. They couldn’t comprehend the life I’d come up in or the lifestyle choices I was forced to make. At first I was a little intimidated, because we’re taught that money is power. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it didn’t take too long for me to realize that sentiment doesn’t hold true in the gym. I flipped the narrative upside-down and made sure my clients understood the power structure when it came to strength and fitness, and I was their master. I’m a generalizer and things were really clicking into place for me as I trained my body and mind with self-imposed hard work, strain, consistently pushing and expanding my limits. You can’t buy that. There’s no easy way to attain the types of traits that I wanted to define my life. This is where I thrive, eschewing the Tim Ferris-style life hacking and lottery-winning shortcuts to “success” in order to just buckle down and engage in good, honest labor. Because whenever you see a rich person who is really fit, they may have had the leisure time to train more than average and they may have had the funds to eat healthier than usual and they may have even hired people to coach them in the right direction. But they still had to put in the work, develop the self-discipline, and do things they may not have wanted to do in order to achieve that goal. I bet that’s hard for a rich person.

But maybe they just had cosmetic surgery. Liposuction. I’ve always wanted to get liposuction. I just need to rid my belly of all the excess fat cells I developed as an Oreo-addicted adolescent and I’m just sure I could have a six pack. But I’m too much of a coward, all the what-ifs and unintended consequences dissuading me. And then there’s the fact that it’s cheating. I nearly cheated in college. Not on exams or in anything academic (unless you consider using my charming personality on my professors, cheating). I nearly cheated in my extracurricular religious pursuit: football.

My hometown friends and I idolized a bodybuilder named Mike O’Hearn, because he claimed to be a “natural” bodybuilder, meaning he didn’t take steroids or growth hormone or any other banned substances. But the guy was massive and ripped. Broad shoulders, huge pecs, six-pack abs, and hulking thighs, he was a statue of manly perfection. We wanted to be him, and the idea that he managed to grace the cover of Muscle & Fitness Magazine through sheer hard work was all I needed to hear. I’m sure there’s a certain amount of genetics involved in the disparity between my body and O’Hearn’s, but I watched other guys in the gym begin to look like him while I continued to look like me. The difference? Those guys were doing ‘roids. I knew there was at least one guy on my college football team doing steroids and I suspected there were several others in the conference who were juicing. We all knew pro cyclists like Lance Armstrong were cheating, baseball players were being found out, and the idea that the massive men playing in the NFL were passing drug tests seemed like a farce.

So I carried $250 cash in my gym bag every day for a couple years. Each day I went to the gym intending to spend the money with some Mike O’Hearn lookalike who would give me the gym candy, take me into the locker room and show me how to inject it into my arm or leg, or maybe it was oral. Hell, I had no idea. But every day I would get to the gym and remind myself that it was cheating. Anyone could take steroids and get jacked. The trick, for me, was building a huge amount of strength, power, size, and speed without cheating. So I never did it.

Those are called principles.

I went to Society on Cherry Street to have a burger for lunch. It’s not the best burger or fries and the service isn’t particularly good, but I’m a man of routine. I don’t like to exacerbate my decision fatigue by trying to decide where to eat. They have a nice patio with a blazing fireplace, and I don’t generally feel sick or bloated after eating there. When I walked in, I recognized a man sitting at my usual table who has been a regular at DoubleShot since the very early days. He was friends with Chicago Bob, who shockingly died in a car accident. I don’t really know this guy, but he’s quietly been around for a very long time. In fact, I’d just seen him at DoubleShot earlier in the day. He was engrossed in conversation and didn’t see me, and I didn’t particularly feel like idle chit-chat anyway. Eventually he left, but came back because he forgot his scarf. And then he happened to noticed me, and came over to my table. He began to tell me that DoubleShot is a really special place. He said my work is understated but the passion that I have seeps out into the customers and creates a “sacred” space. He said that it’s become a “home away from home,” and that it’s meant so much to him and his family for many years.

I knew this guy was solid because of the people he hangs out with, but his words really meant a lot to me, especially with my current state of mind. He won’t have any idea, but everything he said was just what I needed to hear. I almost had tears in my eyes, but he left with his scarf and I stoically finished my burger. Then as I got up to leave, a man at another table called to me and said, “I know who you are.” I walked over to his table and he told me he really loves DoubleShot. He said he drives by every morning on his way to work and stops in every Friday for a treat. He brought his daughter there and now she goes every day. He said it’s really something special and that the coffee is the best in town, maybe anywhere.

I was flabbergasted. I had no idea what to say to either of these guys. I just thanked them and told them I was having a hard day and their words meant a lot. I know that we tend to believe in the supernatural based on unexplained coincidences, and I felt that. It truly seemed like something compelled me to go to Society (as opposed to eating ramen at my desk or Roosevelt’s, my other lunchtime haunt) and that same spirit coerced these two men into saying something to me. The Great Spirit, maybe, which guides me when I’m in the wilderness. Or maybe it was just the random kindness of people.

It buoyed me a bit, and I started to think about all the problems I experience, all the hurdles, all the aloneness I feel. I thought about what that first guy said about my passion creating a sacred space. And I could feel myself centering once again. I think after my mother got sick and stopped working at DoubleShot, I found myself in the midst of so much sudden change and paperwork and in a management crisis. I started focusing on how to fix the problems and took my eye off of the basis of my beliefs. What makes DoubleShot different from every other coffee company out there is our unwavering commitment to operating under a strict set of standards. Beneath those are a list of values and practices that define who we are and what we believe in. Not everyone who comes to DoubleShot will know that it’s this way, but if you hang out long enough, one should feel it.

After lunch, back in the office, I went on a long tirade about our company values. I think what I realized after talking to the two guys at Society is that the people who “get it” are folks who understand that the coffee is really good because of my unwavering commitment to that core set of beliefs. They love the coffee, but they aren’t surprised that it’s good because they know I’m stalwart and resolute. Most people aren’t a part of our tribe. They’ll get mad that we messed up or they’ll disagree with the way we do something and start patronizing another shop that doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Not enough people buy into the idea of foundational values for a business, but if we don’t start focusing on the importance of those things, this place is going to careen into oblivion and I’m going to let it.

I slept hard and dreamed vividly and woke up feeling like I’ve been trying to maintain the “old way” during a changing culture that has lost sight of what coffee really is and what it means to do things with integrity.

People don’t know how fragile this ecosystem is. I’m still the key man and if I go out in the wilderness and don’t come back or if I give up hope and decide not to continue, the whole DoubleShot experiment is over. Thankfully, there are people like the two men at Society who preserve the integrity of this thing with their appreciation and assurance that I’m not wasting my life. It’s about a lot more than our original mission. Today, our continued existence must revolve around that list of values, practices, and core beliefs.

So here it is:

Craft - hands-on roasting, packaging, design, storytelling

Knowledge - history, science, agriculture, processing, varieties, cultures, equipment, consumer behavior

Integrity - honesty, fairness, reliability

Quality - product, place, intentionality in all

Work Ethic - think about the meaning of those two words

Relationships - with the producers of all our products, our customers, and others in the industry and our community

Proficiency - sourcing, roasting, design, drink-making, and storytelling in the written word, videos and audio production

Conservation - not wasting resources, over-using energy, or throwing away what can be reused

Freshness - not compromising this for a dollar

Health & Fitness - through sport, eating well, encouraging regular exercise and healthy coffee drinks

I’m constantly thinking about what makes us different from all the other coffee roasters out there. The big guys like Starbucks and Dutch Bros, to my estimation, have no interest whatsoever in coffee. They are caffeine dealers, at best. They are huge because they scratch the itch of mainstream society. Sugary, caffeinated milkshakes are what most people consider “coffee.” Caffeine is not coffee.

But what about the local roasters that have popped up all over the US over the past few years? That’s good, right? Because, as I learned way back in 1998, freshness is really important when it comes to the taste of coffee. But that was just the first thing I realized when it came to roasting. Since then, I’ve developed a whole arsenal of skills and knowledge that determine whether or not that fresh-roasted coffee will taste good. Most roasters don’t know and don’t take the time or have the curiosity to find out what those factors are. I’m sure you’re not aware of this, but the overwhelming majority of small roasters are roasting the same coffees, maybe calling them something different for the sake of marketing, and don’t have the first clue how to actually roast coffee because their roasting machine is computerized and programmed solely to turn green coffee brown. They don’t have the palate, the interest, or any concern whatsoever about serving you an excellent beverage. They have cute names for their blends though.

How about the heavyweights in the specialty coffee sector? You probably know the names. Well, let’s ask some questions. Why are they selling so many blends instead of focusing on relationships with producers and highlighting single-estate, single-variety coffees? What’s with all the expensive packaging? Why are they selling coffee in 10-ounce packages for prices that you would normally expect from very high-end 16-ounce bags? Why don’t they talk about how they roast coffee? Who is roasting the coffee? Is it a robot, like the robot baristas they showcase?

What about all the fancy brands you see on the grocery store shelves? A lot of those are local. But coffee beans on the grocery store shelf are not fresh. The roasters put “best by” or “expiration” dates on the packaging, generally a year from the time it was roasted. That’s not quality. That’s a money play.

All the hoopla about AI these days is infiltrating everything from decision-making to art to communication. Need a website? AI will design one for you with AI generated images and AI generated text. Want to start a roastery and coffee shop? No doubt, AI will order your coffees, roast them, make the drinks, greet your customers. Everything except cleaning the cafe. You’ll still need to hire immigrants to do that. Is that what you want? Do you want to go to a coffee website and look at fake images and read text composed by a computer?

At DoubleShot, we do everything the hard way. I design all the packaging, and sometimes I even craft the packaging myself, by hand. I travel to places where coffee is grown, so I can see the farms and understand how they are processing the coffees. I get to know the people who grow our coffee. I manage all the logistics and financing to purchase and ship coffees. I cup and use my experience and palate to discern what coffees are best for our portfolio. I roast all the coffee myself. And with the help of staff, all that coffee is sorted, packaged, distributed, brewed, and sold. They call us “old school.”

People occasionally tell me they want to open a coffee shop. When I hear that, it’s no different from someone telling me they want to start working out. Maybe they want to look like Mike O’Hearn. Maybe they want to serve really good coffee. Either way, it’s going to require a herculean effort over a long period of time. And if it’s not hard, you’re probably not doing it right. Sure you could cheat - like my desire to do steroids or get liposuction. But again, true satisfaction in life is the product of hard work, discipline, endurance, adversity, even suffering. Avoid all that and you might as well have stayed your ass on the sofa eating Cheetos and THC gummies with over-ear headphones, engrossed in watching someone else play video games.

Here’s the hard truth: No one likes the guy who leans into principles.

You may feel a sense of security and consistency and assuredness because of him, but he’s impossible to be around. Which leaves two choices really. Retreat inward, maybe escape to the woods. Or kill that old man. It’s likely the estimation made in my early 20s was completely wrong and I became an intolerable person. A machine, sure. One designed for work, not love.

Walking up to work this morning I thought about Isaiah and his exodus from Archetype Coffee. I’d be willing to wager that he could keep going, except it’s too hard to experience extreme, untold stress all day from work and then leave work to experience derision for not doing things the way that conventional wisdom would say a business should be run.

I operate as close to my limit as possible nearly all the time. It doesn’t take much to push me over the edge. And I’m probably teetering on the edge right now. Over the edge is the idea that no one cares, that this is all a lot of very hard and complicated work, and it’s all for nothing. On the other end of that totter are those grounding principles. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if anyone agrees with me or not. I either live by my principles or I disappear.

There are too many people on the wrong end of that board. We need more folks who are steadfastly bound to the ideals. A few of us outweigh a multitude of them, because they are empty.

When you shop for trinkets or for things produced by huge corporations, you have options. I might see a cool chess board at a local shop, but it’s easy to search that brand online and find a better price or a different model I like more. (If you know me at all, you are aware that I’d most likely take the idea to my wood shop and build my own chess board. If I played chess.) I might go to a big hardware store and see a drill I want, and it’s easy for me to shop online to find out if I can get it cheaper. This sort of thing happened to me in the Panama City airport. I had some time, so I was looking at wristwatches, and I tried one on that I really liked. But it was $450. Too much. I pulled out my phone and opened my amazon app and found it for $300.

Conversely, the last time I was in Flagstaff for an ultramarathon, I walked around the downtown, bouncing in and out of the shops, where I found a beautiful ceramic cup decorated with cherry blossoms, made by a local potter. They had four of them and each one was slightly different in its shape and coloration, so I picked out the one I liked best and bought it. It’s not something I could find online. And because I knew the artist’s name (Natalie Reed), I had somewhat of a personal connection to the piece, and I didn’t want to pay less than the asking price. I wanted to honor the potter’s work, and today I drink coffee from that cup and think of that story.

You can certainly shop coffee online, but if you want DoubleShot coffee, there are basically only two ways to get it, and both of them are directly from me. You might like a Java natural coffee I have from Montelin in Nicaragua. So you go online and search and find out that this is the only place you can get it. Or maybe you’re enjoying La Minita, so you do a Google search for that and find it all over the place. Some places cheaper than what I sell it for. But if you buy it, you’re going to find out how important the hand of the roaster is in the taste of the coffee. There’s only one DoubleShot, and you’ll never find coffee like ours anywhere else.

That being said, there are a lot of other reasons to consider how you spend your coffee money. When you purchase from local businesses, you’re supporting local employment. Do you appreciate the baristas at DoubleShot? You can help them keep their jobs by purchasing coffee and related coffee gear here. It may look like we’re rich and don’t need your dollars, but we absolutely do. This is a hard business, and when you’re like us and have uncompromising values, it’s even harder.

You think we’re a stalwart in Tulsa and the industry at large, and that we will be around forever after. But that’s not guaranteed. Any number of events could destroy this business. It could be eroding beneath our feet right now. There could be things happening behind the scenes that you don’t know about that could eventually mean the end of this thing you’ve come to accept as a part of your daily life. That means you should take every opportunity to buy and consume coffee from here while it’s available. And you should support the business whenever you have a need for coffee or coffee gear, because another dollar spent here instead of on Amazon or at Williams Sonoma will go further in helping us survive another year and keep that seat available to you another day.

You could walk through our shop and see a grinder you want. Pull out your phone and find it online cheaper (with free shipping, of course), and buy it from a faceless company that probably is having it drop shipped from the manufacturer instead of keeping it in stock like we do. But when you receive it and don’t know the best way to use it for our coffee, don’t know how to keep it clean and maintained, or have a warranty issue, make sure you go back to that faceless company online and ask them. Buy from me, and if you have a problem, we’ll fix it or replace it with no hassle. We’ll show you how to clean it and dial it in properly for whatever brewing methods you’re using at home. It’s called support, and it’s reciprocal.

What type of businesses do you want to support? A lot of companies are started by rich kids who don’t really have to learn how to do anything because they can hire people to do whatever needs to be done. A lot of those people aren’t in it for the love of the product, but rather investing in a company to try and increase their wealth. Are you looking to help a rich kid increase his wealth? Or do you invest in the idea of the American Dream? The DoubleShot was built one dollar at a time, one coffee bean at a time, with the hours and sweat and learning required to do everything you know us for. When I started the business in 2004, I didn’t know how to do anything. But I couldn’t hire someone to work on the espresso machine or coffee brewer when it broke down. I couldn’t pay someone to do marketing and graphic design and website development. I didn’t have the resources to seek out an interior designer or carpenter to build out the store. I had to learn to do all that myself, and put in the time to actually produce. This is a working coffee company. I built The Rookery out of a 170-year old dairy barn on purpose because I want our home to represent who we are. And we are a company with a work ethic.

I know coffee from all these years of experience, dabbling in every aspect, obsessed with every detail. And I want you to know coffee too. Because then you’ll better appreciate what you see in a bag of coffee beans and what you taste in a cup. The more you know, the more meaningful it is when you choose your coffee and consume the brew. That’s one of the main reasons I’m publishing The Coffee Purist. Not only do I expect you to come away in disbelief that so many wild things have happened over the course of my coffee career, but I hope you’ll conclude with a greater understanding and appreciation for what happens before the coffee finds its way into the barista’s hopper. (If you haven’t purchased a book yet, what are you waiting for? Pre-order one now at purist.coffee.)

Even at DoubleShot, which coffee you choose can have an outsized impact on our supply chain. All of our coffees are good, but farms like La Minita and Rio Negro are big factory farms owned by a vertically integrated Japanese tea company. I love La Minita, but whether I buy one sack or five hundred sacks of their coffee, it doesn’t make any difference because they have enough customers to sell their entire crop at a high price. When you choose to purchase coffee from some of the small farms like Bambito (owned by Priscilla), Montelin (Juan Ramon’s farm), Volcancitos (Sergio), Maduro (Ariel and Cristina), and a host of other producers you know I have a personal relationship with, it makes a much bigger impact. These coffee farmers are oftentimes producing coffee specifically for us, to my specifications. They are hoping to sell as much coffee as possible to me, because their only other alternative might be to sell it into the commercial coffee market, where they’ll make half as much per pound. Buying from a stand-up guy like Juan Ramon helps support his family, allowing him to invest more in his farm and improve his coffees, and it allows him to spend more money in his local economy. When he’s forced to sell coffee to big exporters that sell to those companies you see on the grocery store shelf, he’s often earning less money than it cost to produce the coffee. When I make a deal with a farm owner, I’m giving them a way out of that stressful cycle. I pay far greater than the commodity price, far more than it costs them to produce the coffee. I know this all sounds far fetched, but you don’t have to believe me; I had coffee producers, Cristina Garces and Ariel Montoya on the AA Cafe podcast when they were in Tulsa, visiting from Colombia, and they talked about it. It’s a long episode, but well worth a listen (or two). Go do that now: aacafe.org

Listen, I’m a country boy at heart. I grew up in the middle of a massive cornfield that stretches from Nebraska to Ohio. More often than not, I listen to country music. So it’s in my nature to be on the farm, to feel the texture of the leaves of coffee trees between my fingers and touch the soil that nourishes their roots. I become friends with the people I do business with. It’s not fair trade or some other certification, and I don’t even think of it as direct trade. It’s me forming friendships with people and developing mutual respect and trust in one another, so that they produce excellent coffees and I do them justice by roasting them properly and talking about the people who work so hard to produce them. The hard work and diligence on the farm continues in this very building.

You might feel good about your awful coffee purchase because a portion of the proceeds goes toward some worthy cause. But how can you be sure? Who is ensuring that money is used wisely? I’m skeptical of companies who put their philanthropy out front as a reason you should purchase from them. It’s playing on your emotions instead of providing you a quality product. Buy from someone you trust, like me, and I can assure you that we take care to look around and support the things I think are important. Like the arts in Tulsa. The schools near the farms we buy from. We created a micro-finance project years ago that continues to grow today and support needy farmers in Nicaragua. We’ve helped orphanages and community projects in poor parts of Colombia. We gave money to build water lines to a rural school so the kids would have clean drinking water. I paid for coffee pickers when I heard of a farmer who was ill and at risk of losing his farm. And we’re currently working on a larger project to help fund water wells in Ethiopia. We don’t normally talk about all the things we do, and I can’t even remember it all. Because I feel that responsible giving is really important, but shouldn’t be the reason you buy my coffee. It should be an undercurrent of what you feel but don’t necessarily need to know about. Buy from people you trust.

You can buy a pound of coffee off the grocery store shelf or from one of the big companies online that spend millions on marketing, and you’re supporting an industry that disrespects farmers. They lie, they cheat, and they sell the worst version of coffee on the planet. Or you can buy coffee from me, and know that your dollars are actually helping people in the tropics who need it, and the coffee will be top-notch.

What difference does it make? For every pound of coffee you buy, you’re actually making a moral decision. It doesn’t have to be that. You can just buy coffee from DoubleShot because it tastes good. But you’ll still know that I do everything I can to do the right things. Because you know me. Do you know the person who owns Community Coffee or Folgers or Dutch Bros? You may not have known that your coffee buying decisions were either hurting or helping people, but now you do.

And now you get to make that choice for yourself.

especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action.

I’m what they call passionate. I rarely refer to myself in that regard, but probably ever since I refused to serve some irritating drink or kicked someone out of the DoubleShot for being an asshole, they’ve said I’m passionate. My mom probably has a different perspective on the whole thing. She says I had qualities as a kid that turned out to be good qualities as an adult. Well, that probably depends on who you ask. When people inquire what I was like as a child, she says, “Smaller.” So I’ve probably always been this way. But the common reprimand in my adult life has been, “I love that you’re so passionate, but…”

But… soft. What light through yonder window breaks? What light? Perhaps it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. When I first started running marathons, people talked about hitting the wall and then when I started running ultramarathons I realized the wall was actually a tunnel, and if you run far enough you’ll come out the other end. (As long as you do the right things.) The marathon just isn’t long enough to see the light on the other side, so they assume it’s a wall. But I’m not a marathoner. I’ve run in mountains all over the planet, mostly between rows of my beloved coffee trees. But running a business is an endeavor that has no end. It’s running toward some constantly moving goal, hoping there’s no finish line or disqualification for moving too slowly and sucking at your job. Hoping the latest tunnel isn’t a wall after all. I’ve DNF’d the Leadville 100 something like seven times, but twenty years into the DoubleShot, amid countless failures and missteps, we’re still hauling ass. So I want to unravel some of that, because our apparent success isn’t so straightforward. It’s quixotic, to say the least.

Jason Collington wrote an expansive piece about me in the Tulsa World in 2005, back when people did that sort of thing, digging into what made DoubleShot unique and how I became known as the Coffee Nazi. He didn’t call me quixotic in the story, but when he interviewed me for a follow-up in 2023 (now as the paper’s executive editor), he seemed amazed and dismayed at what the DoubleShot has grown to become for this community. He said, “You weren’t supposed to succeed. You should’ve failed.” Should I have?

I sat in the back of a taxi, rolling down the road from the airport in a town called Rionegro high up on the ridgeline above Medellin, the city lights dominating the valley and dotting the surrounding mountainsides. I sat and thought about the road trips I’d taken all across the Rockies and adjacent deserts over the past several years. Trips I’d often taken in silence, driving and thinking, working out the path of my life and how I’d gotten to where I was. What I’d done right and wrong, what I wanted, what I didn’t have yet. My successes and failures. In the cab I sat and listened to the Bachata music playing on the radio, Prince Royce maybe, and I drifted off into the theater of my mind where a pretty girl in a spicy red jumper danced flawlessly and elegantly across the bowstrings of my heart. It’s the give-and-take that makes life interesting for me. I had it all in my late twenties, except I didn’t have anything. I was building experiences through a physical strength and ability I’d honed for that very purpose. I longed for a more meaningful career and an income stream that would bolster my ability to finally land my ultimate objectives. Not absolute freedom, as it turns out; rather, earning my shot at something more fulfilling even than that.

I’d shown up in Colombia the first time with the idea that I could meet a coffee producer and buy coffee from her and roast it to serve my customers at DoubleShot. This was an extremely naive (and exceedingly idealistic) way of doing business. I Googled “coffee farm Colombia” or something asinine like that and eventually stumbled across some info for a woman named Cristina who had been trained by Willem Boot and was a certified “Q grader” (coffee taster). She appeared to own a coffee farm in Antioquia, so I sent her an email. She told me to let her know when I was in Medellin and she’d take me to the farms. Farm(s). It turned out her father was the largest coffee producer in Colombia, which at the time was the second-largest producing country in the world. I was in way over my head.

As the taxi descended into taller trees, I looked at my watch and realized I wasn’t getting any younger and hadn’t eaten in far too long. I had a half-Cuban in my back pocket, and my mind turned to the mouth-watering idea of going down on that the first chance I had. Hunger is an interesting facet of emotion and desire. I’ve always had a hunger for knowledge and self-reflection. I’ve long had a hunger for coffee perfection. I used to imagine what my ideal of the perfect cup would be like. It set into motion this quest to be good enough to recognize it when I tasted it, to know how to roast it properly, to understand the brewing variables well enough to dial it in for proper extraction. Not unlike the life I’d built outside coffee. Learning, training, experiencing, always searching. But now I don’t idealize “perfection” as something necessarily immaculate; rather, I keep my awareness open enough to recognize something unique when it comes my way. And, as I dig deeper, having the ability to discern when I’m in the presence of the incomparable. But I use my nose to smell out when something isn’t what it appears to be. I use my mouth to flesh out what it could be. I search for its quirks, the soft spots, even the things that people might call “flaws,” and I find pleasure on the edges.

Once I drove a similarly descending route from Flagstaff to Sedona, not into the city of eternal springtime, but out onto the high desert full of yogis and eccentrics. I can admit to being a bit eccentric myself, so I’m not a hundred percent out on that scene. But with no coffee trees in sight, I decided to give a local roaster the chance to show me their stuff. I walked up to the counter and ordered an americano: “Leave room for Jesus.” I don’t like my coffee or my relationships watered down by trivialities or practicalities. Of course the coffee was disastrous. Because it takes a lot to make that relationship right between producer and roaster, terroir and climate, variety and process, fermentation and drying, time and temperature and pressure. A proper coffee is hard to come by. That’s why I always say when you have that moment, the moment of elation, take it all in. Stop and relish what’s happening and how rare it is that the stars aligned.

Two of the fairest stars… having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres ’til they return. The eyes are the windows to the soul, they say. One can impart an awful lot of information through the eyes. One look can be worth a thousand words. It’s a connection I found with Juan Ramon Diaz in Nicaragua. I suspected that he and I were brothers of some sort, but when I saw the look of devastation and courage as he held back the tears of his father’s mourning, I knew his soul. I thought about what I was even doing in Nicaragua, trusting a friend of a friend and on down the line to help me stay out of harm’s way and be honest with me and parse out what it means to produce excellent coffee, to earn proper wages, and to be in a relationship. On a wing and a prayer, I took my shot. I introduced myself as genuinely as I knew how, stayed out of the trivialities that sometimes plague relationships, and promised complete transparency and brutal honesty. That’s what you want, right? Brutal honesty. No, probably not. Not unless you’re the rare one whose straightforward demeanor demands nothing less. And that’s how I operate. No one ever accused me of being “too nice.” So I commit, mostly out of unrealistic and impractical ideations of commerce and friendship coalescing into a bountiful outcome for all. And then I find out one of these coffee farmers is out swiping on coffee Tinder looking for a date to the prom. I’m not interested in a date. I’ve trained my entire life for this moment and I want a commitment to work together at the highest level, to inspire one another to be better, to admit our failures and maybe even to admire the flaws. The “imperfections” are what make it. And I can see it in your eyes.

I witnessed the birth of Maduro throughout my early days in Antioquia. That relationship with Cristina blossomed into a full-blown friendship in which her husband, Ariel, agreed to do some experiments with coffee from his farm, and then more experiments until we created Colombia’s first natural. I may be quixotic, but greatness is rarely found by the staid.

I walked through the coffee trees on the side of a mountain in Guatemala, where I’d disappeared into a sea of chicken buses and Mayan villages and earthquake ruins. I popped a cherry into my mouth and tasted the soft, sweet, stimulating flesh that I’d purloined from the limbs of another’s rightful harvest. A harvest neglected through a years-long relationship in which fallow fields yearned to be cared for in a way that’s generally impossible without a transfer of ownership. I birthed two coffee seeds from the pulp in my mouth, twins I quickly adopted as my own, with the intention of raising them into the best two trees I could in a foreign climate, something I know very little about. But you surely know by now that ignorance is not an excuse that keeps me from full-on commitment.

