Joshua Pagan’s Coffee Corner

Welcome to Joshua Pagan’s Coffee Corner!

The whole purpose of this little corner of the blog is for me to have a platform to rate, review, rant & gush about all the little different coffee adventures had along the way.

I absolutely love coffee. I love the shops, the culture, the machines, the baristas, everything. So, I’m happy to dedicate a little space in my life to put into words the things that I yap about constantly but never write down.

Let’s start with my coffee journey.

I may have mentioned in the main blog that I’ve worked in or have experience in the coffee shop scene, however, how I even got there was a funny little adventure.

*David Bowie makes a posthumous appearance on my mug.*

My step-dad used to work managing the valet parking in various hotels in Puerto Rican hotel district. My mom and I would go visit him for either brunch or dinner. Usually at a discount! Haha

It’s in one of these hotels that my mom met Gerry. I was yet to be baptized into the coffee culture, but my mom would often stop and get a latte or two.

She’d invite me to partake, but I’d just decline.

As a hispanic kid, I’d already tried coffee either by making it for my step-dad or gotten some from my grandma. It always tasted bitter and just gross to me. By this time, Starbucks had already risen to prominence, but nothing really grasped my palate.

One day, I did accept her invitation, and told Gerry to prepare something that even someone who hated coffee would love (We’d end up calling this a Gerry Whatever Special, hahahaha).

It was a single shot of espresso with two pumps of white and dark mocha sauce and confectioners whipped creme. The really thicc stuff, not that canned nonsense.

This was the first time I genuinely understood “Nectar of the Gods.” A muted and diluted version topped to the gills with sugar, but ambrosian nonetheless.

This then spiraled into exploring different versions of the Gerry Whatever Specials as he would implore me to taste the full range that coffee had to explore, which then moved on to me starting to visit Gerry in between classes or during days off.

On one day, I get to the shop and I see him tinkering with some quasi-alchemical contraption (a basic chemex, haha), measuring out coffee beans, water temperatures and making sure the mugs were warmed up ready to receive a freshly brewed batch of “the good shit” as he called it.

He’d gotten his hands on some ethiopian beans and he took advantage of his access to shop quality gear to brew it to perfection.

Now, to this point, I had never given black coffee a second chance since my kid days, but my trust in Gerry’s suggestions were solid enough for me to give it a shot.

He poured out two ounces in a ceramic espresso mug and awaited my reaction.

“Fuck! Thats fucking great!” slipped from my lips.

Instead of bitter, this was a floral, near citrusy experience. It was pleasant and now I was officially a coffee lover.

However, when and how did I take the leap across the bar from customer to barista?

So far, I’ve mentioned Gerry, but I haven’t really dived deep into describing him.

Gerry was a barista through and through…

He might hate that description, but the truth still stands.

From messy hair, to the random tats, and the little coffee & cigarette breaks we’d take from time to time.

Only he could elevate a small shop in a corporate hotel to a proper coffee shop with his playlists. The vibes were always immaculate.

Overall, he was a wild soul who had already hopped around different shops in the island and now had his sights set to move to the Mecca of coffee culture in the US… Portland, Oregon.

Shit! I was about to lose my favorite barista and someone I now considered a dear friend. In less than a weekend!

Regardless, I decided that instead of moping around, I’d hang out with him one last time and asked him if he had any plans. To which he mentioned that he was looking forward to a little barista jam in a couple days.

In a rare display of spontaneity, I declared that I would participate as part of the going away hangout! He thought that was hilarious and asked me if I was serious.

I doubled down and told him that I meant it. The problem was that I had never touched an espresso machine in my life.

*Insert Cheesy 80’s Training Montage!*

I bought a $15 Mr. Coffee from walgreens or walmart, I got some soy sauce (espresso substitute) and a shit-ton of milk. Over the next couple of days I took my training seriously, to the point where I could make my own coffee at the shop.

*Which of the two do you think is mine?*

It was the day of the Barista Jam and it was time to perform.

Still, I powered through and managed to get a beautiful shot and steamed the milk to perfection, where I’d miscalculated was in getting absolutely fucking wrecked.

Ya boii was drunk as fuck! Hahaha

My pour was compromised to say the least and lets not even mention the disaster that was my “presentation” of the art.

Please… Refer the the previous picture and take it all in.

The clear disaster thats the white streak doing its best to pass off as latte art.
The spilled coffee along the counter.
And above anything else, the shit-eating grin from the Simon Cowell of the Jam’s panel of judges.

