The Coffee Club

The most amazing perk where I work comes from a coffee aficionado colleague. We have a small coffee club for which we chip in three bucks a week and said colleague buys Nicaraguan and Guatemalan fair-trade green beans, roasts them at home, lets them sit for two days, and brings them to work. Not only that, but he grinds just what we need for a pot. All this very early in the morning, so that when I get there there’s freshly brewed coffee to start my day.

You can’t get more spoiled that that. But on top of it, I’m getting a coffee education. He tells me what the different characteristics of that day’s coffee are and, in time, I’ve come to recognize them. I think I’ve guessed the two countries several times. I get my cup and then tell him what I taste. It’s more or less like wine tasting. I know it’s hard to imagine that, but there really are different nuances depending on where the coffee grows and you can figure them out. I can taste the tobacco and chocolate, for instance, which I never though I’d be able to do.

I’m telling you, it would be hard for me to work somewhere else.