The microwave sounded its three long beeps and snapped me out of my trance. I’m that weirdo who nukes an Arby’s roast beef sandwich for breakfast at 4 a.m. on race day. I thought about the hours that lay ahead of me, the miles upon miles of trails I’d tread. The anticipation of quiet but for the sounds of breezes through trees and waters flowing, the bird’s call, my breath and footfall. As each mile passed, the societal norms set upon me would melt away and I would transform from person to sapien, and then ascend into the state that resides prominently within me: the lion. Unleashing that quiet confidence where there is no future or past, and my immediate awareness sharpens to a razor’s edge. And what does that have to do with coffee or business? It’s the thing I hide away when I smile and nod; that mysterious thing you sense when you look into my eyes and feel nervous. That primal state which drives our core values and disallows anything less than absolute respect and conviction. In a general sense, Collington was right. This is no way to run a business. But I play the long game. I methodically and unwaveringly stand my ground, first earning your respect before earning your allegiance and indulgence. You wonder if the lion will speak. One lion may when many asses do.

En boca cerrada no entran moscas. That’s a proverb I learned at Galesburg High School in a class that taught me root meanings of words, suffixes, prefixes, and the like. Turns out this was one of a jumble of proverbs spat out by Sancho in Don Quixote, novel by the great Cervantes: “It’s a sin to belie the devil: but misunderstanding brings lies to town, and there’s no padlocking of peoples’ mouths, for a closed mouth catches no flies.” I tend to tilt at windmills. The mayor, other coffee roasters, Starbucks, sometimes even the customer. But my windmills are idealistic imperatives that get usurped on occasion by politics, greed, misinformation, or ignorance. The black-and-white of wrong and right can sometimes be perspectives that change over time, situations that I can hyperbolize in a momentary overconfidence. But sometimes being exceedingly idealistic is what’s needed in a society seized by mob-mentality in which groupthink forgets about our lack of egalitarianism. Am I right or am I wrong? And is someone with money just trying to exert their financial superiority into societal subjugation? That’s what gets my hackles up. So I fight for an impractical leveling of the playing field. It’s quixotic, sure, but I’d rather have a mouth full of flies than be a mealy-mouth.

I walked through Maracay, the farm in Colombia where we get our Pink Bourbon and washed Caturra, among other things, and I observed that some trees had bronze leaf tips while others had green. This is normal, but not usually in a lot of trees that are supposed to be the same variety. It’s like inspecting the troops and finding them all wearing different colored hats. I was asking the farm manager about this and then I stumbled on the most remarkable thing I could imagine: a coffee tree dressed entirely in red. Red cherries, sure. But this one had red leaves, which I’d NEVER seen before. A true anomaly, something so remarkable growing in what can only be described as the bosom of the woods of some royal forest. A Kimberly. Pristine. I stood and looked in awe. If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. I touched it and felt the texture of its leaves, the structure of its limbs, its strength and suppleness. The forbidden fruit I haven’t tasted. But I intend to just as soon as it’s ready.

I saw two robins out on the lawn, one plump and round and the other lean and mean. The smaller of the two hopped irregular circles around the larger, a dance of daring and determination. The female avoided the advances of the male, at times dashing for him as he retreated and then resumed his pursuit. Once in too close, the two leapt into the air, colliding twenty feet above the earth, abreast, dive-bombing back to the grass and the ritual continued. She lets him in and then retreats, methinks. He hops around the perimeter, waiting for another chance as she preens her wings and puffs her mighty breast. Dancing has never been my forte. It was against church rules when I was growing up, so I developed two left feet. In college I was required to take a dancing class called Rhythmic… something, and not even my then-girlfriend wanted to be my partner. All that said, I understand the dance that exists between two souls when they meet amid an innocent gaze. I know the dance of the barista, juggling portafilters and steaming pitchers, navigating drinks and folks between the refrigerator and sink. I know the dance of the roaster more intimately than anything. That’s a sacred dance.

I love coffee. I chose to love coffee a long time ago, and to me that kind of love means getting to know it more and more all the time, even through its seemingly endless changes. It means holding it close, even closer in challenging times. But something else happened in the early days. I fell in love with coffee the way one falls in love with their soul mate. I remember how it lit me up the first time I had a meaningful experience with coffee, and how it still lights me up thirty years later. It’s that combination that makes it work for me over the long-haul. A daily decision and a deep affection.

Joe Holsten was probably the first person to actually grasp what I was doing with coffee. He sat down sheepishly on a stool as I commanded the bar and slung commentary and coffees with equal bravado. Joe. A fitting name, for coffee’s sobriquet. He probably ordered a doppio and I probably looked at him side-eyed. I pulled something spectacular out of the grouphead and felt that it was too good to give away, so I drank it myself. Then I pulled another equally godlike shot and told him he was lucky that the weather was just right for espresso and the shots were running toward eternity. I went back to my romantic discourse until someone whispered, “Joe is crying.” I looked over and Joe was sitting on the floor against the crema-colored wall, cradling the demitasse in his hands with tears rolling down his cheeks. “What’s wrong, Joe? No good?” He didn’t have the words at the time and I probably didn’t grasp the certainty with which he affirmed my mission. But today I hear whispers of intensity and desperation echoing in my head; whispers from the ages, like winds flowing up out of a cave where the soul resides. Pure, passionate, primal words that affirm my life’s mission and steel my dedication with even more fortitude and forbearance. I know what I want. It came to me in whispers.

I fell asleep while I was eating dinner Friday night. I woke up staring into a plate smeared with the residue of mashed potato with half a New York strip and a handful of Brussels sprouts. I used to fall asleep in the cafe, sometimes on the rubber mat in front of the three-compartment sink. I’d be washing dishes at some ungodly hour and decide to just lie down on the floor for a minute and then I’d wake up and realize it was time to open again and I hadn’t finished the dishes from yesterday. I know what it means to work a lot. People used to brag to me about how many hours they worked and how few they slept, but I knew that was a fool’s errand and I was on that very path to destruction. My friend Fred used to say he was burning the candle at both ends. He died young. But I understand his urgency to get as much done as humanly possible. This life is too short and I have too many ideas and aspirations. I acknowledge here and now that it’s impossible to achieve everything I set out to do in one lifetime. And so I hope I get another go. I hope I fulfill some of the gritty stuff and get a restart with some of those things already in the bag. Of course I don’t believe in that kind of thing, so I’ll consider Nietzsche’s “eternal return” and stay the course. I’ve trained for the past twenty-nine years for one dream I’ve yet to realize. So I decided it’s time to tie that knot.

We are on a precipice. The changes that are about to take place in my life and the life of DoubleShot are monumental. I predict that this time next year we will look back in awe at how different everything is. This is the end of an era, my friends. For all the good and bad, all the pain and hardship and victories and defeats, now is the time to step forward and grasp at the chance to fulfill the ultimate purposes for which I set out as a mere child. My methods have been quixotic, to say the least. But always forward. I count my losses as lessons and the lost as honored ancestors, and I do not dwell on my victories. Is this about absolute freedom? Certainly not. It never has been.

Don Quixote, imagining he were disdained by a beautiful queen and his love unrequited, decides to go out into the wilderness and do penance in order to prove his madness for the queen despite not being rejected, so that she might understand the lengths that he might go should she actually reject him. He asks Sancho to stay and watch him for three days so that he can go and report Don Quixote’s insanity to the queen. Sancho asks Don Quixote, “What more have I to see besides what I have seen?” To which Don Quixote replies:

“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”

Let me back up one more time. This continent was crawling with wildlife, even into the 1800s. If you’ve ever been to Africa and seen lions walking down the roads and giraffes craning their necks alongside tall trees, you get a vague idea of what the Americas might’ve been like back in the day. I read a couple books about the Corps of Discovery Expedition of Lewis and Clark (Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose is a classic), and their boat ride out west from 1804 to ’06 was nothing if not a testament to the diversity and breadth of animals ranging across the continent. Current estimates guess that there were sixty million bison roaming North America at that time. By 1890, there were sixty million people living in the US and only 541 bison remained. Quite a trade-off.

I’ve been told that bison are not buffalo but I disagree. Sure, their scientific name is Bison bison bison, generally shortened to “bison.” But the Oklahoma state wildflower is the Indian Blanket, which bears the scientific name Gaillardia pulchella, and no one gets upset that we don’t call it gaillardia. I read a book by Stephen Rinella called American Buffalo and he makes the argument that the two names, bison and buffalo, are used interchangeably, and both properly. Historians believe the name buffalo came from the French, who were trapping and hunting all over this continent before colonization. Beef, Frenchified: Boeuf. In 2019, I had the rare pleasure of seeing the large-but-elusive “bison” in the Baba Budan Giri Hills of southwest India. The beast rose up onto its hind legs, a prodigious body on spindly limbs, leapt over a fence, and disappeared into the forest. But these aren’t bison at all; they’re gaur (Bos gaurus). My friend Jaime Abel usually drives me around whenever I’m in the Colombian countryside where he manages a few cattle ranches, one of which raises water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) for milk (and mozzarella). But in Spanish, Jaime always reminds me to be careful milking a buffalo because it’s a lot different than milking a buffala. So let names be names. Buffalo in the U.S. are bison.

—

There were a few bison caged up in zoos at the end of the 1800s, which is pretty much the only place an American could see one by then. One very famous bison was called Black Diamond, a big bull buffalo housed at the Central Park Menagerie (now called the Central Park Zoo). This guy was rumored to be the model for the bison on the obverse of the 1901 ten-dollar bill with portraits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on either side. (This rumor has since been quashed, as the model for the engraving was apparently based on a stuffed bison on display at the Smithsonian in the late 19th century.)

Black Diamond was also rumored to be the model for the reverse of the buffalo nickel. In 1904 President Roosevelt expressed his dissatisfaction with the artistic state of the American coinage. Thus began a years-long effort to redesign a few things. And eventually, in 1913, the buffalo nickel went to mint. This was designed by James Earle Fraser, the guy who sculpted the “End of the Trail” statue that was in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. (Subsequently the statue was tossed into a mud pit along with other works of art from the exposition, then rescued and displayed in a park in Visalia California until it was deteriorated by weather and given over to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in the 1960s, where you can see it today.) But Fraser never said Black Diamond was the model for the nickel, and further research points toward another bison that was kept at the New York Zoological Park (now called the Bronx Zoo) named Black Dog.

That reminds me of a story. I was in Panama a few years ago, hanging out on a coffee farm where Gesha trees grow as thick as the hairs on a bison’s tail. The top of the farm had an orange tree that turned out to be sour orange (an orange so shockingly sour that it’s almost an addiction) and the bottom of the farm had rows of giant drooping flowers that released an intoxicating perfume at sunset which apparently contains a bit of narcotic that helps stinky people sleep. There were children playing on the dirt roads and a black puppy trailed along with them. So I asked them in my most formal Spanish, “Como se llama tu perrito?” To which they replied (in their best English), “Blek Dog.”

So I don’t know why this Black Diamond was so popular and why he was stealing everyone else’s thunder, but these are the facts.

—

Back to Roosevelt. Not only was he pissed about how crappy our coins looked, he was also pissed that we’d decimated the bison population across the entire continent. So he, along with the American Bison Society, set out to establish a new herd in the newly minted Wichita Forest and Game Preserve. I recently found a publication from the American Bison Society from 1908 that details the political, logistical, and practical events that took place in order to move bison from New York to Oklahoma. In October of 1907, fifteen bison at the New York Zoological Park were herded into individual wooden crates built specially for the project and loaded onto a train, and seven days later arrived in Cache, Oklahoma where the crated animals were off-loaded onto wagons and carted twelve miles across the prairie to the new bison range. The big breeding bull in this new herd just so happened to be Black Dog himself.

Black Dog, the buffalo nickel model, seeded the herd, which grew to 67 head in 1916, by which time the bull had also grown to be the largest living buffalo, at 2,800 pounds. Today the herd in the Wichitas fluctuates between 600 and 850 head. Every year, the refuge rounds up a majority of the bison for measuring and testing, and then they auction off a number of animals to control the population. But they don’t auction off all of those; some they give away to Indian tribes that are seeding or growing their own herds.

Back in my formative years, long before the DoubleShot, I spent a considerable amount of time in the Wichita Mountains, mostly rock climbing the backside of Elk Mountain and exploring the trails around Dog Run Hollow and Charon’s Garden. So I took a friend on a hike and a climb that I thought would be a relatively simple scramble but turned into an all-day, lip-quivering expedition in which I thought I knew how to get back to the car without using the trail but actually did not. At one point we crested a grassy saddle between two boulder-covered hills and just over the ridge I spooked a big, black buffalo, which ran hither instead of thither, and that was only the beginning of our troubles that afternoon.

—

In 2016, the Osage Nation purchased the 43,000-acre Bluestem Ranch from mogul Ted Turner. Located in the Osage Hills near Pawhuska, the Osage planned to start their own herd of bison in an effort toward food security and independence. So in 2017 and again in 2021, the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge gave twenty and fifty-one head of bison, respectively, to the Osage, whose herd now numbers around two hundred. Further, in 2022 the Bronx Zoo gave six (three male and three female) bison to the Osage Nation, the first bison given away by the zoo since those original fifteen head were shipped to Oklahoma in 1907.

A few weeks ago, Mark and I drove out to Hominy and beyond the town past the prison and their little casino to the Osage Nation’s Butcher House Meat Market. The Osage built the butcher house in 2021 because of the breakdown in our food systems during COVID. This thing is a big-ass red metal building built like a backward mullet, meat counter in front and the business end in the back. Bison are brought in through the rear door where they’re put down and processed, eventually making their way to the front as steaks and ground and jerky and snacksticks. I know, right? But we were on a mission. We sat down to shoot the bull (not literally, but if anywhere, this would be the place to do it) with a couple guys who’ve since left for greener pastures. And after a taste and a tour, we walked into the coldest room in the house and walked out with coolers full of meat.

We started selling bison during COVID for the same reason the Osage started slaughtering them. But now, we’re really excited to partner with the tribe to bring their bison to Tulsa. It’s been a long journey, if you look back on it. All the way back to the Bronx Zoo and Black Dog relocating to the Wichita Mountains in 1907, where these animals made a comeback and eventually were restored to the Osage Hills in 2017, where native people have been hunting and eating bison for millennia. And now we’ve got more than plastic white buffalos adorning our walls at the DoubleShot. You can secure a tenderloin filet and some ground bison to take home and cook. If you haven’t had it, you should. You can’t ask Lewis and Clark or Teddy Roosevelt about it, but you can trust me. I’ve been hanging out with Black Dog’s progeny for years.

The Specialty Coffee Association. That sounds … well it sounds big to me. But when we told the transit cop on the Portland train that we were in town for a coffee conference, he laughed and said he never imagined there would be an entire conference just for coffee. And he’s right, to some extent. There isn’t an entire conference just for coffee because this one seems to pretend to focus on coffee while its manifestations are everything but. The idea that people actually drink and enjoy coffee as a solitary beverage is one I was duped into believing way back in 2002 by the National Coffee Association’s statistics on coffee consumption in the U.S. But once I opened the DoubleShot in 2004, I realized almost no one drinks coffee. The majority of coffee is consumed in a way that masks the actual taste of the beverage. Which I could understand if we were talking about oatmeal. But we’re talking about coffee. Imagine if almost all the whisk(e)y in the world were consumed with Coke. Wait… Is it? (I digress.)

When I first started roasting coffee, it was with a small fluid bed roaster, a bunch of regional coffees (save one: a single estate coffee called La Minita), and a book entitled “Home Coffee Roasting” by a guy named Ken Davids. I read that book and roasted the coffees and made lots of notes, and over time my skills at roasting and tasting began to develop. In 2006, in the midst of the Starbucks saga, I sent Ken Davids a pound of my Ambergris Espresso Blend, as he was reviewing what he probably called “boutique” espresso blends on his website, CoffeeReview.com. This was an exciting time for me, and I was thrilled when Ken rated my espresso 91 points (or was it 92?) and he emailed to tell me that he was glad my coffee turned out to be one of the good ones. Boy was I glad as well; an affirmation from the man whose book launched my roasting career that I was doing it right. And then I noticed on Ken’s website all the coffees that scored higher than mine had logos next to the review which clicked over to the roaster’s website, and all the coffees that scored lower than mine did not. So I emailed Ken and asked him to put my logo on the site. And that’s when I found out the whole thing was a sham. A pay-to-play scheme in which top-rated coffee reviews were bought with “sponsorship” dollars.

•

Mark and I went to see Ken speak in a lecture hall at the conference and, still affected 17 years later, I was salivating at the idea of standing up during the Q&A to ask Ken about his shady scoring practices, widely acknowledged throughout the industry but shrouded from unwary consumers. Ken is an affable but awkward old man, and as we watched him stammer around the podium, Mark whispered that this might be his swan song. He talked about a book on coffee he wrote in the ’70s that sold a quarter million copies over the years, the roasting book that got me started, an unheralded book on espresso, and a new book entitled “21st Century Coffee.” Scatterbrained and directionless, he rambled for 45 minutes while I sat sweating and cogitating, but in the end I simply couldn’t attack the poor guy in his last shining moment.

There used to be a waggish monthly I enjoyed, entitled Mountain Bike Magazine. I’ve never been a fan of sitting and looking at pictures or reading descriptions of people doing something I’d rather just be doing, but this magazine was witty and sarcastic and kept me up to date on the latest gear. And then they published an issue with a negative gear review of the latest suspension fork released by the major player in that space. The following issue was thin, and it began with a letter from the editor explaining that the shock company had pulled all its ads because of the low star review. And that was the end of that. So I sort of understand Ken’s dilemma; once you start, you can’t stop.

•

There once was a man named Andy. He owned a company in California that roasted coffee, and a local Tulsa shop was using it. A barista of that shop would bring by some beans now and then, and we’d brew and taste and talk about it. Then one day, he brought an Ethiopian natural that blew me away. I went to the website and read all about it. About how they’d bought it “farm direct” in Ethiopia, etc etc. Excited, I emailed Andy to find out how he pulled off the thing I’d been wanting so badly to do. I can’t quite remember what happened after that, but suffice it to say I realized Andy wasn’t being completely honest about that whole “farm direct” part. (Unless, that is, we were ALL buying coffee farm direct.)

Feeling slightly annoyed at the misinformation and deception sprawling throughout specialty coffee, I decided to record an episode of my podcast, AA Cafe, entitled “Liars in the Coffee Industry.” We talked about silly stuff and then got into the heart of the matter. I called out Ken Davids for taking money to give good reviews. (Or was he giving good reviews in order to get sponsorships? No, wait, that’s how “Best in the World” and “A-List” market reviews.) I also talked about Andy and his misleading rhetoric with the Ethiopian coffee and his loosey goosey definition of “farm direct.” And then I got ready for the backlash from dissing one of the most prominent authors in specialty coffee.

•

Back in 2005, one of my customers, Joe Holsten, told me I should start a podcast. I’m not sure why he thought this was a good idea, other than the possibility that all podcasts back then were just long-winded rants, which I was prone to brandishing behind the counter anyway. I didn’t even know what a podcast was, and when he explained it I told him no one listens to podcasts. A couple weeks later, Joe came in and told me Apple was about to add podcasts to the iTunes app, and with that AA Cafe was born. We were certainly one of the first coffee podcasts, along with another called portafilter.net, and today we remain the longest-running coffee podcast in existence. Portafilter was run by two specialty coffee pros named Nick and Jay. Nick turned out to be a loudmouth who got himself into trouble for not paying his bills. And Jay – he started out with a shaved-ice business that morphed into “Spro,” then expanded and contracted as Jay’s interests and acumen developed. Jay brought the fruit loops latte to the barista competition around 2007, and then my favorite, the Lobster Bisque Latte. He said it didn’t taste very good, but he was trying to make a point about the hazelnut lattes being presented during the US Barista Championships. And I told him then and there he should be the president of SCA. But they don’t elect people like Jay. He’s too progressive. Anyway, Jay posted about the AA Cafe episode, “Liars in the Coffee Industry” on a message board (remember those?) called coffeed.com. And the shit hit the fan.

But not the way I thought. I was lambasted for talking about one of my peers in the industry. And I even got poorly written emails from uneducated cafe owners. It seemed like the entire industry was dogpiling on me. People were pissed that I had the gall to publicly impugn Andy, a fellow specialty coffee roaster. And no one said a word about Ken Davids. I emailed the moderator of the site to see if they would give me access to post in my defense, but they declined. And that was probably for the best, because eventually Andy appeared in print, doing his best to defend himself and explain the way he bought this coffee “farm direct.” And then the message board fell silent. Someone asked him to please explain again, and it became blatantly obvious Andy had bought this coffee through a broker, no matter how hard he tried to tie himself to an Ethiopian farm he’d never been to. I waited for all the naysayers to send me apologies, but none ever came. (In retrospect, there were so many other things in that podcast episode people should’ve been mad at me for. So inappropriate.)

It was perfect timing, seeing Jay get out of a car and walk down the sidewalk toward the convention center entry. He was holding a camera on a selfie stick, interviewing a Mexican woman who I obviously should know. I posted up, arms crossed, directly in his path. And as soon as he spotted me, he turned the camera around to show this “old school” roaster, Brian Franklin from DoubleShot. We reconnected for a few moments as we strode into the conference hall, and I told him about the Ken Davids lecture. He laughed, as Jay always does, and told me he was enjoying the solitude of having no cafes and being able to roast in his underwear if he wants. And he said he’s trying to be a “YouTuber.” So I guess I’m on YouTube. We parted ways at the bottom of the escalator and Mark and I proceeded onto the trade show floor.

•

One of the strangest things about being at the annual expo for the Specialty Coffee Association (of America AND Europe) is the fact that it’s really hard to find a good cup of coffee. There were lots of tropical smoothies and a booth giving away bananas for some reason. We stopped by the Hario booth and saw the new colors of scales and a guy made us a pourover that tasted under-developed on a teal-colored one. I saw baristas behind an espresso machine and looked at their sign to find they were serving caramel pecan lattes or some such thing. We tasted oat milk eggnog (oatnog) and some guy made us try chai tea on nitro. Matcha and whipped cream and “milkadamia.” At meetings with importers, they would ask us, almost dismissively, if we wanted coffee. Longtime friends and brokers confessed to loving coffee with maple syrup, an Australian chai made with honey, coffees flavored with fruits and aged in wine barrels, anything but the taste of actual coffee. Thank god for the staid, sportcoat-clad traditionalists at the La Minita booth. A group that you might call “old school,” that you might’ve deemed sell-outs for being acquired by a Japanese tea company, and that you probably could ridicule for the percentage of coffee they trade in the commercial market. But they seem to be holding the line (and even pushing the envelope, though ever-so-slightly) when it comes to specialty coffee. So at their booth I had a tiny, tiny cup of coffee. Black.

I sauntered over to the coffee stand of one of my brokers, waiting to talk to him, knowing he probably wasn’t looking forward to our conversation. Coffee is hard. And good coffee is dependent on so many things going right. It requires a lot of people caring and doing an excellent job at every level. I’d previously questioned this broker about a coffee he sold me which turned out to have been poorly harvested from a farm not properly managed and then inappropriately milled. And when he finally acknowledged me, he looked as though I’d kicked his dog. “Worst coffee you’ve ever roasted?” Yeah, it’s not good. Whether or not he knows I’m right is still in question, but I’ve been doing this a long time and I know coffee. I probably wouldn’t know if your caramel pecan latte tasted like it should. And I might not know which chai is best. But I know coffee. And I know when people aren’t being honest about things in the coffee industry. Mark stood off to one side, observing the awkward, depressed conversation, and then I felt someone standing next to me. Too close, really. The broker shook this interposer’s hand and then turned back to me and said, “You know Andy, right?”

Yeah, I know Andy. And now Mark does too.

Thankful for political progress and the resumption of flights into Managua from U.S. airlines, I booked out of Tulsa and jetted through Houston to the lowland, lakefront property of MGA. It was all smooth sailing into the doldrums of passport control where lines of families and couples stretched to the walls and windows, bending impatiently around stanchions and pillars as each visitor waited with ten dollars cash in hand, the entry fee.

My new October friends, Samuel and Sergio and his wife Maria Cristina, found me wide-eyed, searching through a crowd of bystanders for familiar faces. After a few Spanish pleasantries, greetings and handshakes, we piled into Sergio’s new Toyota Hilux pickup for a long and winding drive across the nation, like driving across Georgia in the 1800s. The Easter holidays drifted down around us in traffic and hammocks, bathing-suited youth in dammed-up rivers, Semana Santa looked more like Semana Piscina to me.

Samuel (pronounced sam-WELL) sat beside me conversing in his best English, and I with my Spanish, trading native tongues for foreign utterances. On our way to the city of Ocotal, capital of the Nueva Segovia district, we stopped for a bite to eat. My first Nicaraguan meal of the trip was representative of all the rest: beans and rice, protein (pork with pineapple), plantains, plenty of carbs to pack on some LB’s. Five hours, or was it six? And the stretch of road finally led into Ocotal where we met up with my old friend Luis for dinner. Same same, this time thin, chewy steak.

Luis drove us home to the neighboring village of Mosonte where he lives in the late-model equivalent of traditional dwellings. A two-bedroom affair, if you count the coffee storage room where Luis slept as a bedroom. The side door led out into a fenced-in yard with hens and roosters, a coffee nursery and seedlings, mango and avocado trees, a good place to brush your teeth and make water before bed. Bed, not sleep. Dogs barking at all hours of the night just on the other side of an uninsulated, sheet-thin wall; something growling just outside my windowless room; the raking of tree limbs across the corrugated roof in the night wind; cats chasing each other just overhead; and the confused rooster crowing mid-night to mid-day. The constant gush of running water cascading from busted pipes tapered off after ten, when the city shuts off the water every night until four. I lay restlessly prostrate, because my own home is “too quiet,” Luis says. Morning coffee brought me to life and the bathroom situation aided in my awakening, with an outdoor-type washbasin sink and bucket, a modern toilet you manually fill, a barrel of water and a bowl for bathing. The cold water I poured overhead flowed down my back and took my breath away. Took me back to the early years of DoubleShot, when I lived without utilities but where water actually flowed from a showerhead, fifty degrees in summer and winter. Deep breath, exhale into the flow. And in those three nights I adjusted back to that simpler way of living and bathing, and tired enough on night three to sleep through most of the clatter in the chaos of darkness.

The following day, Juan Ramon, my third farmer friend from October’s hasty visit, hosted us at the cupping lab behind his house. The deep sadness in his eyes felt familiar. His family stood stoically along the wall, welcoming me into their home. And we cupped coffees. Coffees these young farmers agreed to produce upon my request, trial and trust, hoping in the future of relationship coffee, specialty coffee in the states, direct trade. After months of careful planning, picking and processing, the proof was in the pudding, so to speak. Nothing left to do but taste and see. Because this new endeavor comes with no guarantees. But that’s not why Juan Ramon was hurting.