He knew what was up and allowed the trainwreck to happen. All in all it was a fantastic night and whether I new it or not, a stupid joke of a challenge turned into an acquired skill.

Fast forward a year or two from Gerry’s departure and I hadn’t done anything with my skill. I mean, sure… I still had my Mr. Coffee and often made my parents coffee whenever we had lazy days at home. But, there’s an undeniable difference in shot draw and milk steaming capability between that $20 toy and an industry level machine (If you want to bridge that gap on a budget, feel free to let me know in the comments. I can help you navigate the market based on your coffee needs.)

My girlfriend and I were in another of my favorite coffee spots near campus, talking about moving in together. She was unsure cause she didn’t earn enough and, oh! of course! I didn’t have a job! Hahaha. (I had some GI Bill pay, but nothing steady)

In the moment she said that, the owner of the shop happened to be passing by and I immediately turned to him and asked. “Yo! Can I work for you?” To which surprisingly and without hesitation he said, “Sure! Can you start this weekend?”

And just like that, I had officially crossed the counter…

… to be a dishwasher and busboy.

However, in a dumb moment of confidence, I looked at the barista and told her that I was looking forward to covering her breaks as a barista. She took it as I was gunning for her position and she wasn’t exactly wrong.

I made my intentions clear with the owner and he decided to take me under his wing. He took my rough skills and polished them into something consistent.

As my coffee skills grew, so did my responsibilities. In less than a month, I went from busboy to covering the barista’s breaks, to covering slow shifts, to performing opening & closing procedures in the shop and eventually I would hop around their different shops (three in total) covering all positions from kitchen to coffee station. I was thriving.

The only issue was that $8.50 was decent (at the time) but I wanted more. That’s when I approached Breville.

You might not know them by name, but I guarantee you’ve seen their products.

The Breville machines are beautifully crafted, stainless steel coffee machines (and other small countertop appliances) that can often be seen in the background of TV and movie sets. Before the big boom of coffee culture hit the US, this was THE brand and the Breville Barista Express was THE machine every barista wanted to bring that café quality into their homes… and they happened to be looking for their first Brand Ambassador for Puerto Rico.

Luckily, I got the job and all their equipment for free! Better, yet, now I had a solid part-time to pair with my gig at the shop that paid $20/hour!

I now had the ability to practice and play with coffee making at home, and then help others do the same!

For a time I held on to both jobs, until Covid kinda took the wind off my sails, I covered this in another blog so, if you’d like to read more about that feel free to click here once you’re done with this post.

Now, I’m no competitive barista, nor do I have any aspirations to be. Hell, I’m not even behind the bar any more. However, I do still love exploring different coffee shops. Whether its for fun, people watching, reading, or (as I’m typing this out) working in a coffee shop… I love the experience. To the point where I can talk my girlfriends ear off comparing and contrasting different shops, re-designing their layouts in my mind, talking about how I’d approach their team-building and critiquing their customer service. I talk about it all, front to back, down to the little nuances of the milk steaming between baristas. I love taking note of all of it.

Granted… They’re not always positive observations. Specifically, where a lot of newer shops are failing is the customer service and consistency between shifts and baristas.

The shops I worked at in Puerto Rico managed to almost guarantee a baseline of quality and experience across the board (with the exception of one of the baristas… who should have never been brought back on… but that’s a story I might never really get into). However a multi-million dollar business with multiple in-store coffee shops that I worked at could not, for the life of them get the same experience or quality within the same shift. I tried approaching them about it but critique isn’t always welcome, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So what is this whole yap session about?

You probably can gather that I’m passionate about the subject and given the chance, I WILL talk your ear off. So why not share what I know, my experiences, reviews, and critiques of my little coffee adventures. Why not share the good, the bad, and the ugly of different shops from whatever corner of the world I’m in?

If that sound good to you, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter down below.

I know how crowded and overwhelming all the random emails can be, so I promise that I only intend to drop an email maybe once a month once the blog starts taking shape. It’ll probably be like a “Month in Review” approach, but I’ll be sure to label it under “Joshua Pagan’s Coffee Corner” so you don’t have to parse through the rest of the email if you’re not really interested in the other stuff. Whatever it may be… haha.

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Ps… if you’re ever in Chiang Mai, Thailand… be sure to hit up Ristr8to. Arnon is an absolute monster of the craft. He doesn’t know I exist, but, please, just do yourself a favor.

*Godmother Mocha at Ristr8to, Chiang Mai*

Thank you for reading,
Joshua Pagan | 05/18/2024