From the Piazza della Repubblica, Florence (Firenze), Italy.Special co-hosts: Mark Prince (CoffeeGeek.com) and Andrew Barnett (Ecco Caffe).
Recorded back in May, Nick and his traveling companions recap the excursion through Switzerland and Italy. A continuation of a CoffeeGeek Podcast (soon, hopefully, to be released at CoffeeGeek.com).
One more time: thanks to our European-excursion podcast sponsors: DaVinci Gourmet and EspressoParts.com.
1 hour 8 minutes and 5 seconds
MP3 format, 25 MB
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Hey!
ReplyDeleteYou were getting somewhere, there, with the discussion of over-analyzing, fixing something which isn’t broken, coffee not having an ultimate end, etc. Too bad you were all so distracted (good thing you didn’t go to Sienna, though, as that place would have made you even more distracted).
Maybe some of these thoughts could be put in the discussion about the need fo competitions and such. Is coffee really solely about competition, improvement, and proving yourself?
Yes, what’s in the cup matters. A lot. But it can be very different things. It doesn’t even need to be espresso, right? A Turkish coffee on a terrasse by the lake in Montreux or a press pot shared with good friends on a fine morning... Sure, “quality” matters. But perception of quality is, very literally, subjective.
Please, follow on this reflection that you started with Mark Prince (with AB’s near-silent participation).
Cheers!
Alexandre
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/
To be fair to Andrew (or perhaps not), he was feeling mighty goooooood by this point in the evening ;)
ReplyDeleteThe level of distraction was... distracting. There was some really interesting conversation which got repeatedly (and perhaps understandingly) derailed.
ReplyDeleteThe notion that the relentless pursuit of quality is in some ways a niche-creating influence on a product/company/industry is interesting. (Perhaps not where products=services, because in those cases, quality is often a force of simplification, not rarification. Hmm. But I'm not a marketing person, so what the hell do I know?)
Also, Nick, the way you were talking about the "honest" common espresso of Italy made me really think about comfort food. Not American-style fast food, but comfort food that's within the grasp of the everyday person (or shop, in this case). Quality ingredients? Sure, to taste. But the object of the food isn't the relentless search for quality -- it's to serve the customer something which will make them feel not challenged or at a loss for words -- but comfortable.
One other comment:
From the Pot-Kettle-Black file, I especially liked it when Mark derailed the conversation like 5 times in a row, then got flustered with Nick noticing a chick and was all, "Hey, Nick, can I finish here?" ...I wanted to reach through my iPod and veritably throttle Mr. Prince. :-)
This was fun! It reminded me of my first trip to Italy (yup, Firenze) and my first taste (at the insistence of my friend) of good espresso.
ReplyDeleteIt was a conversion experience for me - simple coffee and food, but so good.
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