I finished one round of cupping and took a walk outside to cool off and get away from the tension in the room. A walk across the sprawling concrete patio that lay bare after many weeks burdened with striated blankets of yellowing parchment coffee drying in the Nicaraguan sun. I found Juan Ramon standing under a shaded terrace furnished with raised drying beds covered in future lots of the very coffees I’d been cupping. His hands fondled the dry coffee cherries like sand on a beach, like dice on a casino table. He faced the mountains beyond the opaque cloth curtain billowing in the morning breeze. He gazed off into eternity, because Juan Ramon’s father died unexpectedly the day before I arrived in Nicaragua. We talked about it. I told him about my father dying, and how I had to scramble to pick up the pieces. How he’d been such a good friend and someone I relied on to help me because he seemed to know how to do everything. And how his death threw me into a place where I had no one to lean on. And that, after the shock wore off, I learned that my dad didn’t actually know how to do everything; he just knew how to figure out how to do everything. And that he’d passed that on to me, a gift that I wouldn’t fully receive until he wasn’t there any more, because all the things he would’ve figured out for me were left for me to figure out on my own. That’s the inheritance my father left me. So, in a sense, his passing made me a better, more capable man. Juan Ramon understood, his father being the same as mine, and we spent a few moments across burgeoning specialty coffee tables in solemn, raw humanity, as brothers.

—

Nueva Segovia is the original stronghold of General Sandino. Statues of the general stand along roadsides and in town squares. Nearly every power pole in Ocotal and beyond are painted with the red and black stripes of the Sandinista political party, reminders of who’s in charge. Sandino was a feisty proponent of Nicaraguan independence who rattled the U.S. Marines regularly in the 1920s and 30s with a civilian army carrying machetes and antique rifles. That spirit of independence and a scrappy ability to cobble together solutions is still evident throughout the mountains and villages of Nueva Segovia. As we ascended the road through Finca Volcancitos, I could see not only the beauty but the ingenuity displayed throughout the land. An area unlike other farms I’ve been to, these mountains are covered in pine trees. Tall, straight, fast-growing pines. As my friend Sergio dismounted from the cab of his Hilux, he cracked open cans of Nicaraguan cerveza and led me down a path between coffee trees into an amphitheater looking back onto the city named for these Ocote pines. Sergio talked about the 25-year-old tree anchoring the hillside, and how his father had started a lumber mill to harvest these pines, replanting each year for the next decade’s saw. How he started driving a lumber truck at age 13, asking not for money but for a piece of the action. He outlined his own foray into the trucking business two years later when he purchased his own trucks and hired his own drivers to move the wood. Sergio’s father bought a coffee farm and failed to make a profit, so the son took over management and won an award in his first harvest for the quality of his coffee. I’d already seen firsthand the coffee shop and auto repair shop Sergio and his wife Maria Cristina had built. As I stood beneath this monstrous pine about the same age as Sergio, I felt overshadowed by both. His quick wit and smile, straightforward decision making, charisma and intelligence have helped Sergio grow into an amazing businessman, a loving family man, and just an all around good guy. I’ll admit, it’s easy to stand in awe under the canopy of tropical mountains, but my mind raced to try and grasp where I’d gone wrong in my own life as I watched Sergio, humble but confident, walk back to the truck for another beer. Inspired, I vowed to dive back in and try to be more like my younger self, more like Sergio. To shit or get off the pot. To figure it out, like my dad taught me.

Deep breath, exhale into the flow.

No, Mr. Willis wasn’t expecting me. But he agreed to see me. I walked into his office and told him what I’d heard about him and let him know that I wanted to play professional football and I needed help with my training. He seemed to take me seriously, even though I had to admit that I was completely broke and had no way of paying him, and he knew the odds of making the pros were next to nothing. So he told me to come back the next day and we would start training.

Upon my prompt return, he explained to me that we were going to be doing something called Isokinetic strength training. And he put me on a large contraption built for rehabbing someone’s knee after a torn ACL or something. He put me through my paces, squatting, pressing, curling and extending, all while watching my peak muscle contractions appear as a graph on a screen. I was a beast in those days, a primal, driven animal inside the skin of a human. On the field I was a bound-up ball of explosive energy, as punishing as I was controlled. And I assume Mr. Willis could see the determination and relentlessness inside me. Over time, training me for free, teaching me about the importance of both work and recovery, Phil Willis and I became friends.

And all my friends kept asking me what I was going to do if I didn’t make the pros. I was single-minded and I wouldn’t have it. To stray mentally from the goal was to doubt my ability and doubt might as well have meant giving up. I had no backup plan.

Phil took me mountain biking and let me roll down hills with wild abandon, smashing into ditches and uncontrollably sliding out in the dirt like I’d done so many, many times on the field. He taught me that you always steer toward where your eyes are focused, and if you focus where you don’t want to go, you’ll end up where you didn’t want to be. So it’s wise to only focus on the 5 inches of singletrack that you want your knobby tires to roll on. Focus. And control. You pick your line and execute. No second-guessing, but wholeheartedly committing to the path before you. And you can see why I took to mountain biking. (Phil remarked, “This will either be really good or really bad.”)

Phil watched me fail. On the bike and at the combine. But not for lack of commitment, hard work, or desire. And then one day I decided to open a coffee shop.

It’s been almost nineteen years now since we opened and so much has changed that only a small fraction of our customers know the struggles I endured figuring out how to finance a coffee shop, how to run a coffee business, how to do customer service the right way, and how to manage staff. Many times in the couple of years preceding March 5, 2004, I gave myself an ultimatum that if I didn’t get any traction I had to go apply for a job at McDonald’s. I signed contracts with myself and then broke them. Because I left my first career as a personal trainer to embark on a career in coffee, and I didn’t have a backup plan. My friends, family, and eventually my customers watched me struggle. Struggle to learn and to survive. A lot of the original DoubleShot Folk were on the journey with me, as we were all growing up and trying to figure out how to do life.

Years passed and Phil came to visit in 2021. I walked down the stairs from my office and found him standing by the pourover bar, looking around in awe. And this old friend who taught me so much, who introduced me to a new sport that became a major part of my life, who gave freely of his time and energy and money and knowledge, had tears in his eyes. He said some things that embarrassed me because I didn’t feel like I deserved his accolades. But I know he was emotional because he watched a guy who had nothing and who had failed so much turn a fledgling, barely existent coffeeshop into a real, thriving business. There were years I had my head down and lost contact with everyone, lost in the daily grind, so the emergence of The Rookery had to have been a shock. Tear-inducing.

Tears are real. I know because I cry a lot. I cry because I’m sad, and because I’m in awe, and because someone else is sad, and because I just can’t bear the immensity of the life I’m building. I’ve even cried over a cup of coffee a few times. Joe Holsten cried at the bar at the DoubleShot in the original 1730B location on Boston. It was his first time and he sat near the wall, which I can remember painting with a color I thought resembled the color of crema on a delicious double espresso. He watched me work and I cajoled him a little, making drink after drink for a line of customers, until finally he ordered. A “doppio” probably. To which I probably reminded him that this is the DoubleShot, and English would suffice. Or maybe I asked him if he wanted a ristretto or lungo, or perhaps a cafe creme, though it didn’t really matter what he wanted because I only make espresso one way, and that’s in a demitasse, consumed quickly. Dose. Tamp. Tamp the hell out of it. Maybe I’ll take a photograph of it as it’s coursing out of the portafilter spouts. I served Joe and went back to my business. He was no stranger to espresso, but his choices prior to the DoubleShot were not ideal. And when I went back to check on him, he was sitting on the floor, leaned up against that crema-colored wall, crying. I guess he liked it.

I jokingly say, “There’s no crying at the DoubleShot.” Because there seems to be a lot of crying at the DoubleShot. It’s a place where people come for comfort in times of distress, and a place where a lot of important decisions are made, life-changing work is done, monumental events are celebrated and commemorated. The DoubleShot was built on foundations stained with tears.

The sad and lonely crying hurts but if you’re like me, so does the crying in awe. Because I know I’m experiencing something I’ll likely never see again with the same eyes or taste again with the same palate or love again with the same heart. To me, tears come with pain. And that’s ok, because if you didn’t care you wouldn’t cry. If you didn’t try you wouldn’t cry. It’s about letting things soak in. Way way in, to your soul.

I almost quit my first 100-mile foot race when I struggled into the aid station at mile sixty. My friend Tammy (I call her Tamu because she swims like a killer whale) was crewing at the aid station for another friend of mine, and she jumped my shit. She’s not the gentle type. Tammy forced me to eat a slice of meatloaf, which sounded like a terrible idea. But it wasn’t, and I grabbed a second ketchup-encrusted meat slice and headed back out on the trail. My legs felt refreshed for a time, and I struggled through another twenty miles. An older man passed me and he asked how I was doing. I told him I was hurting, to which he replied, “We are all hurting. There is not one who is not hurting.” That pain takes a long time to accumulate, and when I’m in the midst of suffering, sometimes it’s hard to see that the pain is essential to the subsequent joy. And with twenty miles left in the race, I plodded forward one step at a time until I passed mile marker ninety-nine and I knew I was going to make it. At that moment, the emotion began to well up inside me and tears streamed down my cheeks. I choked back my emotions and doubled-down in that last mile. And then I sat down and let the feeling wash over me.

You want to participate in things that make you cry. Whether it be at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. Crying out of relief or enjoyment or despair or awe. They’re all related to something aspirational, inspirational, and it means you care. Sometimes I look out at all the people sitting in The Rookery enjoying the DoubleShot, and I wonder how many tears will fall when this place is gone. And that’s all the more reason to intentionally enjoy each and every cup, every coffee, every experience. Let the coffee make you cry. But remember, "There's no crying at the DoubleShot."

Oh that’s cool. Living the American Dream...

I was at Home Depot a couple days ago and a woman at the self-checkout was telling the employee, in that prideful, abasing sort of way, that she was opening a business - tomorrow. She said it in a way that struck a chord in me because I could tell that she felt she was doing something for the ages, which most people couldn’t do and that this monumental task was even at the threshold of her super-human capability. And yes, I know that getting to the start line is hard. One of the hardest. But once you’re there, the real fight begins.

I remember going to the DoubleShot (before it was the DoubleShot) on what must’ve been a Sunday, and I had to get the ceiling installed over the roaster to appease the Health Department. I needed help to hoist the massive wood-and-vinyl panel I’d built so I could strap it to the ceiling joists, but there I was, all alone. And I can tell you, I felt perturbed. But with a series of ropes and ladders, I slowly lifted the ceiling up inch-by-inch until all I had to do was brace it long enough to get the bolts fastened through the backside. That probably sounds easy. Had I gone to Home Depot in the midst of that battle, I probably wouldn’t have said anything but the look on my face would’ve told everyone that thing I recognized in the poor woman about to open a business, tomorrow. When you’re all alone with the weight of the ceiling on your shoulders, it’s easy to feel like Atlas.

I watched a group of would-be restaurant managers sit in the DoubleShot every day for months, talking about menus and operations and which glassware is right, generating social media likes and posting job openings online, stopping for a refill of coffee now and then. Sitting and talking about business is fun and exciting. I know, I’ve done it. But those guys went out of business a long time ago.

I’m guilty as charged. I ran the same naive playbook, thinking my idea was so good and so novel that, 1) it couldn’t possibly fail, and 2) people would therefore want to give me money to get started, and 3) even more people would want to give me lots of money for my superb product. I spent two years putting together what felt like at the time, one of the largest collections known to mankind of information about coffee, coffee history, coffee making, selling coffee, and the blueprint for running a successful coffee business. Knowledge is power, I thought, and once I’d accumulated enough information… the rest was gravy. What’s that saying? Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance? Bullshit. Preparation is important, but performance requires a whole other level of commitment. Mike Tyson had it right: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

It’s not necessarily what you put into it as much as what you give up for it. As a good church-going young man, our pastor began plying the congregation for funds to build some unnecessary adjunct to the church compound, likely a gym or some such entertainment complex. Not being a man of means, I thought mightily and asked a lot of questions before deciding to put in my pittance toward the capital campaign. I noticed that the pastor was inviting some of the wealthier couples over to his parsonage for dinner, and I asked him about this as it relates to the Biblical story of the widow’s mite. So he took me to Salad Alley and I had a free grilled chicken salad with honey mustard dressing. So good.

I felt like I’d already given everything I had. The dreams of operating a successful coffee business eradicated the dreams I had of living a life of luxury, living life on the hoof, of making my parents proud, of settling down with the girl of my dreams. And then began the slow decline and occasional rapid loss of the fitness, strength, and athletic abilities I’d honed in my teens and twenties. And that’s a hard thing to see happening. But so be it. If that’s what it takes, that’s what I was willing to give. Everything. I couldn’t hold anything back. Not relationships, my health, family, poverty, it was all for sale to turn DoubleShot into what I hoped it could be.

I needed a place to store our inventory and supplies, and I wasn’t exactly keen on having another landlord. So every weekend I would ride my bike all over town, checking out warehouses I found listed for sale online and just keeping my eyes peeled for anything that looked like it might be for sale. From Sand Springs to North and East Tulsa, I scoured the industrial areas trying to find just the right thing. It had to be big enough that we wouldn’t outgrow it anytime soon, and I wanted it to be cool and historic so that it was something I would be proud of, and perhaps open another cafe there one day. And eventually I found the perfect spot. Well, when I say perfect, I mean the roof was completely caved in, it was full of junk, and located on a transient path in a depressed part of town. My kind of perfect. The owner, John Cowen, agreed to sell it to me, and we began a conversation about just how much the place was worth. I presented data from my cycling excursions, and pitched him a number, and he accepted. The problem was, the bank said it was worth about twenty five percent less than what I offered. And that’s when John told me something that changed everything for me. In a nutshell, he said when he constructs a building, he has to invest twenty percent of the cost of construction (the bank loans the other eighty percent), but when it’s finished and generating revenues, he will have the property re-appraised and borrow eighty percent of the new value in order to get his money back. Wait. Who is getting whose money back and from whom? And then it hit me. The original investment was needed to get the project off the ground, but once the place is up and running, you can get your original investment back because the whole going concern is worth more than it cost to build. So i got my money back and bought the warehouse.

But what about those other things I invested? There’s certainly a difference between investments and sacrifices, as well as sheer expenditures. And some of those things are gone, forever. Some of them depreciated naturally with age. Money is one thing. It rides on the tides of inflation and foreign currency exchange and interest rates. But when I invested assets like labor and friendships and time I could’ve spent reading or writing or exercising, not to mention the quashed desire for a palatial abode, and its queen, I’m forced to come to grips with what I want out of this life. So what do I want?

What do I want? Interesting question. One I ask myself regularly. And maybe more importantly, why don’t I have it yet?

Last week, on a whim (more on a riptide of frustration), I booked a trip for the next morning to the Rocky Mountains. I wanted to climb a 14er, but I went in with an open mind because these things can’t just be summoned. And after strolling around the dirty little lakeside town of Georgetown, I sat down in a promising-looking restaurant that filled to the gills by six o’clock. The server/bartender was an adorable Native girl with a trail of tattoos flowing out of her clothes at every opening. She hustled and tended bar, serving staff and customers, but there was something crass about the way she flouted her busy-ness. Though in an industry where people would rather work at dispensaries or stay home on unemployment, in a town where there aren’t many jobs and aren’t many residents, this girl was like a diamond in the rough. Training, I thought. She just needs training.

Training, yes. I was a personal trainer for a few years, bending people’s bodies this way and that to anneal them into toughened instruments of adventure. I believe in the benefits of training so much that when I started running ultramarathons, I began saying, “Anyone can train and run a hundred miles, but show me the guy who can do it without training and I’ll show you a tough motherf***er.” That goes right along with, “It’s all mental. And physical.” Because honestly, I’ve competed a lot over the years without training but I couldn’t have done it without the first 20 years of hard work I put in. And that waning workload weakened my body over time. But in Colorado, I stepped out of my car into the crisp mountain air of morning, and lit up the trail underfoot. Up past the penstemon and mountain goats, my lungs were clear and strong, legs carrying me without pain or hesitation, and after crushing a little ice and rock, I stood on top of Gray’s Peak (14,278’). And then Torrey’s Peak (14,267’). And the next day, Mount Bierstadt (14,065’). Three 14ers in two days. Now granted, I summited three of the easiest ones there are. But I also came directly from 740 feet of elevation. The real transgression is that I cheated: I trained. I’ve spent the past few months running and cycling (a little), lifting weights, and running stadium stairs. And I came away feeling like I was as strong and fast as I was at twenty-nine, before I cashed it all in on the DoubleShot. I’ll take this ROI, and I’m clawing back at some of the other things I stopped pursuing the moment I embarked on this journey. What I thought might take five years ended up taking over eighteen (and counting), and I’ve just begun to reap a tiny bit of what I sowed.

So you want to start a business, huh? Well I don’t recommend it, but you do you. Though here’s my advice:

Plan thoroughly, train hard, chasten yourself, and pray to god you have the fortitude to keep going when you get punched in the mouth.

Borrow judiciously, invest what you think you can get back, spend enough to keep yourself going, and sacrifice everything else.

That’s how you live the American Dream.

2. People used to always asked me if I “skimmed” the cash drawer. Haha. They thought we made enough money that I could actually skim the cash drawer! Looks can be deceiving.

3. Most people don’t like coffee. And most coffee tastes terrible, so I can’t say I blame them. But even people who drink “good” coffee often “doctor it up” with things that dampen the actual taste of coffee. I think that’s a mistake.

4. When a car goes through your window and the landlord fixes it and then someone throws a brick through the other window, and the landlord refuses to fix it, the prior is called “setting a precedent,” and the latter is called “breaching the lease agreement.”

5. Eighty-five percent of decaf coffee drinkers are only convenience decaf drinkers. If you tell them you don’t have any decaf, they’ll usually go with regular, caffeinated coffee. Furthermore, if your doctor tells you to limit your caffeine intake to one cup of coffee per day, instead of drinking a “half-caf” latte, drink half of a normal latte. Also, find a new doctor; that’s ridiculous.

6. You don’t have to be Catholic to be friends with a priest; you just have to be a critical thinker, live according to a set of ideals, and admit to your shortcomings. And drink whisky.

7. A beautiful environment positively influences your culinary experience, but a beautiful empty building is empty in more than one way. When we finally finished The Rookery, we moved from 18th & Boston overnight, all night. And with only a couple hours to go before we opened for the day on March 5, 2019, all my staff left and I found myself alone, looking around at what I’d spent the past two-and-a-half years of my life building. And it felt like a huge mistake. This big, empty, soul-less building. And it wasn’t until all of our customers showed up that the place felt alive and I knew everything would be OK.

8. You have to stand up for what you think is right. I said it at the end of The Perfect Cappuccino. But sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, regardless of whether you’re right or not. And losing can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And then you have to figure out how to make a lot of money really fast. Just so you know that from the outset.

9. It’s hard to make good coffee in micro-gravity. But the DoubleShot Space Program is working on it.

10. When someone acts inappropriately, there’s no reason to get emotional or lose your temper. It’s much more effective to be matter-of-fact and let them know that they can’t act like that. It also helps to do what you would do when encountering a black bear: make yourself look as big as possible, stay calm, never turn your back. If the bear comes toward you, yell and throw things at it.

11. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. If you want to do more than a couple things a day and not work all by yourself every day for months on end and fall asleep on the rubber mat on the floor beside the triple sink because you just needed to rest for a second, and then you wake up and realize it’s time to open again, you have to be OK with having a minimum standard and hoping your staff takes it as seriously as you do.

12. My grandpa was right: Camping is fun for a little while, but not if you have to live like that all the time. Sleeping in your car makes sense when you don’t want to pay more for sleeping than eating, but there’s something magical about a luxury hotel room where they line up all the shampoo bottles with the logo facing you, and the shower mat is folded into a swan, and when you ask the girl at the front desk if you can take a cocktail from the lounge back to your room and she says, “You can do ALMOST anything you want.” Now that’s living.

13. No one knows how many jelly beans are in that jar where people pay to write down their guess and then someone wins a prize because they guessed the exact right number of jelly beans. Give me a break.

14. The Rules are only useful when it requires people to stop what they’re doing and focus on coffee. As soon as The Rules become the focus, The Rules gotta go. I blame it on Portlandia.

15. Those little round stickers that cover the drinking hole on your lid so your coffee doesn’t slosh all over your console have really sticky glue on the back, so it’s a good thing they have our logo on them.

16. There’s no crying at the DoubleShot. (There actually seems to be a lot of crying at the DoubleShot for some reason, but I like to walk around proclaiming that there’s no crying at the DoubleShot.)

17. When you have an idea, people always say, “You can’t do that,” or “That will never work,” but if you don’t believe them and find solutions, they’ll start saying, “I was going to do this same thing…”

18. A LOT of stuff can happen over the course of a career. Mark Brown and I recapped some of the highlights in what seemed like a really long podcast episode, but actually it’s only three-and-a-half minutes per year. Listen in at aacafe.org.

Thanks for the memories, y’all. To share some of yours, go to DoubleShotCoffee.com/memories.

Happy 18!

especially: the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity

2  the act or instance of enduring or suffering

Endurance has many connotations. Endurance athletes take on great challenges in races that require training to build up stamina through long, repetitive workouts. It’s the ability to endure mental hardships through disease and injury, poverty and distress. Resilience in the face of adversity. Strength in the midst of suffering. I think of the adventurers and explorers of centuries past who developed physical endurance through a life of toil and honed their mental fortitude as they pressed on into the unknown. Some are born with the genetics to endure. Others are bred for it. And some just make a decision to keep going despite the circumstances.

I started camping and hiking when I was in college. One weekend I was preparing to go out in the woods with a friend, gathering my old hand-me-down canvas tent and Coleman sleeping bag, my kerosene lantern and cooking gear. My grandpa was at the house and he was puzzled as to what I was doing. He even seemed a little irritated. And I remember him telling me, “You wouldn’t like it so much if you had to live like that all the time.” And in my youthful ignorance, I shrugged off his comment as irrelevant and obvious.

When I decided to start the DoubleShot, I let go of the comfort and cash that came with my gig as a personal trainer. I left the town that had provided for me because I was restless, bored of the routine, sick of the safety of everyday life. I was enamored with what I knew coffee could be, even though I’d only tasted the tip of the iceberg and would only know the true depth of this industry a decade later. Enamored with coffee and Colorado, I packed my things and began a journey to combine my infatuations. Before long, I was living in my car, sleeping in a tent or on the side of the road somewhere, in a church parking lot, a truck stop alongside eighteen wheelers, someone’s sofa, wherever the sunset chased me down. And that sort of lifestyle set in until it was uncomfortable. All my savings dwindled and work was hard to come by. I remember going to the grocery store, counting the money in my wallet and deciding how many dollars I would save for gas in my car and how much I could spend on fuel for my body. (Ramen noodles, a loaf of white bread, peanut butter and jelly, a couple minutes staring at the meat section, and a quick sniff at the pastry counter, and my $5.00 bill was spent.)

My grandpa lived a hard life, scrambling, clawing, doing what it took to survive. He passed on that lifestyle to my dad, who agreed wholeheartedly that unnecessary discomfort is a luxury. They moved from renthouse to shanty, attempting to farm until the grains that fed the chickens dried up and the monotony of eggs ceased with a chicken dinner. They lived in a partially-finished garage with sheets hung across wires for makeshift rooms separating parents, three girls and two boys. For drinking water they dug a well with shovels, and they put up an outhouse in the back yard. Holes in the roof of the garage allowed my dad, at 10 years old, to star-gaze at night and dream of the endless possibilities outside that life of pauperdom.

Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, the first U.S. astronauts were hired by NASA, Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as our 49th and 50th states, and my dad’s family moved into a house with indoor plumbing for the first time as he began his junior year in high school. It was a pivotal time for the world and for the family. As I would find out over the course of my upbringing, my dad hated hunting and fishing because growing up that’s what he had to do to eat. (Interestingly, my grandpa still enjoyed hunting and fishing; he just didn’t like little kids along for the sport, so I never acquired the skills.)

My dad started his own business when I was 10. He spent his 20s perfecting his trade, adding knowledge and skills to his repertoire, and observing the business behind the office doors. And then he made his big break, taking his career into his own hands. Throughout my upbringing, whether we were broke or not, he never wanted us to go without, to suffer the depredations of poverty, or to appear that we had less than anyone else. He worked his life away making sure he could provide.These were the formative years of my youth.

Fate and foundations found me back in Tulsa at the end of a couple years hardscrabble life on the road. Trial and failure repeated again and again. As you might know, starting a business from nothing is nearly impossible. And then the struggle really begins. I knew at that point I had gone all-in. I had cashed in my chips, dedicated my life, and like the explorers of old, my only option was to carry on. There was no giving up, no going back. I moved into an apartment without gas or electricity, malnourished and tired, just recovered from a near-death experience from carbon monoxide poisoning. Alternatively taking cold showers in winter and sleeping under a blanket of summertime humidity, I persisted for three-and-a-half years like this. Because I knew there must be a way out. Because I knew suffering was a part of it. Because my grandpa and my dad did it before me. This was my heritage.

I started racing when I was just out of college. I was sort of fast and moderately successful. But over time, it became apparent that the longer the race lasted, the better I would do. And so I started doing 24-hour mountain bike races and 36-hour adventure races. And eventually my runs went from 5K to 10K to 26.2 miles and onto 50K, 50 miles, and ultimately 100 miles. Am I a talented runner? No, not by any means. Am I a fast ultra-endurance athlete? Absolutely not. But you see, I quit competing with the field several years ago when I realized the fight was inside me. Today I live in a house with running water, comfortable furniture, and all the normal utilities (I even have WiFi!). I eat meat every day. I’m wealthy by the standards of most people. That daily physical and emotional struggle to survive is gone. And I’m back to some extreme version of my college days; of self-inflicted discomfort.

Four days ago, I completed Ironman Tulsa. And I finished without training for it. It has been my M.O. for the past few years to compete in races without properly training for them. When I was in my 20s, I established goals for my life that hinged around the idea of ultimate freedom: 1) To be in good enough physical condition that I could do anything at the drop of a hat without needing to train, and 2) To be wealthy enough that I could do anything I wanted without regard for cost. I basically accomplished the former in my youth, but had to sacrifice that in order to strive whole-heartedly for the latter. But to me, it’s still important to prove to myself that I can endure. I still want that physical freedom, and though that doesn’t come from a high level of fitness any more, I have built the mental fortitude to carry on, to suffer willingly.

So as not to drown, I started swimming two weeks before the race, and put in 6 solid efforts. I’m a decent cyclist. And I know how to run. So, once I got over the panic that set in for the first five minutes or so in what felt like icy cold water, I felt confident that I would complete the swim. And I did, in a decent time even. Rain pelted us for a lot of the cycling course, but those Osage Hills are my home and I loved every climb. Cramps began to set in toward the end of the bike (calf cramps also set in during the swim, but they went away after I got out of the water and regained my vertical equilibrium). By the time I got off my bike, I couldn’t even pedal in the saddle any more because the muscles in my legs would seize up. This was from poor hydration and lack of training. But with only 26.2 miles to go on foot, I was basically home free. Then my stomach started to hurt, again from poor hydration. I got into my ultra-shuffle and jogged one mile at a time, stopping at every aid station for Gatorade and water. But I wasn’t there yet.

There comes a time during these hard efforts when you’ve gone as hard as you can for as long as you could. And that’s when it gets juicy. It’s hard to get to that point; it takes a long time, and once you get there, you would normally call it a day. So it’s a really remarkable time when you get to commune with suffering and carry on. When you find it in yourself to keep moving despite the road ahead. For me, it could’ve been 8 more miles or 20 more miles because I found that place in my soul where pain and difficulty are signals that I am succeeding. And I wallowed in it, moving forward step by step, forcing my mind to control my body and not vice versa.

A woman on the course said to me, “I just want this to be over,” and my first instinct was to tell her NO, this is why you are here. We worked all day to get to a place where discomfort and exhaustion would make most people quit. This is a special occasion when you are pressing toward a goal and you come to this place not many people know and fewer people go beyond, and you just keep going.

