Before I became a librarian, I spent a little under half of my working years as a barista at Starbucks. While Starbucks offers all sorts of fancy, and expensive, designer drinks, nothing ever had the same kind of appeal to me as that of a nice hot cup of coffee with a little bit of cream in it. Whether it was a large cup of coffee to get me through my drive to class, or a little pick me up during a particularly taxing shift, coffee was always there to give me the caffeine fix that I needed.
Although I don’t work at Starbucks anymore, I still have a deep love of coffee. To me, what people find interesting about wine, I find interesting about coffee. The fact that the flavor can change so much depending on such minute variables is fascinating to me. That being said, I won’t pretend to understand that I can tell how all of these changes impact the taste of the coffee. Just the idea that one crop of coffee beans can taste completely different from another crop that was grown no more than a few feet away under different conditions is so interesting to me. Not to mention the fact that the same beans can create a different flavor of coffee depending on how they are brewed.
Using the coffee roasters that we have located in our library of things collection, I have even tried to create my own signature roasts. While I consider myself to be novice at best when it comes to roasting, I found it to be a really fun experience. If you are a coffee drinker, I can’t recommend checking one of our roasters out enough. The process is easy enough to learn that anyone can do it, but it can provide hours of entertainment and learning as you play around with the different roast temperatures and experiment with how they impact the coffee’s flavor.
If you’re interested in all things coffee too, I’ve compiled a list below of some of the best coffee resources we have in the library. Whether it’s learning about the business of coffee, how to make the perfect roast, or how to spice up your coffee game at home, these resources are sure to be helpful. I’ve also gone ahead and linked the two coffee roasters that are available to checkout with your library card. Enjoy!