And I get it; I’m pretending to suffer the depredations of exploration and poverty. But you want to know why the DoubleShot is successful? In part, it’s because we’re still going. Never giving up. No matter what.

Today is my 48th birthday. More than twenty years older than when I set off toward this goal. I want to know that my lifestyle today still supports the ability to do what I want physically whenever I please. And I guess that’s why I didn’t train. I just wanted to see if I could.

But as my grandpa said, I wouldn’t like it so much if I had to live like that all the time. And thank God I don’t.

Three-quarters of the packet is all you need if you add 3 sausage links from the freezer, stolen from tomorrow’s toad-in-the-hole. And then add water to my collapsible backpacking pot, one I borrowed ten years before from my adventure-mate, Brad; the water should be hot when you put the ramen brick in and replace the lid. Not too much water, just enough to cover, and never boil it. I prefer to strain because I don’t like broth that much.

And I distracted myself for several years. Some people knew how I lived, and they asked me questions, and I lied. I lied to them and to myself about wanting to live like that. And I thought some people pitied me, but maybe they liked me like that.

Because over time, things change. Here I sit, undeservedly some would say, in an $83,000 house with a $14,000 HVAC that senses the temperature and adjusts based on the time of day and season of the year, keeping me comfortable and weak. It’s now dark outside, but light inside as the fixture hanging over my dining table, a round antique table my dad lovingly restored, casts soft yellowish light on my paper and across the seamless, popcorn ceiling. I ate meat three times today - pork sausage, smoked turkey slices, and ground beef. Three times in one day, just like the three times I ate “meat” in the five or six years of struggles in The Beginning. But change happens slowly.

Moab was my home in 2002. I didn’t “live there” per se, but I was a “local” for all intents and purposes.

I once met a girl at the Moab Brewery. She was sporty and blonde and flirty. And I was reading or writing, more immersed in my books than the TVs or the patrons near by. And people find that interesting for some reason. “What are you reading?” As if it must be the book of the century to keep me rapt, because no one reads, right? Yeah, I’ve read Desert Solitaire. Three times. It’s not about Moab, it’s about whores in San Francisco, I think. I’m not sure what it’s about, but I like it. And this cute girl took an interest in me. She asked me if I’d come back later and hang out with her after the restaurant closed. But I was on my bike. I was a cyclist. A mountain biker, really. My bike had a name that evoked Muhammad Ali, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee. My bike and I were inseparable. We just knew each other. I was the kind of rider who could and would ride the two hours uphill to the trailhead to meet my friends for a 5-hour ride. They called me “the adventure racer” because I lacked the patience of my compatriots who would try to ride a technical section over and over again until they succeeded. “Three tries and I’m out” was my motto. But I was fearless and talented and strong. When everyone switched over to full suspension bikes, I stayed solid on my hardtail, and almost no one rode what I could ride on a hardtail.

I wanted to meet the girl, but it was a 30-minute ride back to my camp along the Colorado River between towering red rock walls. And then the return trip to town in the dark, and I was tired, already thinking about the epic day of riding tomorrow. So I came up with an alternate plan. She worked at a plant nursery during the day, which was an hour ride from my camp, but happened to be at the trail tail of the Moab Rim Trail. So I’d meet her at her other job the next day and we could visit some more. But when I got back to camp that night I realized that I owned a car. I’d been so immersed in the lifestyle I enjoyed in Moab that I’d forgotten how I got to Moab. Needless to say, this didn’t impress the girl. “Why didn’t you ask me if I had a car?”

The first time I went to Moab I expected to see sand dunes, like the way I envision the Sahara Desert. And I wondered how it could be the Mecca for mountain biking with a desert full of sand. And there is sand. But not like I thought. I happened to meet a guy named Malcolm - “Rider Mel” - who was one of the only mountain bikers in Moab on August 1st and he took me under his wing.

We rode together twice a day, morning and evening, and sometimes I would go for a hike or run midday in extreme heat while Malcolm rested in his swamp-cooled apartment, drawing maps of the trails we rode that morning. He taught me the ways and encouraged me as I crashed repeatedly in this new terrain. “You have really good control of your handle bars.” And soon I was off on my own. Deftly riding the hardest trails without fear, skirting close calls, reveling in the excitement of empowerment and independence.

I could ride almost anything, mastering new skills each time I rode, confidence gathering like a storm. I found peace and communion amongst the ancient rocks of Moab, where perhaps my ancestors roamed, watching now as I pleased them with skill and boldness. Or maybe it was the rock that liked me, that knew me. Its life force in rhythm with mine, allowing me to do as I pleased.

Moab felt like home. It made me happy, if happy is a feeling I allow myself to feel. In fact, I promised myself that if I ever actually decided to kill myself, I was only allowed to do it by riding my bike off a cliff in Moab. A fitting death, but I knew I would never do it because all my cares were gone in Moab.

I was there at an unusual time, during the rains, during the jeeps. Riding to reconnect. And I decided to ride a trail I’d never ridden. One known to be wearisome in summer because of the deep, dry sand. But I was good at riding through deep sand, and up for a challenge. Poison Spider Mesa, just above the dinosaur footprints, was a typical Moab ride starting out, though I wasn’t used to being with so many jeeps. Rock crawlers, modified to look like spiders climbing over seemingly-insurmountable obstacles, leaving black burn-out marks on the grippy sandstone. Like a rollercoaster, I rode over and down the slopey rock. I knew my bike and I knew my tires intimately. I knew when they would grip and I knew when they would release. And I used both to jump and drop - it’s bad form to skid and leave a mark when mountain biking (only jeeps and amateurs do this).

I stopped to wait for a line of jeeps to come up out of a puddle and spin out climbing a very steep 12-foot climb, opposing my path. I scouted the drop and decided I could roll off, and pull very hard on my bars a few feet from the bottom and land hard on both wheels in a 6-inch water bowl. But as I descended, the tires I had such a close relationship with failed me. The water on the rock created a slippery surface like nothing I’d ever experienced in Moab, and at once I knew why it is called “slickrock.” The bike I knew so well went completely out of my (and its) control. We careened down this near-vertical rock face, free-falling, panicking, with no chance to correct or right the bike, and we landed fast on the front wheel, handlebar wrenched sideways, nuts on aluminum, face-down in dirty water. It was only a 12-foot drop and I was uninjured. Just scraped up. But that moment was the first time I lost control. True, hard-core mountain biking is done at the edge of control. (Really out of control, but where you know you can reel it back in quickly as needed.) But this was fast, unexpected loss of everything. And in a different circumstance, it would’ve been my demise.

I got up and wiped the mud from my face, restored my blurry vision, set my bars straight, and tried to soldier on. But it was over. I lost my confidence in one moment. And my years of riding Moab ended instantly. It happened so suddenly, the trauma, that I never recovered, and I lost my happy place. I’d probably even be too afraid to ride my bike off a cliff to kill myself. But change happens suddenly.

You die. Or you grow old. You move or you migrate. You climb the economic ladder or you win the lottery. Change happens slowly, or suddenly.

Climate scientists have been telling us for a decade that if we don’t change our behavior there will be dire consequences for mankind, for species of animal, insect and plant. It will happen in 100 years or in 500 years or in some amount of time that equates to touching a hot pan and feeling the burn two weeks later. They beg us to alter our consumption and our travel, our use and our waste. To be conservative and conservation-minded. To act sustainably.

And now, here we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, and the response has been one determined to sustain human life, though not as we know it. It’s an environmentalist’s nirvana. Air travel has virtually come to a halt. Spring break might as well have been cancelled. National parks are empty. Events drawing hundreds or thousands of people are no more. We have become stagnant and our economy will feel this crushing decline.

It’s the difference between consequences now and later. We’ll all die in 500 years if we don’t limit air travel? So what. You might die if you fly. Now, that’s a big deal.

So environmentally, one might applaud this pandemic as a wake-up call, and the first step toward true positive climate impact. But when it all blows over and our stockpile of toilet paper begins to dwindle, the landscape will be different. In the midst of the panic, let’s not forget to practice real environmental change, and begin to support more local business. More local resources. Think about the supply chain for the products you consume on a regular basis. How can you change your buying habits to support local products? Because for these people, change normally happens slowly. But in these days of societal reaction, change can happen suddenly, and your choices will be different (and worse) in the aftermath. Buy local. Be smart.

Life is always in flux, and fragile. Our best laid plans shift slowly, and suddenly. Ideas become stubborn and then break like a green stick, or they evolve as our cells rearrange and turn our hair an elderly grey. I think back about the big changes in my life, and none of them happened like I thought they would. The idea that my dad would die and my cat would die seemed as unrealistic as the idea that I could die. I think about my temptation to change the name of the DoubleShot, when the pervasive lawyers for Starbucks threatened, compromised with the demand that I put a space between Double(and)Shot, and I resisted. I refused. And in that case it’s the space that doesn’t exist that indicates that the DoubleShot name inherently stands for justice and right and standing up for what we believe in. But we change. It has always been our mission to source and serve the best coffee that we know how, to as many people as we can. And that means amending our methods, altering the product, shifting our mindset about what excellent coffee means (but not deviating from our purpose). After all, it’s change that takes coffee from a seed planted in the tropical mountain soil, transformed through the flames of my roaster, and extracted by the worlds wealthiest solvent.

The biggest change for the DoubleShot that happened over the course of the last few years culminated with the completion of The Rookery. We moved overnight in March from our strip on Boston, leaving the cold cinder block walls that were only warmed by the people within. The intimacy and life felt over our evolutionary first fifteen years was not contained in that concrete space, the big glass windows that crashed so quickly one day, the black stenciled animal heads spray painted on white, nor the old brick of the original strip where so many memories were made and lost. Our home changed dramatically one day, this Hite barn rebuilt between city towers, redesigned with clean lines and warm wood that reflects our commitment to structure, strictness, and hospitality. Any move is risky, and this project is no exception. With the calculation ingrained in my accounting-filled brain, we risked moving a couple blocks west from Boston to Boulder, from 18th to 17th, from strip mall to this iconic stand-alone structure designed practically and purposefully to enhance your coffee and community.

I had whisky with my friend, a priest in the Catholic Church, and we talked about the transubstantiation that he believes occurs in the wine and the wafer upon being blessed in the cathedral. In my skepticism we debated what that substantive transformation really is, and he explained to me that they believe the spirit of God becomes entwined within the molecular structure of the blessed sacrament, in essence making the communion a consumption of the Holy Ghost. And I believe the same has occurred at The Rookery; the spirit of so many souls have blessed this structure, transforming it from the barn that once held dairy cows and lofts of hay into The DoubleShot, a loving, loved, foundational home for our community. I know this because the night before we opened, on March 4, after a couple years of construction, of cranes and welds, of hammering and sawing, painting, and installation, I stood in this building and looked around, all alone, and my heart sank. My heart sank because all I saw was an empty building as cold as the one we’d just left. A church without a congregation. A wafer without the Spirit. And it wasn’t until the morning of March 5, on the DoubleShot’s fifteenth birthday, when people filled The Rookery and the structure was baptized with the ethos that sprouted from a coffee seed and grew into the tribe of outstanding individuals who really are the DNA of the DoubleShot. And my soul was renewed.

So at this time of Thanksgiving, I want to send this special sentiment of gratitude to you. Thank you for embracing the change. Thank you for trusting us to make healthy, quality decisions that we believe will improve our product, your experience, and the lives of so many people. The changes of the past several months have been huge, but we continue to find new ways to do better, and we will always steer in that direction. Thank you for supporting us as we all take this amazing journey through life together.

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Riding my bike just the other day through the Osage Hills, a particular invisible wood smoke filled the air and I left this place, transported to a fuzzy recollection of Latin America. It felt like Nicaragua. And slowly the vision became clear:  the rudimentary houses where the coffee growers live and cook their beans and rice over the flaming end of a long branch protruding from an earthen stove, their room smoky and my eyes burning with the log.

Scents bring to life memories that are so vivid and moving. It’s the tea rose perfume my mom wore and my dad adored, which I smell at every funeral of family and friend. The waxy smell of my niece’s crayolas on coarse coloring pages that take me to my brother’s room, lying on the floor Christmas Eve, trying to occupy the hours coloring inside the lines so that we could stay up all night and listen for Santa bringing us presents. The sterile paper smell of books, wandering down rows and rows of very tall public library shelves, knowing I was supposed to be in the children’s section but aware of the millions of adventures and biographies and complicated affairs that must be printed between the hard covers of volumes over my head, just out of reach. And the sterile oppressive smell of doctor’s offices. Like the one my mom worked at when the very kind and monotone physician diagnosed me with a stomach ulcer in the 6th grade, doomed to eat a foul, bitter pill, much too large for me to swallow - and thus my disdain for the Andes mints my mom gave me to chew up with each daily dose: chalk and chocolate and mint. The pollen blowing off the cornfield across the brick road of my childhood home, which I find in any bourbon with a high percent of corn mash:  the moonshine fragrance of East Fremont Street. Just down the road from the distinctly aromatic pig farm where I sat in the child seat on the back of my mom’s bike as we rode past the armory to see the baby piglets and circled around the parking lot of the Mormon church, just shy of the equally smelly cattle sale barn. Petrichor - that dirt-and-mineral scent as a rainstorm approaches, thinking I could out-ride the weather, but finding myself stranded on my mountain bike at 11,000 feet without a rain jacket, temperature plummeting, taking shelter in a small stand of pines, scaring off the cattle who had the same idea. Deep knee bends, fighting hypothermia until the storm subsided.

One of my earliest memories involves falling asleep in the car. We arrived home and my dad (big, strong, and hard working) lifted me out of the back seat of our Pontiac sedan. He carried me to the house, his stubbly whiskers scratching my face and the scent of his coffee breath filling my nostrils. Perhaps that is why I fell in love with coffee.

I dance through the woods among a cacophony of smells, an olfactory forest, my feet moving along the singletrack trail in rhythm, back-and-forth like the silky strong movement of a bow across the strings of a violin, and pine takes me to Colorado. Leaving a voicemail for my friend Brad, 800 miles away, telling him I was planning to bushwhack up the side of Mount Massive through pine and aspen over three false summits (the third over 14,000 feet) before topping the Rockies’ second tallest peak, high above the trees at 14,429 feet. If he didn’t hear from me in 3 days, something was wrong. The earthy, musty smell of rotting wood brings me to 1983, kicking around the cow ponds and dry creek beds of rural Oklahoma. Plunging unexpectedly into the hollow trunk of a fallen tree where hundreds of yellow jackets swarmed around my body and over 100 stung my 10-year old flesh. The fatty, pungent smell of bacon cooking reminds me of the nights my cousin and I spent in the woods near his house. Bacon we stealthily burgled from his mom’s refrigerator after spending a night listening to coyotes (that’s pronounced ky-oats out here) howl, fire keeping them at bay in the near woods. Our contraband bacon broiled over the coyote fire, draped over a long stick, ends burnt, middle raw, good nonetheless.

I remember the unmistakable smell of the football locker room: musty, mildew and grass-stained pants and the sweaty ferment of pads in an oppressive, un- air conditioned concrete block building. (Thank god that’s not something you ever have to smell in regular life.) That locker room where Coach Stiles earnestly pleaded with each and every player to “do the right thing,” and told each of us through tears at half time, after not playing up to our ability, “You’re a great athlete. You’re a great athlete. You’re a great athlete…” I’m a great athlete? I am a great athlete. And when we walked out of that locker room beneath the rows of stadium seats full of fans, benches we’d run up and down many times throughout the week before, the scent of cigarette smoke hung on the air. The same smoke that sometimes filled the high school restrooms at lunch time. Where the unintelligent school bully and his even-less-intelligent bully sidekick cornered me and threatened to beat me up. (I offered to meet him behind Walmart after school to have it out, but he didn’t show and I walked the two-and-a-half miles home across town, relieved and angry.)

Tobacco smoke is evocative and nuanced, like coffee. There is cigarette smoke, in the breeze or in the bar, one thought-provoking, the other oppressive. And the smoke of a cigar. I used to smoke cigars when I was younger. The taste, strong and pungent, excellent with sweet Italian sausage and port wine. Now it’s smoke draws me into those early years of the DoubleShot, waiting for the coffee roaster to cool, a dozen people without heavy responsibility drinking whiskey, laughing and chatting at midnight, whatever the weather:  friends, staunch supporters. Pipe smoke is more sophisticated. Akin to leather. It’s scent is royal. It evokes fireplaces and furs and British ancestry, Jason Westenburg reading The Economist. It’s the nuance of tobacco smoke that probably most parallels the aromatics in coffee. From the diner to the DoubleShot, coffee can run the gamut of smelly to sensual.

Why is the Gesha coffee so special?

It’s the clarity of fragrances (the smell of the ground coffee beans) and aromatics (the smell of the brewed coffee). The sophistication of complementary aromatics intermingling and changing throughout the brewing and drinking experience. It’s the citrus of a mountaintop in Panama where I picked the most succulent orange that turned out to have a very lemony sourness which drove me to eat more and more as my mouth watered and chills ran down my spine. It’s the honeysuckle growing on the fence in the back yard, where my mom taught me to pull the style out by the calyx and drip the sweet nectar onto my tongue. That honeysuckle, growing beside a patch of resident strawberries that we didn’t plant, but we did eat - their tart-ness quelled with a generous dunk into the sugar bowl. It’s the rooibos tea, red tea from Africa, my dear friend Marcus brewed for me one adventurous day after I’d accidentally scaled one of Boulder’s flatirons in running shoes, hot rooibos to cool and calm me down, butternut squash soup to nourish my soul and our friendship. It’s all these memories emanating from one delicious cup, woven so skillfully like the tales of life.

You must smell to remember. Scent is such a driving force, an evocative friend. Close your eyes. And let your nose remind you of the juiciness of life.

But this day I found myself standing next to a French family with their distinctively-European shoes and dialects. I looked down over steel railing into a canyon with spires and arches and hoodoos, like a congress of red people waiting 140 million years for an Asian couple to snap a selfie from the safety of our perch. Each rock was carved with erosion, banded by layers of sediment, rounded by the ages, surely reminiscent of castles in ruins. Bryce Canyon seemed smaller than I had imagined but almost unimaginably beautiful, unbelievably intricate. This place brought me on a sluggishly boring 17-hour drive with my preoccupied mind trailing, dragging, stretching all the way back to Tulsa. As I walked the rim and descended down into the sloping canyon, thoughts turned finally to the 50-mile foot race I was about to begin, and the problems I brought with me to the start line. Thoughts simmered down into murmurs of words, but not actually words themselves; feelings of words, which have a much more weighty connotation and implicate themselves directly into the heart of the matter you’re trying not to confront. The color of worry and the sound of eminent adversity flood my mind.

I’m a persistent fellow. A lion at heart. I push and pursue. I land on an idea or even the idea of an idea, and that’s enough to find my veins coursing with the virus-like plan to succeed - or to start, which is an even more daunting and measurable feat. The virus that crushed me into a billion consumable muscle fibers was a real virus. The kind that lays you sweating under covers in dreams of frozen footfalls, exhausted, afraid, and wondering if this is what death feels like. Though it wasn’t the enemy, but the resistance that turned on me, burning and pillaging, weakening the body until desperation set in and the doctor was called. The weakened state rallied to repair, set back like coffee trees pruned by machete, for production breeds waste.

I remember walking into the strip mall at 18th and Boston in 2003, admiring the old brick wall defining the long, narrow space. Imagining where the counter would be. Where the roaster would be. Where I would be. I had spent the previous two years learning more about coffee and coffee shops, about business and business plans, and trying to raise the money to get the DoubleShot started. Things went sideways and I found myself in dire straights. In a desperate place without the basics, but still chasing down that dream. I had a vision. But I was wholly unprepared for what was about to happen: the most intense endurance event of my life.

My dad started his own business. I remember the day it happened. Night, really. It was an exciting event that catapulted him from employee to independent contractor. The boss. He was always THE BOSS to me, but he stepped into that role in business after growing up disadvantaged. His family moved around a lot in rural Illinois, trying to farm or simply subsist. They lived for 6 years in a garage they built - 3 girls, 2 boys, and my grandma and grandpa. They dug a well with shovels and drank the dirty water that seeped up from it. They used an outhouse, and slept in rooms separated by hanging sheets, gazing up at the stars, visible through gaps between slats in the roof. 

While living on a farm, they grew so tired of eating eggs that they finally ate the chickens, and then they had no eggs OR chickens. And it wasn’t until my dad was a junior in high school that they moved into a house with indoor plumbing for the first time in his life. He grew up with the grime and shame of poverty.

I have never lived without indoor plumbing. Because of my dad’s upbringing, he made sure we never showed our desperation when there was any, and he worked like a dog to provide for his family. But I did spend the first three-and-a-half years of the DoubleShot living without gas or electricity, taking cold showers and sleeping in the extreme heat and relative cold of Oklahoma summers and winters. It turns out starting a business is hard and requires a great deal of sacrifice. You start dismantling Maslow’s pyramid and eventually begin to sacrifice your self. Your health. But not your hope.

The traitorous antibodies lived up to their name and began to consume my muscles. Strength waned as the deterioration worsened. I fought back and took counter-measures in the gym and on the road and trail. But it’s easy to forget your body is in a compromised state. I impatiently jumped out of a coffee trailer, and when I landed 8 feet below, my knee twinged. Knee, hamstring, glute. The other knee was already questionable with intense, stabbing pain coming and going. Climbing ladders is a bear these days. The tear in the back side of my leg hadn’t healed over the past 5 months, and it often feels like the butt muscle has torn away from the bone. Every minute of my drive to Utah was a painful reminder that I was unprepared to run the race.

Sometimes you start unprepared. Life throws you curve balls. And you’ll never feel like you’re completely ready, completely competent, fully qualified (if you’re smart). So you just have to pull the trigger. Follow through. Start the race or the business. Just show up. When I showed up in Glendale, Utah two days before the race, it just so happened that an entire jar of pasta sauce fell off the counter and landed squarely on the middle toe of my right foot. It swelled and turned black, certainly broken.

I run when I don’t know what else to do. 

I ran the day my cat died. 

And the day my dad died. 

I was unprepared for both of those events. So what did I plan to do on this race day for which I was so poorly trained and bio-mechanically compromised? Run.

The DoubleShot opened with a sputter on March 5, 2004. I still had dreams of success and rapid growth and hard work, while maintaining the fitness I’d fought so many years to attain. I was invincible. And then my dedication to this craft turned into self-sacrifice and that led to some resentment for those who didn’t share or appreciate my passion. I got the feeling people loved that I was passionate but wished I was a little more moderate about it. Moderately passionate. I’m not.

The 50 mile race at Bryce Canyon began at 5a on June 2, 2018. I’ve done more ultramarathons than I can remember, and each one is difficult in its own way. This one, I knew might not be possible for me. We trotted off the start line in the dark and started uphill. I began trying to manage my gait to avoid sharp pains in my knees, toe, and hamstring.

“You may not be good, but you sure are slow,” my dad would say. I worked for him growing up, and continued to work on school breaks and when I quit my personal training career I worked for him again. I’m no tradesman, not a fine craftsman like my dad was. So he didn’t go too hard on me but gently let me know my strengths did not lie in floor covering installation. 

My dad’s words rang through my head during the Bryce 50 as I struggled, fighting pain and lack of training and dehydration and hyperthermia. I decided to quit. Like I’d done so many times in the years running the DoubleShot, I decided to quit. And then I sat down and took a break, had a talk with myself, and summoned the strength to stand up. And move forward. Just keep moving forward. 

Unpreparedness is not a death sentence, not a guarantee that you will fail. It is a guarantee that you’re about to encounter a great deal of adversity, of expected and unexpected problems. And you must deal with them as they come. So as unprepared as I was physically for this race, and as unprepared experientially and educationally as I was for opening the DoubleShot, I had been training my mind for many many years to solve problems, push through hard times, and not give up.

You can’t go back and change your birthright. Most of us are not born with the resources and safety net that make success a matter of strategy. But because of that, we develop something that is very difficult to acquire if you’re born into privilege. We learn to earn. We learn to solve problems ourselves. We learn that with enough grit and determination, many tough situations can be endured. While others buy solutions or throw in the towel, or struggle with questions of self-worth and secretly doubt their own competence; we, the scrappers, the unprepared, fight our way through failures and achieve a level of real success that is unavailable to the others. 

As I embark on the construction of the Rookery, the most expensive project of my life thus far, I am highly aware of the fact that I am unprepared. I’m learning as I go. Changing plans as we progress. Doing my best to deal with problems, anticipate future needs, and share this journey with the customers, the reason for our toil. I struggle with the amount of work on my desk and on my mind, with the questions I don’t know the answers to, and the skills I wasn’t born with and have not yet learned. But I still have a chest full of hope. An unwillingness to quit. And a desire to see a better future.

I finished that 50 mile race. I found moral support at the aid stations and some ice bags to cool my overheated body. As it turned out, the last few miles were downhill and all I had to do was try not to stub my broken toe on the way to the finish line.

That’s what I inherited.

Sitting outside at the bar by the pool at the Doubletree Cariari. It’s windy but mostly sunny and the temperature in the shade is excellent. The Costa Rica national soccer team (I assume) is here and they are all going to some event in their uniforms. I’m sure they are popular, like NFL players are in the US, but no one seems to care.

There are four boys in the pool and one on the side and they are playing ball. Brings back happy memories of the weightlessness of being a kid, being wet in the warm wind, the stark contrast between in and out of the water.

Yesterday, I found Ricardo Gurdian waiting for me outside the airport. Ricardo took me to his farm in a pickup that is much too large for Costa Rican driving. “I made a mistake,” he told me. The drive was maybe 45 minutes and upon entering the farm, there was a spring-fed river, called Las Pilas, flowing over rocks into little pools among the verdant grasses and trees common in the tropics. Ricardo uses an old abandoned milling factory and office + house to run the business and for his nursery and covered drying beds called parihuelas. This area is owned by Volcafe, and his relationship with them is tenuous. The place is in ruins. It’s interesting – like walking through an ancient place.

We drove around the farm and Ricardo explained the different methods he has been experimenting with to prune the trees. We saw the trucks bringing the the day’s picking into the receiving station. And then he showed me the large greenhouse he built to dry coffee on his own property. It is large, and half is set up for patio-drying naturals while the other half has African-styled raised beds for drying the honey coffees.

I enjoyed talking to Ricardo and getting to know him a little. He has a good family history and seems like a good, honest guy. I trust him and hope we can do business together.

Ricardo took me to a lodge called El Choyote. It is on what used to be a 2-hectare farm high up on a mountain with a view of San Jose. The cabins are shaped like receiving stations and the inside is nice with a big window and patio overlooking the Central Valley. Much of the decor inside is made of coffee tree stumps and branches. Very cool place. I felt like I had it all to myself.

Ricardo and I ate dinner in the lodge restaurant and I had the typical platter. It was fine – rice and beans, vegetable hash, plantain, salad and thin overcooked beef. I stayed up way too late even though I was falling asleep early. Too nice of a view, and the wind was howling. I was freezing.

This morning I woke up at 7 a.m. and made coffee. I brought La Pastora Natural. It was good. Got cleaned up and went to breakfast. Since the entire lodge was coffee-centric, I decided to try their coffee. That was a mistake. It’s terrible. Sat outside and had pineapple, watermelon and cantaloupe. Then scrambled eggs, gallo pinto and garlic toast and a strip of bacon that tasted more like ham. The local dogs sat nearby and occasionally nosed my hand like a bold beggar in the street wanting a scrap of anything.

Ricardo came to pick me up right on time and remarked later that he hates when people are on Tico time. We drove at least 30 minutes to a farm called Volcan Azul. The owner of the farm, Alejo Castro, showed us around their large wet and dry mill. The farm has huge old cypress trees and they claim to preserve a lot of the forest. The mill was very clean and Alejo says they produce a lot of micro lots for companies in Germany and Japan, Korea, etc. We went there because they have a good relationship with the milling/export company that Ricardo is using and they let us use their office for cupping.

When we arrived, the samples were being roasted. Preparation for cupping was painfully slow. Hot water wasn’t ideal and it took a long time to get all saturated. We cupped two tables of 7. The Marsellesa coffees I didn’t care for, but the locals seemed to love them. I did like three naturals – Sarchimor, H1 and Obata – in that order. I liked the Obata Red Honey also, but I think it is wise to stick with naturals in this case.

We ate lunch in Grecia – fried fish, sweet corn and rice with a mixed juice: pineapple and guanabana. Tasty.

Long, confusing drive through town – with big city traffic in a small town. Ricardo told me the church was built in Germany and shipped in pieces, and it was supposed to go to South America (Brazil?) but it stopped in port and they unloaded it in the wrong place and put it in Grecia.

Ricardo battled traffic in his Land Rover Discovery (we drove around the farm in a Defender 90 and he told me they’ve been using Land Rovers on the farm since his dad was younger). And he dropped me off at the gates of the DoubleTree. The beer is so lackluster, I’m drinking a michelada. Not sure what to do. I have all day tomorrow here to relax and recuperate before I get back on the farm visits.

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Breakfast buffet at DoubleTree.

Having gallo pinto, plantains, potatoes, bacon and pineapple, with OJ and my own coffee. Yesterday after breakfast, I ran 8.1 miles. The neighborhood here is nice – grand houses and good views into the mountains. I’m at 3100 feet here.

Had hard chips and guacamole and a couple beers with Jim afterward. He says Minor is doing a lot of tiny experiments now. He said La Minita bought all his coffee last year.

The pineapple here is delicious and sweet. I fell asleep for a few and then went to the gym to lift weights. Discovered I’m down to 180 pounds – have lost weight, a lot in muscle mass.

Then I decided to go back out through the neighborhood to take some photos of houses. I didn’t see things the way I did on my run so the photos are not great.

Soon it was dinner time. I went back to the Happy Cow, Argentinian steakhouse. Had beef and a pork chorizo with the typical sides.

Hurried to the grocery store and got sunscreen (I’m burnt already) and some local IPAs, then went to get a massage.

Massage therapist was strong. She beat my legs up, and at one point was kneeling on my back.

Then I stayed up too late reading and having local beer.

In a few minutes we will go to San Marcos and see Minor. I brought a DoubleShot mug and a pound of his natural coffee for him. Time to go. I’ll be back.

013018 503p

Sitting on the front porch at La Minita. Yesterday Jim and I left the DoubleTree around 930a and drove to La Minita. I had been talking about running to a place called Puente Negro, so Jim decided to go there, which he called “a shortcut.” I tried to memorize the turn off the main road and landmarks along the way so I could try not to get lost along the route. Puente Negro is a bridge spanning the Candelaria River. It was built in 1932, and feels as if it might collapse at any moment. A cable span with old boards that are broken and bent, creeping across, trying to stay on the runner, cables creeping loudly. My stomach was tight as we were crossing.

We arrived at La Minita and ate lunch – steak and french fries. Then we drove to La Pastora. Johnny went with us and sat quietly in the back seat. Minor’s daughter Nitsi greeted us wearing a Costa Rican floppy hat and a bandana draped over her neck. Minor arrived and had his familiar smile. After taking photos of honey coffees on raised beds and lots of photos of the family, we went to see a cupping room he’s building up the hill, overlooking the patios. Next to the future cupping room is an entertaining area, where we all gathered to have some beverages. We started with coffee.

730p

Just had dinner. Pork, salad, baked potato, and some sort of vegetable that was between squash and potato (choyote, or pear squash)

There are three other people here now. Jim picked them up in San Jose today. One works for Daybreak Coffee in Lubbock. I know Scott Gloyna, who owns the business. I really like him. She brought her husband. They are nice people. I can tell they run business differently than I do. The other guy is a barista at a place called Frontside. He is wearing the company hoodie and has a beard. He’s a talker. A vegetarian, and he doesn’t drink. No one is drinking except me and I’m having wine.

After coffee with Minor and his wife and daughter, we had a little tequila. Then we went down to collect the coffee in the truck from the day’s picking. Not sure how big the farm is, but they filled the truck in just a few minutes. After returning to the milling area, I asked about a hand-crank machine that was sitting nearby. As I suspected, it is for squeezing sugarcane. So I asked if we could use it. Off they went with machetes in hand, and three men brought back 12-foot stalks of cane. They washed them and then one guy turned the crank while another fed the cane between the rollers. As it was smashed, the cane juice poured out and filled a small bucket. They call it jugo de caña or caldo de caña. I cranked the next cane, and it got tiring. Halfway through I stopped and ripped off my pearl snap. They seemed to like that. The juice was green, and we poured some in small cups and drank it. Mildly sweet, it tasted a tiny bit green – so maybe it wasn’t quite ripe? Then we proceeded back to the entertaining area, which really is a small kitchen with a table and chairs. We poured cane juice with some rum and drank it. Jim and I were ready to leave but Minor said his other daughter was coming. So we waited. And it turned out to be his wife’s brother’s birthday. So we sang and clapped Feliz Cumpleaños, and ate birthday cake. Then we had a michelada. And we were definitely ready. Minor’s other daughter, China, is beautiful. Big, striking brown eyes.

A few more photos and we were off. It was interesting that everyone in the room was on their phone the whole time. Different than a couple years ago. Times change. We stayed much longer than planned and drove back to La Minita in the dark. Can’t remember what was for dinner.

Today we had breakfast. The eggs here smell like a barnyard or wormy. I had to make an egg-bacon sandwich. Jim and I chatted and I shared some of my Pastora Natural with him. I took a pound of the Pastora to Minor along with a coffee mug. I think they liked it. Jim left for San Jose at 1030a and I went inside to change into running gear. Brought my running vest so I grabbed 3 bottles of water, some peanut butter crackers, and Clif Bloks. Put on sunscreen this time, and I ran off down the dirt road toward the mill. It’s about 2.5 miles to the river. I crossed over the footbridge into the Beneficio and greeted the mill manager, Esteban, before trotting off up the paved road. The climb was long, hard, hot. A man stopped and gave me a mandarina. He tried to give me three, but I only took one. I chewed each lobe and sucked the juice and then spit the fibrous pulp out. I blew a snot rocket from my right nostril and it was blood red.

Which reminds me that Minor said he separates the natural coffee out by color – reds from those “sangre de toro,” the color of bull’s blood, and those are the only ones he uses.

I continued to climb up the paved road, jogging when I could and walking when I had to. I was beginning to think I had missed my turn as I saw it the day before coming from the opposite direction. I took a wrong turn down a hill that brought me to the road again across a switchback. I finally stopped to check the map on my phone and couldn’t really tell. But a few yards ahead was a road that looked promising. I walked up to it and saw a sign I remembered from the day before – round with a recycle symbol in the center. So down I went, past familiar houses and transitioned onto a dirt road. At the bottom, I crossed a river on an old bridge high above the deep-cut channel. Then I climbed again for a bit before descending a short distance to Puente Negro. This means Black Bridge. It’s so old and rickety that it even creaks walking on it. I went down to the river below and looked at rocks and put my hand in the dirty water. After hopping around a bit I went back up and crossed the bridge. Painted on the metal uprights is “Dios mio Puente Negro.”

The steepest climb was yet to come. Up into coffee trees again and past invisible pickers and Toyota Land Cruisers half-loaded with bags of coffee cherries, the road went straight up the side of the mountain. I thought to myself, Costa Ricans say switchbacks are for pussies. Up and up. A dead red-and-black striped coral snake coiled on the road. A blue sign with a white telephone receiver on it, like the ones we used in the 80s. I wonder if kids even recognize that symbol any more. When I first started coming here I remember the girls used to stop and call their friends on a pay phone. Now everyone has a cell phone.

Ricardo Gurdian said to me that Costa Rica has always put a great deal of importance on education. Now people have more money and nicer cars and better jobs. But no one wants to pick coffee. The children of his farm workers want to work in the office or go to school for agronomy. He says this is good for the people but bad for the farmers. Their manual labor comes from Nicaragua and Panama. Indigenous Indians come from Panama to Tarrazu, and Nicaraguans come to the Central Valley to pick. How can the industry survive without willing laborers? And the “problem” with illegal immigration both in the US and here. I thought Ricardo had a very simple and logical solution.

After climbing back into the fringes of Bustamante, I came to dirt again and the entrance to La Minita. I snuck through the walkway and greeted the guard. Trotted downhill past colorful painted eucalyptus trees to the farmhouse at almost three hours and 10.62 miles after I left. It was a good run.

013118 1240p

Orange fruit shaped like a boat – Huevo de toro – only good for birds to eat seeds. The white milky substance coming out is poisonous. Smelled a bit like tangerine and I wanted to eat it.

408p

Had eggs and beans on tortillas and fruit for breakfast. I made coffee. Afterward we got in the back of the truck with Belman driving and we toured the farm standing in the back of a utility truck, holding onto the rail as we descended 4WD roads, legs as shock absorbers and balance stabilizers. Jim, my salesman from La Minita, told us about the farm’s history and landscape and agronomy.

910p

Lunch was pork chops and fried yucca. After, we went to pick coffee for an hour. I am amazed at how much Roya is on the farm. Much of the area seems to have been decimated by the leaf rust. Picking was mostly strip-picking because of the defoliation and the fact that so much of the coffee was ripe/overripe. I picked 1.5 cajuelas in an hour and earned 1950 colones ($3.40).

Much coffee will have to be replanted after harvest has ended. The coffee trees are sick and the wood brittle. I’ll be curious to see the effect on the farm. First, quality must be less and production will drastically decrease in the next 2-3 years as new coffee will be growing where older trees would’ve been producing. Also, I guess they probably didn’t anticipate this outbreak and probably don’t have enough coffee in the nursery to replace all that lost. Surely the guy who didn’t spray fungicide has lost his job.

After picking, we rode down in the tractor trailer and got paid for our harvest with the other pickers. Dirty and sticky with coffee juices and covered in roya, we went to the receiving station just down from the house and then walked up the road.

Dinner was at the mill, so we put on warmer clothes and rode in the truck with Belman down the road and across the river. Looked at coffee drying on raised beds. Iit was mostly Gesha yellow honey from Pradera. I’m interested in it. Johnny had the grilled chicken all ready to go. The limes here are orange on the inside and have a more rounded taste than ours. Lime on the chicken. Tortillas with rice, beans, pico de gallo, and avocado. So good. We walked through the mill and saw today’s coffee being processed. I got to see a kid take a hose and spray out the coffee in a fermentation tank to the washing channel. I thought, “This kid is washing the coffee and he doesn’t even know the impact that has on so many people.”

020118 452p

Have had a relaxing afternoon, sitting on the porch. Yesterday I got impatient waiting for the others to climb out of the tractor trailer, so I jumped over the side and landed 10 feet down on the ground, tweaking my right knee. Walking down to the mill today seemed to loosen it up, but I had to be careful about how I stepped. It’s sensitive now but I’m resting it and feel like it should be better in a couple days.

We toured the mill and cupped coffee with Sergio and his assistant Antonio. We did the usual cupping of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and green coffees. The other people in my group had clearly not cupped, so it was a little awkward for them.

We also cupped the trademark coffees – La Minita, El Conquistador, La Magnolia, El Indio, La Pradera, La Lapa, and Rio Negro. La Pradera was the only new one. It smelled like cocoa, but was dry and had a bit of an unpleasant finish.

I lay in the hammock for a while and read my book. Worked a bit. Chatted with Jim about coffee, the coffee industry, and ridiculous people in the coffee industry. Now the girls are making dinner. Lunch was awesome – fried shrimp and french fries.

We are watching a fire on the mountainside across the valley, spreading downhill quickly, it seems.

702p

Just saw a bright shooting star. The cell service and internet have both ceased to work here. I sat out on the steps to enjoy the night, but now I’m in by the fire. The fireplace here is huge and awesome. Jose builds a fire each night as the sun sets and the temperature plummets. He brings seasoned split logs and medium-sized branches in a large basket about 4 feet in diameter.

020218 904a

This Sunday is the presidential election in Costa Rica. There are 16 candidates from all different political persuasions. Sergio said he doesn’t know yet whom he will vote for, but he says each promises everything to everyone and they always deliver nothing.

Jim says they had two containers of El Indio stolen and the coffee was taken and replaced with rocks and dirt, which they didn’t know about until it reached port in the US.

Apparently this Sunday is also the Super Bowl. I forgot who is playing. So serene sitting on this porch. It’s all about to end. The whisking sound of a machete trimming grass and bushes. The breeze rustling taller trees. Whiney buzz of a fly circling around. The metallic clank and gravelly roll of trucks occasionally coasting downhill. Stationary clouds shading the mountainside. And the lone bird swooping down the drafty hill.

Packed my bag and was happy to get the coffee samples in from Miramonte and a commemorative plastic La Minita coffee cherry basket that Sergio gave me. About time to go. I need to tip the staff and I want to get a group photo.

020218 423p

It’s hard to think when I have my phone – still connected, thinking about work, about friends.

I was upgraded to first class on both flights home today. Not sure why. But I like it. The food is good, the drinks are free, the elbow and leg room are ample. I have the screen in front of me on the flight path, and I like to see where we are and look out the window at the land below. I can see cities connected by highways – long white lines on a dark green pallet of trees. It’s comforting to see so many trees, and I can’t imagine trekking hundreds or thousands of miles in such dense forest by foot. We are approaching the coastline of Mexico now and entering the Gulf. The coast is very populated and a long bridge reaches out into the ocean to what appears to be a port. Two large ships are cruising away. On my map, this looks like the city of Progresso. Only water now until we reach Texas.

In the airport I had some ceviche and a couple beers,  a local “tropical blonde,” but it smelled like a lager. I was hungry. On the flight I had beef, vegetables, salad, potatoes (which I didn’t eat for fear of milk), and a multigrain roll. I had an IPA when I got on, but have been drinking red wine since. I have a three-hour layover in Houston. I’ll likely go get fried calamari and a beer while I wait.

We were flying at 37,000 feet and over 500 mph, and now we are at 12,000 feet and 340 mph. Descending and slowing. Full cloud cover below. Looking forward to getting home and relaxing in my comfortable environment.

At Sortis Hotel in Panama City. It is very nice. I’m at a steakhouse for dinner. Ordered some sort of white fish. White rice. All the sides had cheese or milk. I hope it’s good. Drinking a Panama Lager. It’s not that good. My waitress speaks no English so I’ve been thrust back into Spanish speaking. On the flight from Houston, the guy sitting in the middle seat got up and moved so it was awesome. The guy sitting on the aisle was clean cut and friendly-looking. Though we didn’t talk until we landed. He lives in San Francisco and works for a nonprofit that builds schools in Nicaragua. It’s called Build On. I thought he said Bill Don. We chatted a bit about coffee and Nicaragua. Then in line at customs talked a little. I caught a cab with a guy named Fitzroy. He wasn’t with a cab company and his English wasn’t that good. So I’m in his private car and he’s blowing all the tolls, and I’m thinking of all the terrible things that could happen. Wondering if he was actually going to take me to the hotel. If his friends were going to meet us and rob me. He was shady. But I asked him a lot of questions. He said he has 3 sons and a daughter. He said his dad lives in Manhattan and works for the Army. He also said he works for a taxi company and showed me a ticket pad in his glove compartment that he probably got from the real cabbies. 

Anyway, we ended up at the hotel even though his headlights barely worked and he didn’t stay in his lane very well. $35.

Walked into the lobby and there’s the guy who sat next to me on the plane. Tom Silverman.

Weird.

Hotel room is very nice. Wish I could take my time, but my flight is at 730a tomorrow morning. That means I need to leave here at least by 6a. I’ve never taken this flight from PTY - it used to be at a smaller airport.

The girls here are very pretty, but maybe a little… well, not into fitness. I’m hungry.

Got an email from Aliss Hartmann asking if I would be there for lunch. I should be, but who knows.

It’s warm here. And I don’t think there’s any such thing as air conditioning. I like it though. Can’t believe it’s already 10p. East coast time.

So what are my goals for this trip?

x To have an adventure

x But not let that adventure get out of hand.

x To reconnect with the Hartmann family and find out what’s new.

x To cup coffees and hopefully taste some delicious and interesting things.

x To buy coffees and arrange shipping in consolidated container

x To see white face monkeys.

020817  740p

Wow, what a day. There’s no way to recap or express in words or pictures the rich experiences I had today. And again, one of the great things for me is that I have flexibility and desire to go on uncertain trips. But it is very nice to share invaluable experiences with someone I care about. I guess I just need to find that someone.

Right now I’m at Ojo de Agua - the original Hartmann farm. It is a few rough miles from the main farm and VERY remote. it is back in the forest and I’m staying in a cabin with no electricity. I’m cooking with an old cast iron propane stove by candle and lantern light. Frogs and all manner of buzzing insects serenade me through the open door. 

Light beaming from the rental car windows drew me outside because it looked like a streetlight - but from the porch I saw a nearly full moon floating above the mountains with wisps of airy clouds drifting by its round face. I feel a bit like a monk. Eating rice, ground beef and onion. A large-ish spider stares at me from across the table. And I’m having a Herzog Jan Dubbel in a very monk-like simple glass.

The food is ok. Not up to my usual standards. The rice still has a bit of chew. Before this, as an appetizer with a beer called La Lupulosa by Insurgente brewery, I fried some sort of tuber. Just looked like an 8” root about 1 1/4” diameter. I pared the bark off the outside and the inside was white and sticky. Sliced it diagonally like my dad did carrots and dropped the pieces in olive oil. Not bad. Sort of like fried potatoes. Had to shut the door because mosquitoes are biting me. Gets warm in here with the door closed - and it’s a shame to shut out the muted sounds of the wilderness.

Aliss says the white face monkeys usually come here around 6-630a.

I’ve finished my dinner and turned out the lanterns. Now it is just a candle. I went outside to disconnect the gas and the moon is so bright that it has a halo of light around it about 1 1/2 daylight hours from its center.

〰

My alarm went off at 430a this morning. That didn’t leave a lot of time to sleep. I actually fell back asleep for 30 minutes. Took another shower and got dressed and packed. Made coffee. People always say you should get to the airport 2+ hours early. Sometimes 3. I planned to leave the hotel at 530a and get to the airport at 6a for my 730 flight. I asked for a taxi at the reception and he had to call one - 6 minutes.

He got me there, but his car had no shocks - every bump was felt. And he couldn’t drive too fast. $35. I arrived at the airport about 630a. 

Hold up. Something may have just come through a vent. Heard metal and then lots of loud banging. Don’t see anything inside or out. Bird? Bat? Monkey? Possum? Something must’ve been on the roof.

First line I came to for Copa was somewhat short. Priority only. Second line - a little longer - online check-in. Third line long. Then I noticed the 4th line - Domestic flights. That’s me. Only a couple people in front of me. So I breezed through. 

I was in group 5. Practically everyone boarded before me. But we boarded a bus. I was almost the first one off the bus, and one of the first on the plane. I slept some. Looked out the window some. Amazing-looking islands off the coast near David. The guy in front of me was Chinese I think. He kept compulsively looking at his phone. Even when it was supposed to be off. He kept slamming back into his seat, which was reclined the whole time. And I’m not sure he ever fastened his seat belt.

There was a Nestle professional chef on board - ready to go to work.

And a curly-haired, grey-headed, older black man who showed up in his pith safari helmet. I felt that he was hoping to round up a half-dozen porters in David and set off to explore the uncharted lands of Panama.

I’m sleepy and tiny winged bugs are biting me. Hurts.

020917  1010a

Slow going this morning. I was exhausted. Set my alarm for 630a, but really didn’t get up until 9 or so. Had trouble reconnecting the gas - didn’t realize the release had to be open. Now eating breakfast and having washed Sidamo Bokaso. It’s good. Cooked onion and bell pepper and then cracked a dozen tiny eggs into a bowl. From a quail or something. They’re cream and spotted brown. Codorniz. They are different. I think I like what I’m used to. 

There is a plant outside the window with leaves as big as my torso. Bigger even; I may have body dismorphia.

I am going to walk to the farm. One, I’m a little nervous about driving back and forth on these 4WD roads - barely made it here. And I need to wander and take photos. And think and observe. 

There are berries growing outside. I can see a boy picking them. That would be a good dessert tonight.

020917  724p

In the cabin. The sun sets early here - maybe at 630p. Again I have shut the door and windows, as the bugs come in toward the lights. 

This is the last page of my journal. Somehow that always makes me sad. I carry around with me these memories and reflections until it’s time to put it on the shelf next to many, many others. I started this journal on May 2, 2016 in the square in Concordia. All of my adventures throughout this time span are recorded in these pages. Thinking back about it all makes me feel morose. I hate that time passes so quickly, and I hate that the passage of time means that joyful events and relationships have expired. All these things are in the past - and we cannot go back. So I must forge on into the unknown future with the knowledge that I may look back and lament the passing of today.

020917  738p

Eating beef and potatoes and onion. Drinking Anderson Valley Poleeko Pale Ale. Just finished a Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA. With all the gringos in Panama I’m surprised there aren’t micro breweries here.

〰

After I got off the airplane in David, I had the terrible experience of renting a car. It’s impossible to not get taken advantage of. My rate went from $50 to 250. But I got full protection - even though it appeared the guy was making me decline protection. I hope not. 

The drive to Finca Hartmann was not without diversion. I drove straight through David, which is an experience. Then I turned the wrong way on the Pan-American highway. So I had to turn around. At some point I broke off the turn signal lever - I didn’t figure the car rental company would notice. And by the time I got to La Concepcion, the car in front of me stopped to turn left and my first instinct was to lay on the horn. So I think I adapted well.

Stopped in Volcan for groceries. Bought a bunch of stuff - onions, potatoes, some root, yucca and plantain chips, olive oil, bananas, tiny eggs, ground beef, rice, and a cooler and ice. And some pepperoni sticks. I tried to buy beer but it was 1110a and the cashier told me she couldn't sell it to me until 1130a. So I put the groceries in the car, milled around and got a soda at the panaderia next door. Then went back at 1130 and bought the beers. On the way to Finca Hartmann, I was driving carefully because I don't know the car and the roads are SUPER windey. And I was afraid of dumping over the cooler. I saw a truck on my side of the road that may have been sideswiped - he was off the road into the embankment of the mountain, and one of his back wheels was off the ground. 

At Finca Hartmann I was greeted by Aliss, who was just as nice and handsome as ever. We had lunch with her mother. She told me that her father died at 96 this past September. She told me of trying to deal with it and how her mother had struggled, and I know it all too well.

We chatted about other things. She said this year they had near perfect weather and the harvest was going to be very big, but there was a hurricane that did some wind damage. But since the crop was so big, the harvest still ended up larger than last year. Some of the wind damage is evident - trees stripped of leaves, and some big trees down. Including the amazing Strangler Ficus I usually visit. Aliss says it was probably over 400 years old. And how old was the tree it strangled? You could climb inside the tree and look up through the cylinder that once was the prey of the Ficus. The Ficus is an epiphyte. Birds eat the figs and poop the seeds into the branches of a tree. The Ficus grows downward from there to the ground, and then surrounds the tree with its tentacles. Eventually the tree inside dies and rots away leaving an empty shell. This tree was huge. But its roots were shallow. Thus is the lifecycle of a Strangler Ficus.

The candle flickers every time a small flying insect enters its flame - which is often. 

After lunch I met Aliss' boyfriend, Luis. He was an organic farmer in California, but grew up in Nicaragua. We walked around the farm a little and he told me things about varieties and nutrients and root systems and the lifecycle of a coffee tree. In one area a tree next to a sprinkler head was in full flower. They smelled so good - so fragrant. The effervescence of the most special flower.

They were worried about my rental car making the drive up to the cabin. And rightfully so. With 2WD, I barely made it, and was on edge the whole time. In one section I just kept my foot on the gas and spun tires, creeping along at high center, but hey, I paid for full coverage. I did notice today the front right tire is low. I hope it's not flat in the morning. And I hope I can make it to the farm and get some air in it - will that hold until I turn the car in?

Today I got a late start. Walked to the other farm and memorized directions on the way.

"Go up the hill, not toward the mill."

"Santa Teresa wants you to go left, not right."

"Go right at the cross beam, where the Texas hat sits on the fencepost."

"The entrance to the farm is at the stone posts."

Took photos and dilly dallied a bit. Ate lunch again - rice and beans, meat balls and juice. Very fresh beans, they told me.

We talked about Colombian food and Aliss told a joke about Fidel Castro getting his countrymen to dance. She said it's funnier in Spanish.

I met Aliss' oldest daughter, Juliana, who is 16. She and Ratibor's wife were roasting coffee and bagging it to sell in Panama City. She was vivacious and happy. Aliss' dog, Fido was sick today. Yesterday he followed us all day. But I guess today he was sick and they were VERY worried. The vets were out of town. And he laid around a lot, sad and limping along. But this afternoon he suddenly perked up and started running. So that is good. There are A LOT of dogs here. All cute and nice. Two followed me on the way back to the cabin. But when we got to the entrance to Finca Palo Verde (the main farm), I said "Van a la casa." They looked at me. And I said Adios. And they seemed to understand.

I cupped coffee after lunch.

One table, 13 coffees. All that is available at this time. 

When I got here, a guy named Sebastian from a company called Phil & Sebastian's in Canada was here with an assistant and they were sample roasting and cupping a lot of coffees. Things that aren't available to me. Africans, etc.

The four African coffees were brought here from Ethiopia. No one knows what they are - and there are probably thousands of varieties of heirloom coffees grown in Ethiopia. It's the birthplace. Aliss tells me it's a punishable crime to try and smuggle coffee beans out of Ethiopia.

The cupping was good. Good coffees. It took a lot of notes to narrow down what I was interested in. But there was one particular lot of a Caturra/Catuai natural that was really good. And a second that was pretty good. I bought both of those. When I said so, Ratibor cringed because I basically cleaned them out of naturals. 

I also bought 2 different Gesha lots - one was the most complex, excellent example of a natural Gesha I've ever smelled. The other smelled so strongly of coffee flowers. I am very happy with this buy. Now I can begin working on some of my holiday coffee packaging.

These are expensive coffees - not to mention the trip. And freight to the U.S. and then to Tulsa. But the coffees really are extraordinary. So I know my customers will be very happy.

On the walk back up to the cabin I saw the fallen Strangler Ficus. And I heard a large animal in the woods run off - it sounded like a dog, but I know it wasn't. What could it have been? Coatimundi? Jaguar? Pig?

When gusts of wind come I can hear them rustling the treetops for 30 seconds or a minute before they actually reach the cabin. It comes to a crescendo and I expect there to be rain afterward - but the most has been some seeds or debris from the forest falling on the roof.

Tomorrow I should rise early and make coffee and sit on the porch waiting for the monkeys. After breakfast I want to take some pictures of the Ojo de Agua Geshas. And go for a hike in the forest looking for interesting things.

Aliss and Luis bought a farm together - Finca Momoto. They are growing a few varieties and plan to only process them as naturals. This is a shift, but Aliss told me they cannot keep up with the demand for naturals and the industry is all looking for them. What a change from just a couple years ago when the majority of the industry considered them "fermented."

021017  651p

What a day.

I'm at Grace Panama. VERY nice. My kind of place. Checked out the room and then the fitness center and pool. Now I'm sitting outside at the restaurant in the hotel. On a sofa. Smells so good. I actually wanted some things off the bar menu but didn't want to sit at the bar. Just ordered a Stella, which I would never do, but the local beer and all the other choices are not good either. The ambiance is great here and I have it all to myself.

Last night I woke up a few times because the wind was blowing so hard. I got up at 630a to look for the white face monkeys but they hang out in the tree tops and judging by the way they are swaying I figured the monkeys were hunkered down somewhere.

I made coffee and 9 eggs with onion and bell pepper. I cooked them more thoroughly today and they were much better. After breakfast I moved the car so a worker could finish felling a tree. It was not going to hit my car but no chances. Then I went for a hike. Walked up to the 1 hectare Gesha plantings then followed a trail around the coffee to a place where the trail had been hacked in the forest with machetes. The trail went straight uphill. Later found out it was a 1300 foot climb.

It was blowing so hard. I was sheltered from it by lots of big trees but all around me trees were bending and wind howling through branches. I came to an old road bed and continued uphill though much easier. Then I came to a fork in the road. Uphill said to Amistad National Park, so I went. But before I reached La Amistad, I came to Tibor's farm, Guarumo. At the top of that mountain, one side natural forest and the other coffee, I felt the full force of the wind gusts I'd only heard until then. Tibor's poor Gesha trees were taking a beating.

I'm eating fried calamari and a mediterranean bread smeared with tomato and olive, garlic, etc. The calamari is good and has a garlic/wasabi mayo dipping sauce. I have to be careful not to fill up on my appetizer. Haven't eaten much today though and I'm hungry. And this tastes good. 

At the end of Finca Guarumo, there was a farm gate - the kind with barbed wire and a post at the end that straps with wire to the fence post.

I just have to stop right here and acknowledge that this is perfect. The music, the ambiance, being outside in the tropics, I can smell the wood fire from the kitchen. The lights are dim, the food is delicious. My soul is very happy right now. I acknowledge that I won't be in as perfect circumstances again any time soon. Maybe ever. I love it.

Over that fence starts La Amistad. It just looked like an unused road. But I'd love to follow it and explore. I was running short on time so I had to turn around and hurry back. The hill was so steep I slipped and fell on the way down. I saw a coffee tree in those woods that was about 18 feet tall but it had been recently knocked down by another tree falling. It had a few ripe cherries at the top and I pulled a few off, just out of sentimentality. The variety I discovered in the forest. Haha. No monkeys.

I have a saying when I'm hiking, that it's hard to look for fossils and bears at the same time. In this tropical forest, I thought: It's hard to watch for vines and monkeys at the same time.

Back at Ojo de Agua I hurried to clean up, shower, and load up. I left a little rum and some olive oil. And a couple of packs of chips.

I paused outside the door to watch that big, old cypress take its final fall to the ground. I hate to see trees cut down. Especially ones that big. Aliss told me her grandfather planted it, but it was starting to lean more and more toward the larger house and they worried the wind would blow it down and hurt someone or the house. So the tree had its lifespan, just like the big old Strangler Ficus.

The 2 front tires on my rental car were low. One very low. So I drove very slow in first gear to Palo Verde. Made it without too many hard rubs with rocks on the undercarriage. There was a cadre of dogs there to meet me. Fido seemed to be feeling all better. I was glad about that - he's a precious dog and Aliss really loves him. I chatted with Aliss and Luis some more. I like Luis a lot. He's very nice and a great resource for info.

Aliss told me that I could take a scenic detour from Volcan to Cerro Punta. So I did. It was maybe 30-40 minute loop. The area is beautiful - vegetable farms and fresas (strawberries). Up near Volcan Baru. Volcanic soil and lots of rain. A couple of beautiful horse farms. Looks like an easy, peaceful place to live.

The Hartmanns lost electricity before I left the farm and Aliss just messaged me and said they still do not have electricity and the storm is expected to last 48 hours. On the way out I saw MANY downed trees - mostly banana and plantain. They told me that these winds usually start late February or early March. Everyone kept saying "this is the first day." Apparently the winds usually last about 4 weeks. They are a little early this year. I guess each year they dread these winds and pray they don't do much damage. They are coming from the Atlantic.

One thing I didn't know was how big the Ngäbe Buglé Comarca is. I saw a map of it and Aliss told me where most of their coffee pickers are from. She said to get home they take a bus to a northern city and maybe a boat after that. And then they paddle canoes up the river to their homes. There are no roads in that province. Pretty interesting. They speak their own language too - not Spanish. 

When I reached David I saw 2 signs for airports. I chose the closer one. The route took me through the BUSIEST part of David. It was ridiculous. There are no stoplights anywhere, so cars on cross streets just butt in. But it works somehow.

I had the tires on the rental car aired up at a gas station just outside Finca Hartmann. Filled up with gas by the airport. $14. Turned the car in and checked in to wait. I noticed Air Panama left before us and it was a free-for-all. I like the semi-order of Copa. Even though they don't enforce any of the rules. My bag was between my feet. The woman next to me had hers on her lap. The guy across the aisle had a backpack between his legs. And the flight attendant stopped to tell me to push my little bag under the seat in front of me. The guy in front of me didn't even have his seat belt buckled.

Anyway, the wind was so strong that the takeoff was a tad rough. Cruising was fine - and short. Coming into Panama City the plane was drifting everywhere and I was nervous, but landing was fine. 

Trouble ensued at the PTY airport.. What should've been simple turned into a compoundingly bad situation. I was so thirsty when we landed I went to look for water. And didn't find any. But I went down the stairs to the exit at the far end of the terminal instead of the closer one. And I ended up in immigration again. Went back up but the airport person told me I had to do that again. So I waited in a long line. I could tell it was wrong when I talked to the agent but she sent me on. Then I couldn't get out of the airport. Because domestic flights aren't supposed to be there. Finally a guy just let me go through. Thank god. I was frustrated - and 2 hours had passed.

Getting warm out here. I need la cuenta.

021117

At breakfast. Nice buffet. Fruit, fried yucca, smoked salmon, etc. Ordered an omelette. The light shining through my blue water glass makes a rainbow on my table, which is very fitting. I love this hotel. Even the arepa tastes good. Went to the front desk to ask when checkout is and the beautiful girl working at the reception said noon. I asked her if I could check out at 1p and she said no problem.

Just asked about the Panamanian corn tortilla (arepa). So good. They say you boil the corn, then cut it from the cob, then grind it and add salt - a little butter if you want, and grill or pan cook in small rounds - these are 2.5 inches diameter.

I’m in the Wichita Mountains, sitting in front of a small, hot fire with the moderate chill of night and chirp of crickets surrounding me. On the three-hour drive here I was drinking our newest coffee, Sircof Venecia Honey. It’s a seriously good cup, tightly wound with pear, chocolate and honeysuckle, but today I noticed a savory nutmeg finish that lingered sweetly like a good Scotch. It’s Autumn and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching. The season of dusk with the cold night of Winter on its heels. The past two Wednesdays, after the Wednesday Night Ride, I pedaled my bicycle home in the fading light of day. And at the crest of the bike path in Crosbie Heights, overlooking the mellow Arkansas River, above the railroad tracks with the trestle crossing water and a background of oil refinery towers and tanks, the orange light of dusk stopped me in my tracks. The receding, colorful light reflected around a curve in the river, glinting off the water, the color of the embers in my campfire. It’s really amazing to watch the sun set and the sky turn midnight blue. It feels like a miracle. 

This past April I was at Finca Sircof, in the Alajuela region of Costa Rica. As I walked around the farm, visiting with Marco and Maricela Oviedo, it was apparent why this coffee is so good. The farm is small and the milling is primitive, and Marco is a meticulous farmer. His land was clean and organized. The trees were healthy and productive. And he seemed to know each individual coffee tree, having raised them all from seed, nurturing them into fully productive adults. Marco was aware of the fragrances and flowers and fruits throughout his land. He seemed more curator than farmer. But his youthful, weatherbeaten face and calloused hands showed his dedication to the work of farming. The Venecia variety of coffee is a relatively unknown tree, found only in the lands around the Alajuela region. Known for its productivity and uniformity, the variety has a surprisingly tasty profile. Marco grows this coffee, harvests it at the peak of ripeness, and processes it in a way that can be very tricky. He strips away the skins of the coffee cherries and spreads the sticky, mucilage-coated beans on the ground beneath a greenhouse arch. Dried in the sun over the course of twelve days, the coffee develops a sweetness and flavor which enhances the inherent cup of the Venecia coffee. Probably the most technically difficult type of milling, this is a process that’s easy to mess up. But Marco pulls it off spectacularly. And he’s doing it right now. Coffee production, processing, export, and import are time-intensive, so the coffee you are drinking today is the coffee Marco was making a year ago today. It’s a masterful cycle, and I hope you’ll think of his hands in the coffee as you enjoy this cup.

After I visited Marco and Maricela, I took a four hour bus ride to Arenal Volcano to run an 80km race through the rainforest. Running very long distances is one of the things that refreshes my mind and spirit and keeps me sharp and able to do what I do every day. It’s the simplicity of running and the grueling determination required that steels my resolve and enlivens a spirit of new possibilities. 

This race was particularly inspirational and as I ran into the approaching night, with a flashlight on it’s last leg, I grasped a sense of ultimate freedom. Like this full moon loosing itself from the thorny grasp of the silhouetted trees to soar into the lightly veiled sky. Autumn holds that freedom. Released from the grip of Oklahoma’s oppressive summertime heat, we bask in the campfire smoke and the fragrances of the season, the chill air, the turning leaves, and the rich flavors, which are perfectly delivered in a cup of Sircof Venecia Honey.

One celebrates the fruition of so many processes where known and unknown, controlled and uncontrollable variables all fell into a staggered line and somehow, against all odds, something beautiful emerged. The running shoes represent miles and adventures yet to come. That spirit of an active future evokes memories made on the run which shape the idea that these new shoes will bring me happiness. Unlacing a new pair of running shoes is sort of like opening a can of whoop-ass.

But it hasn't always been like that for me. Sure, I've spent the last 30 years of my life on the hop. I've run through places you can only dream of. Through places I dream of. I’ve run day and night. Night and day. I don’t run frequently, but when I do, I make it count.

Last night I went outside in my bare feet, without a shirt, and I walked in the street with my eyes to the heavens. Yes, I was praying that I could have a 6-pack, all the while resisting the almighty's urging to eat healthier and drink less beer; but I was also searching the sky, half-heartedly, for shooting stars. It's the Perseid meteor shower. Light pollution from the city of Tulsa makes it highly unlikely I'll see anything unless I go far, far away from town. And get lucky. (I saw no meteors, but while I was strolling around the streets in our neighborhood uniform, I noticed the bright red and blue scrolling lights from police cruisers, so I walked down to ask them what was up. They don't like that. I don't care what they like.)

Years ago, when I was first learning about coffee and myself, I spent a lot of time backpacking and rock climbing with my friend Brad. We made a lot of memories in the woods, some miserable and some funny. He taught me how to backpack and then I began to learn about ultra-light speed packing, and eventually began racing in 36-hour adventure races. Brad and I also learned to rock climb together with the help of a godly man named John. I had a desire at the time (and still today) to be fit and active and experienced enough that I could do anything at any time. That's a big component of freedom for me. Brad and I packed up our gear one weekend and drove to a place called Sam's Throne in Arkansas. It's a place people go to climb rocks. After pitching our camp, overcoming some hesitation and exhilaration on an overhung rappel, and almost killing ourselves because of our lack of experience, we sat on that overhung cliff in the darkness to talk and enjoy the night sky. A shooting star appeared. And another. And a million shooting stars. Everywhere we looked were streaks of light across the sky. We were in awe. And I went away thinking that's just how it is when you get away from the lights of the city and see what's really going on up there in the heavens. It was a marvelous night. I wish I would've known how rare it was and how lucky we were. (We also carried a badly injured freeclimber out of the woods that weekend, to be emergency air-lifted in a helicopter. And I think it was on the truck ride with a local good-old-boy back to our camp that Brad made the decision to dedicate the rest of his life to emergency medicine. Perhaps he wished upon some stars.)

Today my watch buzzed and I looked down and it said, "MILE 1" and I thought, "99 to go." And that was the first time in a couple years I've let the idea of another 100 mile race enter my head.

I "hated" "running" when I was young. I put those words in quotes because I don't know how a person could ACTUALLY hate running. Running is like life on steroids. Practically everything fun involves running. I love running. And people say it comes naturally to me. I'm "lucky" because I'm in decent condition and can run far.

When I was in junior high school, I joined the track team because I knew I wanted to play football in high school and I wanted to get in shape. All the kids laughed at me and said I run funny. They imitated me. They said I was fat and slow. (When I was in my early 20s I returned to my hometown and won my age group in a half marathon. Where you at now?)

I played high school football. I wanted to be on the swim team, but one of the football coaches was the swim coach and he made fun of me for being chubby and slow and having tan lines. (He was also the manager of the pool at a country club in town and I was a lifeguard at the OTHER country club across town. One day I got a few of the local kids and we spent the day fishing, working on our farmers’ tans, and putting all our crappie, bluegill, and carp in 5-gallon buckets. That night, all of my co-workers met me and we drove across town, jumped the fence, and freed our catch into the swimming pool. My friend Thad had to net them all out the next morning, and I read about it in the newspaper a couple days later. This is my first official confession that I had any involvement in that event.) (That has nothing to do with running, but I thought it was funny.) Make fun of my coffee and see what happens, Mr. Willy!

I played college football at a small NCAA school. One day I realized that the men who got in trouble for one thing or another were punished by running sprints after practice. I decided that there was some danger they would get in better shape than me, so I started staying after practice to run sprints with everyone who got in trouble. I think they thought it was a show of solidarity, but I simply refused to be out-trained. 

I relished the days that were so brutal outside that no one would be training. Or holidays when I knew people would take the day off. Every opportunity to get one more day in than my competitors was a day that made it more likely I would succeed on limited talent and small stature. One night I woke up at 1 o'clock in the morning and decided that no one else would be training in the middle of the night. So I went to the high school track. And I ran sprints. I pushed myself hard into the wee hours of the morning. And then something remarkable occurred. I saw a flaming ball of fire streak across the sky. It was huge. I didn't know if it was an airplane on fire or a meteorite or what it was. But I promptly jumped into my car and drove toward where I thought the impact site would be, sure I would find a rural inferno. But I found nothing. And the next day there was nothing in the newspaper. 

Meteors are interesting because they are particles from outer space that enter the earth's atmosphere. We don't know when or where they will appear, and it is just dumb luck when you see one. Ptolemy surmised that the gods would part the heavens to peer down at the earth, and occasionally a star would slip through. Thus, making a wish while the gods were paying attention was a practice that should ensure a greater likelihood your wish will come true. (I've wished many things, but haven't found this to be a recipe for success. As I used to tell my dad, “Wish in one hand and sh** in the other and see which one fills up first.”) (Try hard work.)

Running, like most things, is something you get better at because you work hard at it. I've been running as fast and as far as I can for almost my entire life. Does that make me lucky? Sure. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity, right? Am I a great runner? No, I’m a mediocre runner with a lot of determination.

So what's behind success? Truly successful people make it look easy. People say they are gifted or lucky or cheating. (Lance Armstrong was all three.) But it's most likely that they just work hard and you never see that part, only the performance. But what about the shooting star? You can't work hard to see a shooting star. You can wait a long time at an opportune moment in a place without much light pollution. But generally it's luck. A meteor we see streaking across the sky in a fantastic light show can be as small as a grain of sand. And that makes me think about the life of the meteor. That little speck hurtling through space. It becomes a metaphor for our lives. For the life of a coffee. For the life of the DoubleShot. We may be as small as a grain of sand. But we streak across the sky in a marvelous display that lets everyone know the gods are looking upon us.

Luck or hard work? Shooting stars or running shoes?

Great coffee can’t happen without a lot of hard work on every level from the farm all the way through to the barista. But it also can’t happen unless the gods part the heavens and let an exquisite cup slip through to grace the earth.

(When you find a cup of coffee you really love, enjoy the hell out of it before it's gone. Coffees are temporary and fleeting. Drink and savor and enjoy before it fizzles out. Thank the Fates and all who strapped on their proverbial “running shoes” to make it happen. And then look for another.)

Go for a run

Driving to work, mug in hand, sipping, smelling, enjoying. Discovering florals and melon aromatics I hadn’t noticed in this coffee. Dazzled by the impossibility that coffee can be like this, I sipped and drove. And I saw a woman walking her dog, carrying a DoubleShot cup with our distinctive black sleeve and copper-toned logo. A white bag pinched between her fingers containing, perhaps, a toad-in-the-hole or a lemon-poppyseed muffin. She walked on the sidewalk in front of some empty, discarded parking lots. Her dog looked happy. She looked happy. And I felt happy.

This is going to be a great day.

I had big goals when I opened the DoubleShot. I saw a void in Tulsa where I could pour everything I love about coffee. When we opened, the coffee options here were depressingly monotoned. I thought I could make an impact, and I made note in my business plan the importance of freshness. Of being unique and innovative. Of continuing to learn about coffee and improve the coffee every day. And I could see in my mind's eye that I wanted the DoubleShot to become a landmark in Tulsa. A place people would seek out daily. My vision looked a lot more like the county courthouse than the strip mall at 18th and Boston.

Life is nothing, if not changing. Many of the changes in my life have come after the death of someone close to me. 

Papa Franklin. When I was growing up, my dad worked a lot. I spent a lot of time "piddling around" with his dad, my grandpa, Gale. He was a short, friendly man with a wisp of white hair and a round face. An outdoorsman, he loved to hunt and fish. And he was known around town as the boat motor repair man. His garage was scattered with Evinrudes and Elgins, outboard motors and trolling motors, each one partially disassembled on his work bench. He worked at his own pace, meticulously, it seemed. Whenever something was wrong with my car I would take it to his house and we would always begin by removing the carburetor. We would take a coffee break mid-morning. A lunch break. A break to have a Mountain Dew in the early afternoon. And another coffee break at the traditional coffee drinking hour of 3 o'clock. He would usually come slowly pulling into our driveway in his square, brown, Ford pickup around dinner time. He was quite a guy. 

In 2002 I was competing in a 36-hour adventure race in Arkansas. My teammates lagged and the weather turned very cold and very rainy. After the race, we fell fast asleep in our tent until we heard someone hollering at us. The rain had continued and the river was rising right outside the tent. We hurriedly pulled stakes and wearily hit the highway. Once my cell phone signal returned I had a voicemail from my mom saying I should come home right away because my Grandpa was dying. And so I drove back to Tulsa, packed some clothes and drove to Galesburg, Illinois, my hometown. He was on his death bed, but he recognized me and seemed happy to see me. I waited there for a week as he took his last breaths and my life changed. 

For 6 years I had my own personal training business here in Tulsa, but when I returned from my Papa's funeral, I told my clients that was my last week. I was leaving. 

Fred Bendaña was a client of mine. He worked out with me every weekday at 630a. He had cancer before I met him and he told me he was the only person who ever gained weight on chemotherapy. Fred and I became close friends. I think I earned his respect, and he even offered me a job in his company (which I respectfully turned down). Fred's cancer returned. I was coming back to get my belongings to take to Illinois until I sorted out the next phase of my life, and was looking forward to seeing Fred. But instead I attended his funeral. 

I had talked to Fred about opening a coffeehouse and roastery. His advice was not to sell one cup at a time, but to sell an entire shipping container of coffee at a time.

Steve Franklin. What a guy. I'm not going to start telling you what he meant to me or how he influenced the DoubleShot. It would be too much. I just want to say that he instilled in me the attributes that have allowed me to be successful. He taught me the skills and gave me the confidence to build and repair and invent. And when my dad died, I was cut loose from his expertise and had to put everything he taught me into practice. On my own. He did a good job preparing me to be my own man.

General Sterling Price. The cat that saw everything. This is the guy who was behind the scenes picking up the pieces every evening. He suffered with me, he rose and fell with me, he danced and cried with me. He was no ordinary cat. I'm pretty sure behind those eyes and that smile was the understanding of a superior being. And when he died one year ago, I died a little too. I began to think about my own mortality, what I want in life, and what that means for the DoubleShot. This is no simple task. It involved sleepless nights and many very long runs. It happened in the quiet, in the woods, in my dad's green chair, on the saddle of my bike. Alone.

I was listening to This American Life on NPR a couple months ago while roasting, and they were talking about Fermi's Paradox. David Kestenbaum talked to some physicists about his concern that we actually might be the only intelligent life in the universe. That we might be alone. And that we might be finite. And if we are all there is, and we are exterminated for whatever reason... poof. That's it. It feels like if there is no one to appreciate the miracle that is existence, it's all for nothing. Looking out the window right now all I can see are millions of miracles. Trees and plants and man-made lights and wires, butterflies and birds, and the closer you look the more miracles you see. 

I don't know why this bothered me so much, but it did. It's sort of the same problem of trying to make extraordinary coffee, only on an infinitely grander scale. If there is no one to appreciate it, then it is all for nothing. 

Shortly after I listened to that episode of This American Life, I loaded up my gear and drove to Arizona for a 50 mile run on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This race was on my 44th birthday. Alone in the car and in a hotel and in my tent and in the woods, it was all more time to think. Thinking about Fermi's Paradox and why I should assume the worst case scenario is true (from my accounting background). As soon as I caught a glimpse of the Grand Canyon at the first overlook in the race, I began to weep. I had to stop because the trail was steep and loose and winding and the tears clouded my vision. 

The result of all this contemplation is weird. But I know that it's time to make a decision. My goals still stand. Those far-reaching and unattainable hallmarks that guide my decisions in business. My ultimate personal goal is freedom. I want to be able to make any choice without limitations - monetary, physical, time, etc. This is obviously also impossible, but that's my ultimate desire. Freedom. But I do not want to divorce myself from this business. I love the DoubleShot. Have I thought about selling it? Yes! But then what? I like what I do and I want to keep doing it and to get better and better. And here's the thing: if this is all there is, and if human existence has an endpoint, I want to make life better while it exists. I think the DoubleShot does that. I think it makes life better for people. So maybe I need to start thinking about how to ensure its operation for future generations. Maybe until life is extinguished from the earth. 

In 2012 the idea popped into my head that the DoubleShot isn't stuck in this strip mall. But where would it go? Only one place seemed right to me. So with the knowledge that the bank would barely lend me enough money to buy a modest house in a run-down neighborhood, I talked to a realtor about the property and talked to private investors about the money. This deal eventually fell apart suddenly just before a trip to Costa Rica. But I am persistent. And I don't spend money frivolously. So eventually the deal began to come together again. The bank agreed to loan me money. And overcoming a few major hurdles, I found myself at the starting line. 

I have a lot of people to thank for helping me get this far. More people than I could list. But posthumously, I want to recognize:

The man who told me how to drink coffee. 

The man who told me how to sell coffee. 

The man who told me how to work and build. 

And the cat who told me that everything was going to be ok.

I don't do anything the way those people told me, but they wouldn't have expected me to. They simply inspired me to explore and learn and find my own path. 

So that woman I saw walking her dog, carrying the DoubleShot cup. She was walking in front of what will be the new home of the DoubleShot. The real home of the DoubleShot. It's time we move out of mediocrity and into a building that is suitable for one of Tulsa's landmarks. We are erecting a barn I bought that was originally built in 1850 in Berne, Indiana. We are building on a roastery with brick cast before Oklahoma statehood. It will be built with all the care and attention to detail that made the DoubleShot great. I intend to be hands-on throughout the build, adding all the quirky details. And I know my dad will be there in spirit, foreman of the job.

Like the pourover of coffee I made in my kitchen, I intend to extract all the goodness from the DoubleShot into this new building. The exactness and personality with which we make coffee will finally be on display in every corner of the construction. Like a cross between a pioneer cabin and a cathedral - for coffee - it will at once feel new and old. Fresh. Like the coffee belongs in this place. Seamlessly the DoubleShot will fill the room from wall to wall with its amazing aromas.

There's no stopping change. My college football coach used to say, "Every day you either get better or you get worse." Nothing ever stays the same. And you can expect that the coffee at the DoubleShot in our new home will be even better. Join us as we take our final journey into a building that will forever be the iconic home of the DoubleShot. It's going to be a great day.

We want you to be involved as we move forward through this process. Follow us on social media. Visit us online at DoubleShotCoffee.com for updates. And subscribe to our email newsletter.

031417  456p

Sitting at a bar near my gate in the Houston airport. Had a big pretzel and just ordered a Goose Island IPA. I'm on my way to Costa Rica. Tonight I will arrive in San Jose and check in to Holiday Inn Express. This trip is different from most because – like my first trip to Costa Rica – I'm first conducting business, visiting Fincas Cafe con Amor and Sircof, and then going on an adventure. My first trip to CR I took my mountain bike and hit the road, eventually making my way back up to Hacienda La Minita. This time I will take a bus to the town of El Castillo, near Arenal Volcano, and run in an 80K (50 mile) foot race through the rainforest. I'm nervous, but ready for action I guess. I hope all goes well.

915p

I'm at a restaurant called Rosti Pollo. Ordered a chicken sandwich, fries, a chicken empanada, and Imperial. Cerveza. Twice I have gotten food poisoning – once in Colombia, once in Nicaragua. In Costa Rica I'm pretty sure it was salmonella. In Nicaragua I stayed in my hotel room all day and felt like I might perish. Both times were from chicken empanadas. So it feels risky and dumb to order one but I did. I love empanadas.

Staying at Holiday Inn Express. It's nice enough. Rosti Pollo is across the street next to the casino. Tomorrow Jon and Marianela Jost will pick me up at 9a and take me to their farm. I'm interested to see what they have going on. Greg Peterson is friends with Jon and told me Jon was a very successful college strength and conditioning coach for his career.

At passport control, the officer seemed very suspicious of me. He looked everything over and asked lots of questions. I told him I have friends here. Which is true. What the hell does he care? What could I possibly be doing that's so suspicious? Maybe I'm just naive.

031617  603p

At the Costa Rica Beer Factory in Plaza Real in Alajuela. I walked about 1.5 miles from the hotel. Staying at Holiday Inn Express again near the airport. I'm drinking an local pale ale which hasn't been carbonated long enough in the keg. It's underwhelming. Ordered ceviche.

Yesterday Marianella and Jon Jost picked me up at the hotel around 920a. We drove to their farm near Naranjo. It's off a side road, through a nondescript gate. An agronomist named Aaron met us and we talked with him about some problems on the farm. The total area of the farm isn't very big and it's divided into 13 lots. The borders of the farm and individual lots follow contour lines in the land. Ridge lines, creek beds, etc. The whole thing is sort of shaped like an inverted Italy. A few areas had trees that weren't healthy. One section of CR95 variety was dying. Just over a short ridge, a neighbor's farm looked as if it were abandoned. Aaron thinks the unhealthy trees were not quality specimens when planted and maybe were not fertilized properly in the first year. He took soil samples and recommended uprooting the affected trees and replanting new. The Josts want to plant Villa Sarchi variety anyway.

We went to other sections of the farm to collect soil samples anywhere the trees were not so healthy.  In total we dug 4 samples. This consisted of digging a small hole straight down about one foot and scraping a small amount of dirt from the bottom – maybe a quart. We did this 3-4 times in each affected section and mixed them in a bucket before putting some dirt in a plastic bag and labeling the lot# and sample#. These will go to a lab for analysis to see what nutrients are lacking and if there are any fungus in the soil. Aaron also cut 3 small sections of trunks from dead coffee trees to take to the lab.

The ceviche came with fried plantain chips. Excellent. Now drinking Toro Sentado IPA. Spicy. Still a little flat.

Marianella talked to their new farm manager-in-training. He was spraying the trees with a foliage nutrient and the hose had been leaking and they lost a lot of expensive chemicals. Jon and I continued collecting soil samples and then went to the casita. They have 10 pickers in the harvest. They live in the casita. It's primitive, but Jon built beds and they rebuilt the facilities. Small outdoor kitchen with running spring water and wood cooking stove. The bathroom had a pot with a drain for the sink and a watering can mounted to the wall where the spring water came out for a shower.

He told me they had been generous to the workers, bringing them food and drink during the days and small parties on weekends. With 10 days left in the harvest, the family left in the night. He thinks it's because they are paying more than normal and they made the amount of money they were planning and left – back to Nicaragua maybe. Other area farmers were also using their labor and all were left without help. The Josts had to scramble to hire more workers and paid double.

Upstairs from the worker housing was a really cool covered deck with a beautiful view. He said they don't spend much time there because they work a lot and they can't keep anything on-site because of theft – they've been broken into twice.

I hope I don't get mugged on the way back to the hotel. Shady walk.

Costa Rican girls are so beautiful.

841p

Walked back to the hotel. Busy streets. Dark sidewalks. A guy was spraying with a hose a car that was parked with 2 wheels on the sidewalk. He stopped spraying so I could walk through. Walking by inhabited and abandoned bus stops, by one unused cement park bench rested a half-dozen shoes. Maybe all left foot shoes. All without a match - a sandal, a contemporary woman's wedge, a boy's tennie, etc. I felt as if these were clues to a serial killer. The bus stop killer. A bit later I crossed the railroad tracks that I thought were not in use and as I was crossing I heard some sharp, loud horn blows. I looked up and saw a passenger train barreling around the curve toward me at 50mph. I hustled down the sidewalk. the train light shined in my eyes. And then the rumble of the sidewalk and the burst of winds as the train railed past 4 feet from my shoulder. Shortly after that a car was on the sidewalk in front of me, letting a woman out. To my right were endless shanties – the kind of concrete block and corrugated metal buildings where you can't tell the beginning of one or the end of another. Windows and curtains, sparsely lit rooms. The car skimmed past me and the woman walked quickly to a door – nervously eyeing me walking toward her, she quickly opened the door, slipped inside, and as I approached she quickly shut and locked the door from inside.

After we left Finca Cafe con Amor, we went into Naranjo for lunch. I had the plato tipico –  rice, beans, chicken, salad, ripe plantains, and some slightly vulgar-tasting, cubed vegetable.

At the restaurant was a new coffee bar. It wasn't open yet but they had a nice new espresso machine. The restaurant owners' uncle owns a farm 2 km up the road and they are selling his coffee. Beautiful packaging.

After lunch we went to the wet mill where the Josts take all their coffee. It's called Herbazú and is owned by Manuel Antonio Barrantes. He won Cup of Excellence in 2015 at $41.20 per pound, raking in over $64,000. His milling equipment is really small but very clean. The astounding thing was the size of his patio. It reminded me of the patios in Guatemala. They say the coffee is spread on the concrete patio for a day, then put in his covered patio – which had a dome of plastic and was equally large. At some moisture content, it is moved to raised beds in the sun to finish. In this area, Manuel Antonio's family seems to be building houses. Nice houses.

Marianella and Jon rent a house in Sarchi. It is an amazing house. Gated. Huge yard with horse stables where they store their parchment coffee. The house is immaculate – remodeled and very nice. I was super jealous. We made tacos and ate out on the patio. So nice. I spent the night in their guest bedroom. This morning I got up and made us coffee. Jon made eggs with onion, pepper, etc.

031717 1204p

At the Hamburguesería in Plaza Real Alajuela again. Took 25 minutes to walk here. I'm the only person in the restaurant. There must be a school nearby – a lot of kids hanging around. Some of the same teenagers I saw last night. I haven't done anything today except pack up and eat breakfast. I grabbed half a bagel and jelly for breakfast tomorrow.

So yesterday morning we drove to Finca Sircof. I met Marcos Oviedo, whose Sircof Venecia Honey I roasted last November. Marcos seems very nice, laid back, and knowledgeable. We walked around his farm. A lot of early flowering. The farm is very clean, organized, and scenic. He trims the bottom branches from all his trees so there is a 1 foot gap between the lowest branches and the ground. This creates a much cleaner-looking farm. He says it's easier to pick. And when they spray the undersides of the leaves, it's easier also. Marcos says when you look under the trees you should be able to see if anyone is peeing on the other side of the field.

His trees all looked very healthy. He knows what variety they all are. He even stopped at one tree and said this is the most interesting tree in the farm. There are generally two trunks coming up from the plant. They cut all the rest that grow so the two can get all the energy from the root system. This tree had two trunks also, but one is a Villa Sarchi variety and the other half is something else. He says it is a mutation. The Villa Sarchi half produces very well and the other half does not. The leaves are even a different color. He says if the Villa Sarchi half has a very good cup profile, he will collect the seeds and plant them. the farmers are all looking for the next big thing. The next Gesha. The next Cup of Excellence winner.

There is a tree near his wet mill that I pulled leaves from. The tender leaves smell like potpourri and they taste like clove. It is called a Jamaica tree and they sometimes use the leaves in cooking. I'm so jealous of all the plants growing in the tropics that have interesting tastes and smells.

At 230p I'm catching a shuttle at the airport to go to El Castillo. Tomorrow morning at 6a I will begin a 50 mile race in the rainforest near Arenal Volcano. I'm getting nervous.

031917 224p

DoubleTree Cariari, sitting in the restaurant. Ordered an Imperial cerveza and a hamburger. The hostess here, Vivian, is so pretty and friendly. She has such a beautiful smile. My experiences of the past two days seem so surreal. I'm having a hard time even writing about them because I feel lost in thought and a distant feeling of being suspended in a dream state.

I went to the airport to catch my shuttle. The black Mercedes bus was packed and I sat in the front row between a couple guys who seemed impatient but quiet. There was a guy in the back who ran his mouth constantly for 4 hours. He told us how important he is, all the people he knows, all the places he's been – pretty much a million stories about himself. It was exhausting. To enhance the situation, the bus driver turned on 4 hours of The Bee Gees, Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, etc. It was really something.

Always good to see the country through the windows of a car. When we got close to Arenal Volcano, we stopped to take pictures. Really beautiful with clouds gathered over the peak and sunset turning them orange and yellow. Eventually we went through the touristy town of La Fortuna, then turned off the paved road onto dirt. After a bit of skirting Lago Arenal, we reached El Castillo and continued on out of town to a rough dirt track just before a broad river crossing. This was the entrance to our "hotel," Rancho Margot. I wondered how anyone ever found this place. But upon entering I saw that there were a lot of people staying there. It's a big place. With bungalows and bunkhouses. A communal dining room with buffet. I got my key and walked up the dark path to #16. Surrounded by rainforest plants, the front porch had a safari rocker, table and chairs, and a HAMMOCK! The room was nice. Sort of like being on safari, but permanent. What a relaxing place. Quiet but for the endless sounds of birds and bugs. Totally dark, but for very bright stars shining between an invisible roof of clouds. There wasn't much time to eat, sort gear, and sleep. So I went to dinner. Beans, rice, pork, fruit, the usual. I sat with a few guys from the race and we talked about our impending adventure. Basically none of us knew anything about the race. The website was sparse with no real information. No idea about the course.

After dinner I returned to my exotic abode and laid out all my clothes and gear for the race. Finished a beer and went to sleep. I always worry about oversleeping so I probably don't sleep very soundly the night before a race. My alarm finally went off at 345a to Coldplay's “Hymn for the Weekend.”

355p

Sitting in the shade by the pool. I'm thirsty and sleepy.

We arrived at the race site at 5a, one hour before start time. Not a huge crowd. The anticipation leading up to the start is amazing. Like a horse before a horse race, entering the starting gate, nervous energy seems to pour through my body and out my fingertips. It had been raining most of the night and showed no signs of letting up. We all took off our rain jackets and stowed them in our packs and walked out into the shower to line up. The race director counted down in Spanish from 10 to 1 and we were off. It was a combined pack of 80k and 52k racers. 30 in the long race – not sure how many in the shorter, but maybe about the same. It seems we made our way up dirt trail and double-track through Rancho Margot and off into the rainforest preserve. It continued to rain for hours. The trail was mostly sticky, thick, deep mud. We climbed and climbed – slipping and sliding, trying not to fall down. The temperature was nice and the rain was cool, but the humidity was so high I was dripping sweat, completely soaked. I always go out harder than I should. I guess that's my strategy. Build a gap and then fade throughout the race, trying to hold a decent spot. So I was running amongst faster guys. I let 2 pass and suddenly they veered left off the trail. There was a ribbon on the right side of the trail and 2 ribbons on a gate to the left - which normally would indicate that the course goes left through the gate. A group of us went and some were coming back saying it was wrong – no course markings and no footprints. But that didn't make sense. We all convened to decide where to go. Some dawdled. I and another guy kept going – down a long descent. It came to another gate and below us was a farm. And no ribbons. We had taken a chance that the leaders missed the turn and went off course, but in reality we were off course. The rest of our group joined us near the bottom and we all turned around to ascend. Back through the first gate we continued on the original trail into deep mud – and a ribbon. We ascended through something like a slot canyon that probably happened naturally but the sides had been chiseled out with shovels or machetes, as indicated by the flat marks in the wet, packed sides of the narrow gorge.  At some point we emerged onto a ridge and a summit, of sorts. the entire area was covered in cloud or fog. The wind blew up the side of the mountain and over the crest, pushing me sideways and pelting the right side of my face with tiny frozen water molecules. Mostly a dirt single- and double-track, the mud persisted, but now just a thinner layer on top.

Back into the thick of the forest I descended in mud so slick it was nearly impossible to stay upright. Mud, mud, more mud. Up and down the mountains. The mud was mixed with rocks, which usually were equally as slippery. It was hard to look anywhere but down, but all around was a diverse, thick forest full of birds and flowers. I was hungry. And because of the rain, I wasn't drinking enough water, though I was sweating profusely. So I got dehydrated.

This rural path eventually dumped out into a small town and the rest of the race was on dirt roads with much less mud. This was half way. The rain had stopped. And the lake was in view all the way back to the finish line. At this point it became easier to look and listen because footing was much better. The vegetation is awesome. Many things are HUGE. Big flowers and leaves and trees. Vines and epiphytes cover many trees. I saw birds of all color and song. Bright red birds with black wings. Oropendula – golden-breasted birds with nests that hang like pendulums. Flocks of squawking parakeets. A type of black and white bird that sits in the road  and when I came near would jump up and flop around and land again. And again. Bright blue birds. Birds with beautiful markings. I can't even remember them all. Some had calls that sound like pigs. Some like a motorcycle. One like a sneeze – Uh- Ah- Choo! Endless sounds and sights. I saw a lot of one particular flower that caught my eye. They were small and were falling from trees. They looked just like angels. A purple skirt, orange head, and white wings behind.

Some birds sounded like when you cluck for a horse. Some like a horn honking car alarm. Then the traditional chirping and long, loud calls characteristic of a rainforest.

It's hard to describe.

At times it was like scenes from Jurassic Park – looking across a field or down a valley and seeing enormous swaths of old-growth forest, so dense and tall and mysterious. At times under the canopy it was dim and thick with hanging vines. There are many ranches in the area because among the swaths of forest are clearings of the greenest, grassy, rolling mountainsides. I wondered at one point if the cones in my eyes have become more sensitive to greens, as this is the second time in recent memory (the other in rural OK on the way to Arizona) that I have been astounded by the brightness and saturation of the green grasses.

I thought I heard a howler monkey, and today one of the other racers said he saw some. I also spooked a large animal around dusk. Sounded like it was about the size of a bear and made a barking noise like a deer.

746p

El Novillo Alegre – Argentinian Steakhouse. I ordered chorizo and Lomito Tico – "tenderloin" steak with rice and beans and fried plantains. Delicious.

The sun came out between 25 miles and 36 miles and it got HOT. I began to suffer. The race director drove by to check on me twice. And when I got to the 4th aid station, the race medical director was there with a stethoscope around her neck. She sat me down and talked to me and checked me for fever. She said I didn't look good and she was worried I was going to start cramping and need medical assistance. I was tired and feeling mentally negative. Difficult situation. I hadn't started cramping but I knew it wasn't far off. I sat for a while and talked to the doctor, Adriana. She said that was the point of no return. The next aid station was 7 miles and then 8 to the finish, and there were 3 river crossings. There would be no one to pick me up if I got in trouble. I considered this. I rested for 25 minutes and put tape on a hot spot on my left foot. I had taken off my shoes and socks earlier and there was mud in my socks on the balls of my feet. So I turned my socks inside-out and cleaned them up as good as possible. But too late. After much consideration I felt better and convinced Adriana to let me go on. I told her I would walk the rest, but I knew that wasn't true.

The tape helped a lot and my foot wasn't hurting. I walked up hills and jogged on flats and downhills. Time and miles passed. I refueled at the final aid station. I crossed the rivers. The sun set. The clouds had reconvened across the sky and there was no light. I turned on the mini maglite I hadn't anticipated needing. Running in the night through rainforest. Different sounds. The bugs began their noisemaking, a rhythmic thrum. Trees rattled together in the breeze. Humidity seemed to rise and the wind died down. I was aware.

I didn't put fresh batteries in my flashlight and when the sun set, I still had 1.5 hours to the finish line. I turned it off now and then to see if I could run in the dark. But it was dark. I came to the final river crossing and all I could see was water. Suddenly a car on the other shore turned on its lights. Probably 50 yards of water between me and him. So I slowly picked my way, trying not to get into the deepest currents. With that crossing complete, I knew I wasn't far from town. I ran past a couple houses and lodges and restaurants. And then darkness again. And suddenly my flashlight went out. Pitch black. Nothing to see. I turned it off and on again and it lit and I ran faster. It went out again. It was on its last leg. And every time I turned it off and on, I would get another 5 seconds of light _ enough to memorize the terrain in front of me. And then the lights of the finish area appeared. After some confusion about how to get to the finish line, I crossed it around 13 hours and 30 minutes after I started. 30 minutes before the cutoff. Adriana was there and she seemed very happy for me. She said they had been talking about me, saying that I am a strong guy and even stronger mentally. That made me feel good.

I had no ride to the hotel and so I waited for Adriana to go so I could ride with her. It got colder. I borrowed money and got rice, beans, and chicken at the tienda.

Back at the hotel after 9p.

Shower, beer, sleep.

032017 1055a

I need to catch a shuttle at noon.

Had breakfast at the hotel. It's always good. The hostess, Vivian, is so nice and always enunciates very well so I can understand her. She probably speaks English but she never has to me because I always speak to her in Spanish. I'm still basking in the tropical environment. This morning when I woke up I was thinking about the post-race elation I was feeling. The accomplishment, the soreness, the memories of sight and sounds and smells and feelings. I remember when the sun set, smelling an amazing fragrance and turning my flashlight upward to see what flower released its perfume at dusk. I remember being desperate for calories and drinking a soda called Malta and eating a banana. The flavors I burped up on the trail were interesting. I don't know. It's like, here I sit, having experienced a myriad of life's nuances in a very compressed period of time and I'm awash in feelings. I feel cleansed. Maybe this is what it feels like to not feel stress. Maybe this is what it feels like to be high.

I brought exactly the right amount of coffee. Used the last of it this morning and am still sipping on it.

Post-race elation. 50 mile races are fantastic. They hurt like hell and require a lot of mental fortitude to finish. And then I sit down and smile.

Time to go to the airport.

~100p

In seat 8F on United flight 1099 from San Jose, Costa Rica to Houston, Texas. I was chosen for a random security check and they wanded me and searched my bags and boots. I think they said the flight is full but right now there are 4 empty seats between me and the girl in the seat on the other window. They are closing the doors now so I guess I got lucky. I'm actually a pretty lucky guy.

I was reminded of another trip I took to the SCAA convention a few years ago when it was held in Long Beach. It was during the early days of the DoubleShot and I was still living in primitive conditions, eating ramen noodles every day, and trying to stay afloat while adhering to my principles. A friend put me on a flight with his frequent flyer miles, and I racked my brain trying to figure out where I would sleep for 3 nights. When I arrived in Long Beach, I walked along the shoreline until I found a secluded spot on the ground beneath an evergreen where I thought I could safely spend the night. I got swept up in the international flavors of the opening ceremony then quietly disappeared into the night. But when I got to my sleeping tree, someone was already snoozing amid the pine-needle laden roots. I tried to sleep on a concrete park bench but the ocean breeze chilled me. So I wandered around. And I found myself standing on the sidewalk next to a man who lived there, on the street, and he told me he grew up in Tulsa, on Harvard Avenue near Southern Hills Country Club. He was divorced and unemployable. His children disowned him, and he clearly wanted to be my friend. We were, after all, from the same town and both (at least at the time) Homeless in Long Beach. (Which could’ve been the prequel to Sleepless in Seattle)

I declined my new friend’s offer to have a beer (mostly because he suggested we walk by the bar across the street and just grab a beer off one of the tables and drink it). And I declined his offer to spend the night in his friend’s back yard (partly because he told me his friend could get us any kind of drugs we wanted). A pretty girl walked by. I looked at her, then at him. And I told him I was going with the girl.

I didn’t, of course. 

Instead I wandered some more, looking for a nook or cranny where I might hide from the cold and the company of the night. I found a plastic chair under a stairwell that was comfortable enough to sleep sitting up, with my backpack safely between my feet. Hidden from view, the stairs trapped the heat emanating from my breath. I got a little sleep. And this became my Long Beach night home. (But not without incident.)

I spent the afternoons and evenings sitting on park benches, cloaked in a DoubleShot hoodie, reading William Vollmann’s “Poor People,” and noticing that the non-homeless (the homed?) would not make eye contact with me or acknowledge my existence. I sank into that book and became a character on the coast a few miles south of Vollmann’s favorite heroine and hooker hangout, San Francisco. 

Whether we get better or just different may be a matter of opinion. My life today is easier than it used to be, and I’m a little fatter, a little healthier, a tad less fit. Most of the people who live and work in the coffee industry did not get there the way I did. But we’re all there, all in the same place. I look around and see the pervasive attitude that we are only successful if our business grows and we open more locations and grow our wholesale. We all strive to be Starbucks. Not the mom-and-pop, the local roaster. 

Starbucks has infiltrated the Specialty Coffee Association. Maybe they control it now. Maybe they own it. The CEO and some other Starbucks executive clown appeared on the overhead screen and (at least in my mind) made a mockery out of the whole show. Their green-aproned servers appeared at this year’s opening ceremonies like robots set into motion by the evil empire, handing out uninteresting iced coffee and gas station-quality lemon bars. No one seemed to notice.

I see the industry wanting to be them. I see their emulation of each other and indifferentiation via coherence with the standards. The most rigidly rule-following, robot-like coffee person wins the consistency competition and their blandness is inoffensive enough to impress even the most mealy-mouthed Folgers coffee blender. But me, I want to make great coffee first. First and foremost. Yeah, I want to get rich. I don’t like being poor. It’s not fun. It’s stressful. But the reason I started this, and the reason I continue today, is to make great coffee. 

Here and there and everywhere are brilliant botanists and erudite chemists and creative coffee growers. Upright and talented brokers and importers. Amazing graphic artists and product designers. Electrical and mechanical engineers wrenching together devices so complicated I can’t comprehend. People who know something about coffee and tell the truth. Quietly, usually. Amongst those shouting inane, profane, and more importantly, uninteresting alternative truths.

The changes in the Specialty Coffee industry and the changes in my circumstances that allow me to sleep in a hotel bed are important factors in our ability to harvest what’s important in life and in coffee. I walked into the Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room, newly built to try and compete with people like me. It’s interesting, isn’t it? That so many of my peers want to be like Starbucks and it appears Starbucks wants to be like us. Somehow they feel threatened at the way we make coffee. 

Instead of continuing down the road of duplication and mass production, customizing your frappuccino so you can be just like everyone else, they have decided to pretend, in this “Reserve Roastery,” that they source small lots and craft roast (via their corporate computer controlled, robotic roastmaster) in a 120-kilo “small-batch roaster.” They appear to have bought all the nicest equipment and implemented practices currently only found at small shops like mine. But great coffee is not dependent on large sums of money or automation or pretty labels. You can’t feign authenticity. Or coffee quality. It all washes out in the cup.

I wandered around this Willy Wonka coffee factory and saw some details I liked. I saw an efficiency and design that puts all of us to shame. A bit too shiny, for sure. All I’m saying is, even in the middle of a corporate store that epitomizes everything I don’t like about the coffee industry, I found some nuggets. I found nuggets in my experiences on the street in Long Beach. And I found a lot of nuggets at the Specialty Coffee convention in 2017.

I plan to steal it all back to my lair in Tulsa, putting it into the beaker of ideas on my desk and converting it into DoubleShot gold.

Anyway, until recently it was illegal to airfreight unroasted coffee out of the country. But suddenly the FNC, in all their pro-commerce sensibilities, decided to open that mode of export. The result of this change is that my friend Cristina might taste a very good micro-lot in Medellin and send me a sample. And if I like it, she can FedEx a pallet of coffee to my front door in a week. Instead of waiting to fill a shipping container with 250 bags of coffee, loading it onto a container ship, transporting it on the ocean to a major port, and then trucking it overland from one of the coasts. Now if I like a 2-bag lot, it could go from the farm in rural Antioquia, Colombia to my roaster in urban Tulsa, Oklahoma in just a few days. This is great.

When Cristina told me this good news, she had two small lots she thought I would like. And I did.

Aaron Wing, a parent and a board member of the Lee Elementary School Foundation, asked if I would be interested in branding a small lot of coffee to sell in one-pound bags to support our neighborhood kids at Lee Elementary School. My one caveat was that I wanted to split the fundraising between Lee and the local schools where the coffee was grown. The children of the farmers who tended our crop would be attending these rural, equatorial schools and they need funds every bit as much as our local students. Aaron agreed enthusiastically and I began to think about the coffee.

One of the micro-lots Cristina sold to me is from a farm called Clavellina, which is in the municipality of San Isidro, in the Antioquia region of Colombia. This coffee is grown by a man named Alfredo Zea, who does not own the land, but is farming on property that was lent to him. These coffees are purchased and brought to Medellin by a woman named Marleny Taborda. She sells the coffee to Cristina’s father, Ernesto Garces, who is the largest coffee producer in Colombia. Ernesto’s guys mill the coffee and grade it, then sell and export it around the world. They cup every lot that comes into the mill and when an exceptional lot like this comes in, Cristina has it separated for roasters like me. 

The timing of the new FNC rule could not have been better. I just recently received our first FedEx coffee export and began roasting the coffee for our school project. I asked Cristina if we could donate some money to help the schools in San Isidro. She told me that she asked Marleny about it and she was very excited because the schools were in need of help. She said that a storm had damaged the roof at one school, and she sent several pictures of the school rooms and kids. 

This project is called "School Grounds Coffee." We will roast and sell the coffee each Wednesday. A portion of the proceeds from each pound sold will go to the Lee Elementary School Foundation and to the schools in San Isidro, Colombia.

This is a great coffee, with notes of caramel, vanilla, and pecan. And it’s for two great causes. We will sell it each Wednesday until the micro-lot runs out. Thank you for supporting the kids.

Wait. I’m not finished.

You know I like to run. I used to hate running, but now I crave it. I love running. And I especially love running very far on dirt trails in difficult terrain. This past Summer I ran a 100-kilometer race just outside of Zion National Park, and I’ve never felt better. It was a really pretty course. I love the desert. So I signed up for a 50-mile race called the Antelope Canyon Ultramarathon in northern Arizona that will likely be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been fortunate enough to run. The race starts and finishes in the town of Page, next to the Glen Canyon Dam at the gateway to Lake Powell. The race course goes through a few slot canyons, including the world famous Antelope Canyon, which is on Navajo land and is one of the most photographed slot canyons in the world. Antelope Canyon is sacred to the Navajo, and native guides will be posted on the course because their presence is required through these areas. The course will also skirt Horseshoe Bend overlooking the Colorado River. I anticipate the beauty of the landscape will overwhelm the pain in my legs.  The race is on Saturday, February 25. My goal is not to win the race (because that would be impossible). But I have two other goals for this race. As always, I want to finish; and I would like to finish in the top half of all the racers. Secondly, I registered for this race as a charity runner. That means I am raising money that will be used to assist with projects and groups in and around Page, Arizona. The donations will be used for three things: 

• To build kiosks at two different locations for the Navajo Tribal Park to inform visitors of how Antelope Canyon was formed and about Navajo culture and history.
• The Navajo Heritage Center will use some of the funds for repairs and maintenance to their facilities.
• And some of the funds will be given to the Page cross country team.

On a professional level, I always feel compelled to give whenever possible to coffee-related causes. But on a personal level, I have long felt a connection to the desert and its people and the ancient histories carved in the stone. I have spent many days roaming on foot and mountain bike through canyons and buttes, over plateaus and rivers, through sand and scree. In the stillness of desert pathways I can feel the spirit of the ancestors who roamed these places, knowing they looked at the same sights and felt the same rock and warm breezes. I love those feelings and the connection I have with the land. I can feel the life within the rocks. 

I want to do something special for this event. If you know me or you’ve seen me around the DoubleShot, you’ve seen me drinking coffee from interesting cups. These ceramic bowls were made by Navajo potters. They enhance my coffee-drinking experience and remind me of the desert. They connect me with the ancient ones who sipped from similar gourd-shaped ceramics. I would like for you to know this same experience. So if you donate $100 or more to my fundraising for this event, I will pick out one of these Navajo bowls (likely procured from one of the Navajo artisans’ road-side stands in Arizona) and give it to you upon my return from the event. Thereby, we’re supporting the Navajo people in one more way! There’s no way for me to track these things, so make sure when you donate, put your name on the donation (don’t do it anonymously if you want the cup), and send me an email so that I have your contact info. 

You can go here to donate: runsignup.com/doubleshot

Email me: Brian@DoubleShotCoffee.com

On a related note, there are a couple of interesting things you should check out if you’re curious about the Native American culture and what’s happening in the Tribal world. One is a podcast about the Navajo People: http://www.eisradio.org/item/021/  

The other is a short documentary about the stand-off at Standing Rock that was made by a friend and DoubleShot customer, Kyle Bell: https://vimeo.com/190403297

The podcast mentioned above, “Everything Is Stories,” also did an episode about the protest at Standing Rock: http://www.eisradio.org/item/022/

Nicaragua is its own place. It feels different than other places I’ve been; even places that are just over Nicaragua’s borders. I’d wanted to go there for a long time because some of the coffees coming out of there are good, and I really got into Nicaraguan cigars when I was in Guatemala. So in my two trips to Nicaragua I experienced a few different places and saw what things look like from different perspectives. There seems to be a lot of political-based tension and wide-spread social and economic issues.  

But I love the historical roads and buildings. I love the fact that there are people who live far from any navigable roads. And that there are nationals and ex-pats rehabilitating neglected coffee farms.  It's a diverse population. 

One of our special holiday coffees this year is from the Jinotega region of Nicaragua. Not far from Estelí, where I toured cigar factories and walked through a museum chronicling the indigenous people and the European invasion, all the way through the atrocities of the civil war. It’s from a place called Finca Los Altos, near the municipality of Laguna Verde. The farm is owned by the Mierisch family, a team of four, who manage different segments of the farming and milling and marketing of the coffee. But what’s so special about this coffee? 

Eleane Mierisch manages the milling of the coffees at the farm, and is partly responsible for the very high quality of this particular micro-lot. Eleane is featured on horseback on the info card with the one-pound package. This is a washed coffee, which means the skins of the coffee cherries were stripped off and the coffee was left to ferment, to bring out the sweetness and complexity of the coffee, and then the pulp of the coffee was washed off. When done properly, washed coffees can be amazing. And this one is. The variety (a Red Catuaí), along with the meticulous picking and processing of the coffee have made for some very distinct and segmented flavors that really pop in the cup. Drinking this with something sweet and soft like my mom’s apple crisp (recipe card included with the coffee), is a wonderful experience. 

The other holiday coffee I wanted to tell you about is our Guatemala Finca San José Ocaña. First of all, this is a natural from Guatemala. Which is unusual in itself. We did have two Guatemala naturals last year at this time, so even though they are rare, maybe I’m a fan. The coffee is grown at a high elevation, and is composed of a blend of two excellent varieties of coffee, Bourbon and Catuaí. The particular cultivation and harvesting and processing of these varieties (along with some fancy roasting techniques) resulted in a coffee that just fills my mouth with a feeling that can only be described by wrapping yourself in a blanket and sitting in front of the fireplace on a cold night. When I drink this coffee, here’s what I envision: If you could take a sheet of milk chocolate that is sliced so thin that you can see through it, and you draped it across your tongue, and it instantly liquified and left a soft film on your palate - that’s the sensation I get every time I take a sip. Anyway, these coffees are great. And in very limited supply. I recommend buying the collection of all three of our holiday coffees.

Eleane Mierisch emailed me the other day because I had a question about the coffee. I met the Mierisch family in Atlanta last Spring, where I first tasted the Red Catuaí we are selling. And at that coffee tasting, I picked up a card that noted this coffee was from a farm plot called “Venado.” Eleane emailed me back and let me know there are 10 different plots at Los Altos. Venado is at an elevation of 4300 feet, and is named after the beautiful deer that are preserved on the farm. 

I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the packaging for the coffees this year. The main design element of the coffees is the info card affixed to the back of each bag. Every year I dig deep and think about what moves me at the moment. About my interests and my roots and the experiences I’ve had throughout life that have delved deeply into my psyche. And this year my searching took me back to the very old photographs taken of American Indians in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Those sepia-toned black-and-whites, Indian in full regalia, posed in just the right light, usually in an unnatural background. These evidences of our past are intriguing and beautiful. They are the culmination of the history of the people of this continent and the confluence with alien invaders whose idea of technology and civility and wealth perverted the natural world in which our ancestors had learned to participate. These photos strike such a chord in me that I wanted to try and stylize the photographs of each of the farm owners of these three coffees to mimic those of the old Indian photos. I hope these are things that you enjoy and read, and maybe spur you on to look back at those images that inspired me.

Just real quick, I want to tell you about a few other new products we just put on the shelves. We have new diner mugs. They are the same high quality as the ones we’ve been selling (and the ones we use in the store), but these are white with the DoubleShot logo and icon in silver and gold. We have new Old Fashioned glasses with the DoubleShot buffalo logo printed on them in red. Red like Santa Claus. We have new Maduro Bars - super high-end Peruvian chocolate from Glacier Confection over in the Brady District, infused with pulverized Colombian Maduro coffee roasted by me. This is the best. There's also a new Camelbak Forge travel tumbler. It's bronze-colored with the DoubleShot logos laser etched. I think it's the coolest one yet.

Then we also have two new shirts. These are both shirts I bought for myself. I tested out a number of shirts before I pulled the trigger, just to make sure I was getting shirts that I really wanted to wear. And I did. One is a t-shirt. It’s heather grey with a very subtle grey imprint on the front of the DoubleShot icon and on the back of the rest of the logo. It’s super soft. The shirt I want to wear on the weekend. The shirt I put on as soon as I get home in the evening. The other shirt I got for roasting. It’s a polo. Black. Soft, but it’s really breathable. Allows me to stay cool while I’m roasting. I used to roast in a sleeveless black shirt, but I instituted a dress code and figured I should try to comply. So I now roast in the new polo.  I think all of these new products are excellent. All are things I use myself, and I wanted to share them with you.

That’s all for now. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. 

Your roastmaster,

Brian

ps. I just finished editing an episode of our podcast, AA Café. Mark Brown and I discuss all of these holiday items and ten things that make us feel content. You should listen.

Two greying men met at the DoubleShot a couple of days per week. They would sit at ease and drink our drip coffee and leisurely converse. If you wandered near their table at any point you might hear them discussing politics or current events or some philosophical point of which they’d plenty of time to ponder. The discourse was one monologue with plenty of air between words, unhurried and immersive, followed by the other rebutting or augmenting the previous assertions. And this would go on until they figured they should mosey on to who-knows-where.  It reminded me of the coffee breaks my grandpa would take in the afternoons, meeting daily at Hy-Vee’s grocery cafe or Hardee’s restaurant, seemingly unplanned yet unsurprised to see his buddies.

One day, one of these older gentlemen came to me with unusual and mysterious items in hand. He told me he had been a professor at OSU and taught in Ethiopia for a few years.  He handed me a primitive wooden mortar approximately one-foot tall, which he said was “an Ethiopian coffee grinder.”  I envisioned a woman roasting coffee beans in an iron bowl over a small mound of coals and then pulverizing them in this hollowed-out log.  Ethiopia is one of the only countries who maintain a custom of drinking the coffee they produce. Most coffee-producing countries export their entire crop and leave the coffee drinking for Nescafe.  Ethiopians have a lengthy, unhurried coffee ceremony that my grandpa would appreciate. They take fresh roasted coffee to the extreme, much like I did in the beginning of my roasting exercises - pouring coffee from roaster to grinder to brewer to cup, all within minutes.  Coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia.  And after the storied discovery of coffee’s restorative powers, the development of its consumption moved from eating the cherries to consuming the raw seeds mixed with animal fat, to drinking wine from the fruit pulp.  And who devised the amazing plan of roasting its seeds and extracting their goodness with water?  No one really knows. But though the consumption of coffee had evolved, the cultivation and processing of coffee had remained a wild, anecdotally-driven avocation in Ethiopia for centuries. 

In August 1952 a group of six Oklahoma A&M (now OSU) staff members arrived in Ethiopia in order to determine a suitable site for The Imperial Ethiopian College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts.  At that time a survey had been done and it failed to find a single Ethiopian national with the equivalent of a B.S. degree in any phase of agriculture.  OSU had commenced the construction of an agriculture school in Ethiopia with funding from USAID.  With the assistance of the Emperor Haile Selassie (hereafter referred to simply as “King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, Emperor of Ethiopia” or alternatively, “His Imperial Majesty”) the school was located in the famous coffee-growing region of Harrar, with a junior college in Kaffa and one near the capital city of Addis Ababa. The goal of this project was to teach Ethiopians about the scientific and industrial progress in agriculture, and to educate enough Ethiopians to take over the administration of these institutions as soon as possible.  The main focus of the college was on food farming and coffee cultivation.  OSU operated in Ethiopia from 1952-1968, when there were enough nationals to fill the staff.  During that time 384 people graduated, most becoming ministers of Agriculture and Education.  And 136 students went on to pursue advanced degrees in the United States before returning to teach at the college or work in the Ethiopian government.

The professor who gave me the mortar for crushing coffee also gave me an elaborate charcoal drawing of one of Haile Selassie’s Imperial Guards, or Kebur Zebagya.  He told me one of his Ethiopian students drew this and gave it to him.  The drawing is signed "Kiros Woldu" and dated ’65.  I love this piece of art and it hangs on the brick wall behind my roaster.  It’s a reminder of our connection with Ethiopian coffee farmers through OSU and the professor who spent so many days chatting at our tables. 

Bekele Dukale lives in the Gedeb region of Ethiopia.  He owns a farm that is about 5 hectares in size, which is the equivalent of 12 acres or the size of 10 football fields. That’s a pretty big farm in Ethiopia. Bekele grows coffee and sells it to a mill called the Worka Cooperative. This is a place that buys coffee cherries and dries them, and then processes the coffee to be sold through the Ethiopian Coffee Exchange or through a private exporter. Bekele has enough land and is producing a high enough quality for the mill to separate his coffee into a micro-lot.  This is fairly unusual for Ethiopia.  

Gedeb is southeast of the Yirgacheffe region, which is well-regarded as producing the best coffees in the world.  The reasons for this are likely the high elevation, the microclimates, and the age-old heirloom varieties of coffee that are growing in the area. Though Gedeb is designated as a separate region, it is home to some of the same types of coffees, and is supposedly the highest place in the country where coffee is cultivated.  

Coffees are graded for export.  Each coffee-producing country has different grading practices and designations, some based on bean size, others on its elevation, etc.  In Ethiopia, coffees are graded 1-9 based on visual inspection for defects and on cup quality. Up until just a couple of years ago, a grade 1 Natural was unheard-of.  And it’s still a very stringent designation because the natural variance in dry-processed coffee beans is something that must be minimized by careful harvesting, hand sorting, and meticulous milling.  

This year I bought coffee that was grown by Bekele Dukale.  I’ve never been to Ethiopia, nor have I met Bekele.  I bought the coffee from my friend Peter at Royal Coffee, which is a specialty broker in Oakland.  This coffee is a grade 1 natural, 100% grown by Bekele Dukale in Gedeb, and dry processed at the Worka Cooperative.  This is one of the holiday coffees we are offering this year to help you celebrate with family and friends, at home by yourself in front of the fireplace with a good book, or with someone special.  The coffee roasts beautifully.  It is consistent and even in color.  In the cup, it has a very soft mouthfeel with lots of dark chocolate and cinnamon.  Notes of pear and strawberry peak through, not in an invasive way, but just to tickle your more extravagant sensibilities.  I love it and I know you will too.  Our pastry chef, Curtis, developed a beautiful and simple food pairing for this coffee, based on a rustic French dish called clafoutis (apparently pronounced claw-foo-tee’).  Buy a pound at the DoubleShot or online and we’ll send you the recipe card with instructions and a mouth-watering picture.  

I can’t consume any dairy, so clafoutis is out of the question, but my friend Mark Brown suggested another pairing for Bekele’s coffee, and it’s one I am really enjoying. From Mark’s food publication, argentfork:

chocolate pear crumble

I tossed one of these together for some

friends last month who barely saved me

any. I did one similar for the woman who

taught us French when we were in France.

She said, “Mark … c’est incroyable.” And it

was. Butter the bottom of a baking dish big

enough to accommodate your pears. Half or

slice or chunk the fruit—it must be ripe—and

lay over it the best chocolate you can afford.

About 4 ounces. Top that with a mixture

of flour, butter and sugar, and maybe even

a little cornmeal for bite. Any old crumble

pastry will do. Bake until golden.

On June 18, 1954, the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie came to Oklahoma to visit OSU (then known as Oklahoma A&M College). He was visiting in order to show his appreciation for the initiative that the president of Oklahoma A&M College had taken to reach out to his country to develop an international program for educational aid.  The colleges that OSU set up in Ethiopia were the first in a new program called the Point Four Program, announced by Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address in 1949.  The Emperor’s visit was apparently quite a society event, and 300 of the “elites” of Oklahoma were invited to a formal dinner. Afterward, His Imperial Majesty stood in a reception line for an hour and forty minutes shaking hands and greeting 1,600 people.  

Two things stick in my mind about the Ethiopian Emperor’s visit.  First, Haile Selassie had requested, while in Oklahoma, to meet an Indian. So upon his arrival he was greeted by a well-known native american named Acee Blue Eagle, who was in traditional dress, and he presented the Emperor with an Indian war bonnet.  And second, after the formal dinner, Oklahoma Governor Johnston Murray gave a welcoming speech, during which he bungled the pronunciation of Ethiopia, calling it “Oklamopia.”

I searched the list of college graduates during OSU’s time in Ethiopia, but I didn’t find the name Bekele Dukale. No surprise, because the graduates seemed to be from the wealthier families of Ethiopia, emerging into teaching and governing jobs, or if into private farming, it was generally a large enterprise.  But the advancements made in farming technologies and education of farming methods, experiments with varieties and processes, and the general imprint made on the culture of coffee farming in Ethiopia by the schools from the OSU/USAID program were wide-reaching.  It is because of this dissemination of information and practical knowledge that a man like Bekele Dukale could learn to produce the highest quality of coffee from the finest coffee-producing region in the world. It’s a testament to the foresight in the 1950s by a handful of leaders in Oklahoma and Ethiopia that today one of the best coffees in the world was grown in Ethiopia, and is being roasted, brewed and enjoyed in Oklahoma. For that, we show our gratitude.  So why not call it “Oklamopia”?

Our Ethiopian coffee from Bekele Dukale is available for a limited time at the DoubleShot and online. We are selling it in special one-pound bags with an info card attached and our clafoutis recipe card.

How big is your farm and how many people work on it? 

Marcos Oviedo:  10 hectares. I have two workers that help me, but my Dad and I do a lot of the work.

DoubleShot: This Venecia Honey coffee is excellent. Have you tasted the coffee? 

Marcos:  Yes, I like to drink my own coffee.

DoubleShot:  Can you describe the “honey process” that was used with our coffee?

Marcos:  the coffee is not submerged in water, it is just wet as it goes thru the "chancadora" de-pulp machine, which takes the skin off, leaving a good deal of mucilage(sweet layer) on the bean. Then it is patio dried slowly in the sun, for 7 to 10 days, depending on the climate.  The coffee drying process is very slow, and we must rake the beans every 30 minutes for 6 hours a day, and cover them at night, so they dry evenly.

DoubleShot:  I know coffee farming is hard work and can be unpredictable. Do you enjoy it? 

Marcos:  Yes, my whole life has been about coffee, my father and my grandfather worked in coffee and now my wife and I run the farm and help our siblings with their farms too.

DoubleShot:  Do you grow other crops on your farm? 

Marcos:  No, but there are lots of avocados that I sell to the local grocery store.

DoubleShot:  Do you grow your own food? 

Marcos:  No

DoubleShot:  What is your favorite thing to do when you are not working? 

Marcos:  Play soccer and exercise. 

DoubleShot:  Have you been to the United States? 

Marcos:  No

DoubleShot:  How do you brew coffee at home? 

Marcos:  I like French press or chorreador.

DoubleShot:  Thank you again. I hope to come and visit your farm soon. 

Marcos:  Thank you for liking our coffee! 

My next trip there happened 14 years later. I was a fledgling rock climber and had heard great things about Elk Mountain. My naiveté about the scale and complexity of those boulder-piled mountains and the intense summer heat found me convulsing with cramps at the end of the journey.

Despite somewhat auspicious beginnings, I befriended the rock and have since summited many of the Wichita’s peaks, slept many nights in their shadows, and explored many miles on- and off-trail, looking for summits and treasures and to feel the past where I tread in the footsteps of Indians who hunted and lived and explored these same haunts. This past Summer I bushwhacked more than I hiked. I chose my own way, and I was rewarded with grand views and fantastic sightings. I walked within herds of buffalo. I spied 20 elk from one mountaintop. I found a 4-foot long antler lying among a martian-like landscape of white, twisted trees in a controlled-burn area. I stumbled upon the skeleton of an elk, its spine arched over a boulder, where coyote or lion or bobcat had feasted heartily. I even had a very rare sighting of a porcupine in the crevasses and caverns between massive rocks near the Spanish Canyon, where an outlaw Spaniard lived in a cave within Indian territory in the 1800s.

My house is in one of Tulsa’s oldest neighborhoods. It sits up on a hill near a monument for Washington Irving, who wrote about his passage through this land in “A Tour On The Prairies.” Irving traveled with a troop of Rangers exploring the territory and looking for Osage hunting parties. While encamped near my house, Irving wrote, “Just as the night set in there was a great shouting at one end of the camp, and immediately afterwards a body of young rangers came parading round the various fires bearing one of their comrades in triumph on their shoulders. He had shot an elk for the first time in his life, and it was the first animal of the kind that had been killed on this expedition.”

Just down the hill, at the base of this neighborhood, is Tulsa’s oldest park. It was sold to the city by Chauncey Owen, who inherited the land from his Creek Indian wife, Jane Wolfe. Chauncey hoped, rightly, that the creation of a park would increase the attractiveness and value of the remainder of his property in this neighborhood (á la George Kaiser). Quanah Avenue divides the park from the neighborhood, and is a main thoroughfare used by the numerous shapes and sizes of ducks and geese that call our Owen Park home. Swan Lake we are not.

Quanah Parker, the last great Comanche war chief, roamed the plains and peaks around the Wichita Mountains until his surrender and assimilation into a new culture at Fort Sill. Quanah was born in Elk Valley, where I have climbed so many boulders and slabs, to Peta Nocona, a Comanche chieftain, and Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been kidnapped as a child by a Comanche war party that massacred her family in Texas.

In 1890, Quanah built a mansion at Fort Sill and lived as the leader of the Comanche people on the reservation. His residence, called Star House, was moved off Fort Sill to Chache, Oklahoma in 1957. I went to see it last weekend, but was disappointed not to have found the house, only The Trading Post, which is owned by the man who now owns the dilapidated Star House. 

If you’ve spent much time at the DoubleShot over the past couple of years, you probably met one of our regular customers, Greg Peterson. Greg is one of those charismatic guys who has a genuine smile and a way of making you feel like he thinks you are better than you really are. If he told you his career is as a college football coach, you wouldn’t have been surprised; tall and imposing with an athletic build, he looks the part. His most recent stint was as the offensive coordinator at the University of Tulsa during their successful seasons. In his time at the DoubleShot he cycled a lot and conversed warmheartedly, and he exuded a desire to coach again. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for him, he was hired as a wide receiver coach at Eastern Illinois University and moved to Charleston, Illinois (not far from where Cynthia Ann Parker was born).

Before he moved, Greg connected me with a friend of his, Jon Jost. I emailed Jon a couple of times and found that he was from Nebraska, and is married to a Costa Rican woman (á la Peta Nocona). They had recently moved to Costa Rica and were farming coffee. I met Jon at the convention of the Specialty Coffee Association of America in April and we talked about trail running and coffee, both of which flourish in the Cordillera de Talamanca, the foothills of which Jon’s farm is perched.

Jon and his wife, Marianella have successfully mined the channels and found brokers and roasters who are eager buyers for all of their coffee. They are also opening up these pathways for their neighbors. At SCAA, Jon gave me two coffee samples, one from his farm, which was already sold out, and the other from a farm called Finca Sircof. I sample roasted these coffees and put them on the cupping table with coffees from Africa and Brazil. This Sircof Venecia Honey really separated itself from the others with aromas of berry and a sweet, smooth taste.

Finca Sircof is owned by Marcos Oviedo. His farm is near the farm of Jon Jost. Marcos has spent the last few years improving the quality of his coffee, building a micro-mill on his property, and experimenting with different processing methods. The Venecia variety is a new type of coffee for us, and I really like it. A mutation of the Caturra variety, it retains the solid structure of the Caturra, but benefits from slower ripening to add density and complexity.

Marcos processed this coffee using the Red Honey method: after picking only ripe coffee cherries, the skins were stripped off and the beans dried with the fruit pulp still intact. This method results in a very tasty coffee with sweetness and smooth, slightly fruity vanilla aromas.

This is the coffee we are drinking to celebrate Thanksgiving. To celebrate relationships. Washington Irving drank coffee near my house, in the vicinity of the future Quanah Avenue. Quanah Parker drank coffee in my weekend home in the Wichita Mountains. And thanks to Greg Peterson, Jon Jost, and Marcos Oviedo, we will drink delicious coffee with our families in our homes and at the DoubleShot this holiday season.

Read more about this amazing coffee and buy a pound on the DoubleShot website. We are selling the coffee in one-pound commemorative black bags with a card affixed bearing a photograph of Marcos and information about the coffee. Happy Thanksgiving.

2.0 miles.

“Sixty to go,” I thought. 

I was running on the roads in Osage Hills.  I wasn’t actually running 62 miles that day, but I was training for a 100 kilometer race in southern Utah.  So I imagined how I would feel 2 miles into a 62 mile run.  I felt fine.

I was going to Zion.  The National Park.  Where people wait in line to catch a shuttle bus that takes them to paved trails so they can join hoards of other people enjoying the wonders of “nature.”  I’d never been to Zion.  It was just a place on a map.  A place I had heard was beautiful.

I live in a diverse neighborhood in an old part of Tulsa.  Adjacent to my house (which appears to be abandoned) live a drunken ex-mailman; a doctor; a cop; a drug dealer (so the cop tells me); and a bunch of cool kids hiding behind a fence and a gate so the mailman, the doctor , the cop, the drug dealer, and the coffee guy can’t disturb their sanctuary on the hill.  I like my neighborhood and the mishmash of oddball people who live there.  On my way home I see a lot of our homeless sleeping up under bridges and hanging out near shelters.  One man with amazingly limber hamstrings has been living on the sidewalk under an overpass near my house for a couple of years now.  I don’t know him.  I don’t know anything about him, but I wonder a lot. 

The other day I was walking home from an outdoor concert and I noticed this man was sitting straight up, as usual, legs outstretched in front of him, and he was reading something.  Curious, as I got closer I could see it was a road atlas.  A big one, like the atlas I keep in the seat pocket behind me in my car.  The one we all used to refer to when we traveled.  Rand McNally.  With its inset big city maps and distance charts from landmark city to landmark city on our country’s interstate system.  This man, who hadn’t gone further than the corner store in over two years, was looking at an atlas.

The life of an entrepreneur can be stressful and full of decisions and adversity and never-ending lists of tasks impossible to conquer.  Days fly by in a whirl of addressing issues and partial successes and unexpected setbacks.  Solving problems and planning for the season to come.  CYA and learning and adjusting and hopefully doing better tomorrow. 

In the evenings when I get home, I fire up the range on an All-Clad pot with a generous pour of Spanish olive oil, chop some Vidalia onion with my Japanese chef knife, and the stress begins to sizzle away.  I turn on the classical station to hear masterpieces by Russian composers, written 150 years ago.  I strip down to my undershirt, pour a Belgian ale, and make dinner. 

I read at night.  About the history of the world, generally.  About geography and cultures, and adventures of explorers from recorded past, civilizations, and fossil records and ruins.  Right now I’m reading a book from an author I enjoy named Elspeth Huxley.  It’s a memoir of her life growing up in Kenya on a coffee farm after the first World War.  

It’s escapism, isn’t it?  Life is hard monotonous and we want adventure and change.  Things don’t go as planned and we don’t know if we can go on for one more day.  And then we go for a run or thumb through the U.S. road atlas or read a book about the travails of a time and place so foreign to our own.  And our minds travel.  The human brain is an amazing thing.

This is one of the things I’ve always loved about coffee.  Coffee beans are the seeds of coffee cherries.  Fruit grown on trees in tropical highlands throughout the world.  The coffee beans you buy at the DoubleShot in our kraft one-pound bags are hand picked by people in faraway places who speak different languages and live an entirely different life than we live.  Their culture and cooking and housing are as foreign to us as history or deserts, or the unknown interstates to a man with no means of transportation.  The terroir and cultivation and processing of the coffee influence its taste in the cup.  The inherent characteristics of a coffee are the result of a million semi-random factors taking place in very interesting places with very interesting people guiding the cultivation.  When you see the names of these coffees (“Do you want the Colombia or the Kenya?”), it’s not just a name.  These places are real, and they are coming to us.  The coffee is a physical manifestation of a land and a culture far away from here.  You can touch and taste and smell the fruit of Ethiopia or Costa Rica.  It’s as if we were serving the cuisine of a dozen cultures, each prepared by inhabitants of those foreign lands.  We live out world travel in each cup and each pound and each little coffee bean that was touched first by the land and then the hands of a native and by me and you.

I love the idea of coffee.  Because it’s not like a movie about a safari or a French restaurant or a memoir or a road atlas, though those are all wonderful experiences.  This is the real thing.  You can drink a cup of coffee and the world comes to you.  A momentary escape in the midst of the chaos of life, it can take your mind to foreign lands.

His full name was General Sterling Price.  He was named after John Wayne’s cat in the movie “True Grit.”  I adopted him when he was 2 months old.  That was 17 years and 2 weeks ago today.  I decided I wanted a cat and I walked into Companion Animal Hospital on Harvard and he was there in a cage.  He was so tiny that he sat on my shoulder and walked back and forth across my neck from shoulder to shoulder.  I remember that I told the person who worked there that I would look around and let them know if I decided to take him.  So I drove to a big box animal store and looked at all the various cats and I couldn’t stop thinking about that little black-and-white at Companion.  And I started to panic thinking that someone else might adopt him before I got back there and I ran out and jumped in my car and drove back as fast as I could and ran inside.  And then I acted nonchalant and said I didn’t feel like looking any more so I would just take this little guy.  And from that moment forward we were best friends.  I watched him grow from a tiny kitten with too much energy into a peaceful adult who loved just sitting with me and holding my hand.  

I could go on and on, like any pet owner I guess, but suffice it to say that Sterling was a very unique creature.  I would often look at him in amazement that he was animated.  How could an animal like him be real?  He seemed like a human, contentedly trapped in the body of a cat.  His face always told me what he was thinking - his expressions were obvious.  His eyes were full of life every time he opened them.  He loved life and looked forward to our rituals each day.  And he was with me through the years that I was learning to be a man.  I was only 26 years old when Sterling and I met.  He has been a huge force in the changes I have made in myself the past 17 years, and in the creation and evolution of the DoubleShot.  You may think that I’m exaggerating, but I am not.  He was the behind-the-scenes entity that kept me going every day, gave me a listening ear no matter what I had to say, and showed me a peaceful and forgiving way to approach any situation in life.  The love and companionship he gave me was perhaps one of the most important things in my life that has allowed me to keep going day after day.  It was as if we were one.  And now that he is gone, I feel like I lost a section of my heart.  An entire portion of my life and personality was buried yesterday in an oak casket under shovelful after shovelful of Oklahoma dirt.

That isn’t to say that life won’t continue.  Of course it will.  But it will be different.  I will have to learn to adapt in different ways to the daily routine and find an outlet for my stress and emotions.  And the DoubleShot?  It will be fine.  It won’t be the same.  My desire to make coffee was born with Sterling at my side.  He loved the smell of it and licked the residue from the bottom of an empty americano cup.  

I know this doesn’t mean a lot to many of you, but if you enjoy DoubleShot Coffee, you should know that the source of my inspiration for creating it and for persevering and improving it was General Sterling Price.  His death is a major setback to me and to the DoubleShot.  I will likely reevaluate my priorities in the coming months, and make some important decisions about the direction of this business.  That’s how important he was.  

Please enjoy the coffee and all that Sterling and I have created here at the DoubleShot, with the help of so many people through the years.  Enjoy it today and tomorrow and the next day.  Because life is uncertain.  Thank you for helping our dreams become a reality.  I hope the future holds unexpected pleasures and more delicious treats.