They might be called, the willing, accomplishing great feats of being inclined towards a parting of self-consciousness and hip fatigue.  These new icons might be seen as outdated, of course and rightly so, before they even start. They will be seen as dead on the plate, dead in the cup, dead upon arrival. Too sincere.

Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real thing.  For as far as I can see, the risk of disapproval in today’s society is of greater net value than the current currency of approval.

Today’s risks aren’t so clear. The new coffee rebels might have to become artists willing to risk the rejection, the rolled eyes, the cool smile of teenage malaise, the broken ribs, the parody of the current avante garde of the establishment, the “Oh! How they are fools.”

 I am calling for your going out to sea, at the risk of unbearable accusations of sentimentality, being a drama queen.  Of overcredulity. Of suicidal life-styles of the unknown and unwanted. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of gawkers and celebrity profiles, who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Why? 

Because coffee is an issue this country cannot afford to ignore anymore.   But what is the "issue" of coffee exactly? What is in contention? What is the polemic? There are complexities regarding our relationship to coffee that the country has not really worked through. 

There are distinct disparities that exist between a farmer and a consumer.  There are concentrated pockets of coffee poverty, a direct product of the self-righteous understanding of our personal cup. There is the obvious degradation of our environment from the interdisciplinary taxation of conventional agriculture. There is the sickness of subsidies and the addiction it reaps. 

The successful development of a coffee revolution here in my home town of Athens, is not disconnected from movements exploding within similar American towns across our countryside, is dependent on honesty. I have been thinking in depth over the past six months about the definition of honesty, and I have a new deity in my theoretical kingdom. Her name is sincerity, the New Sincerity. Honesty is our perspective on our own personal simple truths, but we are beholden to understand a reality far greater than that. The New Sincerity, she asks for collaborative efforts. She demands games of trust where we fall on each others' hands, risking the slip through arms in a dusty crash. The New Sincerity acknowledges context, and community. The courage to resist the lure of the status quo of self-reflexive honesty takes sincerity.  We cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together.  And to solve them together we must regain acute awareness of not only our own needs and desires, but those of the greater system at work.

My belief in this new god comes from my unyielding faith in the collective power of the people of all backgrounds.

In these times - times of nutritional, agricultural, cultural, and environmental decline - we need a redefined army. We need farmers who are heroes, roasters who are samurais, importers who are wandering monks, producers who are sturdy, and the whole lot of them willing to sail into murky shark-winnowed waters of mediocre coffee production with all eyes bent on the gale in the mast rather than the unknown below. We need the new agriculturalists who reject the known safety of the 4H and Farm Bureau and stand under the twinkly lights of the future with neon postcards of the Downtown Farmers Market and coffee tattoos as their new scythes and trowels. We need educators that can move with delicacy through the sticky inter-tangling of the nation's first generation of direct trade heads, bringing progressive vigor to the coffee classroom and the rural backwater coffee houses. We need garden parties and church sermons and potlucks to color their choruses with a new credo of co-production rather than co-consumption. We need brazen, sincere warriors who give the consumer no choice but to follow their lead. The New Sincerity is hope - an oath taken under the cloud of gunfire and insurmountable odds between the men and women that are inspired to push a sense of humanity back into our kitchens.  The battle is fought with weapons of the cuppings, the chemex, the espresso machine, and the revival of coffee slowness in the American dawn.  In that bunker the soldiers tie a hand written note to their arrows and fire backwards in time while telling their children tales of the triumphs of such new-fangled arcane tools.... and the notes, of course, are compostable.  

It has been said that the greatest selling album of all time is the blank CD.  Numbers over Thriller, numbers over Rolling Stones, numbers over Purple Rain.    What if anything can a food and culture learn from this?  What is our metaphorical blank CD?   What is the emergent quality that we have overlooked?

My submission: Sincerity.   It is an unwritten hope.   A blank CD awaiting a perfect play-list by imperfect and willing warriors.

Cultural movements have always come about with element of hostility, fragility, and often times seeing a leader go out into a place far from the shore of our expected humanity.  The anger is real and it is powerful, but to dismiss it, is to miss a profound opportunity to engage the roots of that, which has created the food and cultural poverty structure we all currently participate in.

The cooperatives, the farmers markets, the community dinners, and coffee filled CSA’s are beholden to a greater decree of social allegiance now more than ever.   It is the small-scale producers who must learn to collaborate around a single principle, just as the mighty McDonalds, Starbucks, and team have already done so.  Over the past year I have been in contact with small-scale coffee producers on all levels of the supply chain, banging a drum in their ear as a battle cry for the fourth wave of coffee to begin through a concentrated collaborative effort centered around slowness.   The go has been at times disheartening and overwhelming, but I push on for I believe it can begin here in Athens and spread like wild-fire across the globe.

The memories of humiliation, doubt, and fear finds voice in saying what is needed only for me, and not that which is good for the collective system.  Let them laugh!  Let them call the Police!   We are programmed somewhere to cash in, before returning out into the unforgivable storming sea once more…but I say RESIST.   Throw on your true self on and riot.

There is a wolf under the feathers of the peacock.   That wolf has 1000 Faces.

END. BM

Calling all you coffee people.   We are now accepting applications for Round 4 of our Internship/Work-Scholar program. This round will begin August 15 and conclude November 15.  We are excited to to bring on some new talent and further grow our awesome and buzzin' 1000faces family.   Please email a cover letter (make sure to tell us why you want to work with 1000faces Coffee!) and a resume to roasterben@gmail.com.

1000 Faces is proud to embark on another effort to raise $1000 for a local non-profit.   This is the fourth in a series of fundraisers that have raised $1000 for AIDS Athens, Bottles for Babies, and Nica-Hope.   This time we are directing our efforts towards a the local chapter of Nourish International.  

Nourish International's mission is to eradicate global poverty by engaging students and empowering communities.  We became familiar with Nourish International when their chapter President started coming by the roaster and telling us some stories about the work that they were engaged in both locally and internationally.   We felt somewhat enamored by the fact that they embodied the best of the Athens community spirit.  We are a small town, though our hearts bend deep before the winds of the world.   1000 Faces has decided that we want to do whatever we can to give them encouragement in their endeavors.  More information about Nourish International at www.nourishinternational.org.

We will run this much like the other fundraisers we have completed.   30 day operation.  The end of the fundraiser will culminate in a evening of celebration at the Tuesday Night Downtown Farmer's Market on 6/15/2010.   In the coming days we will launch a program through Chip In where you can donate money that we will send to Nourish.   

http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/b533845859d81e2f

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114537981914890#!/event.php?eid=114537981914890&index=1

Everything is something more.   There are more small wonders than the eye can catch.   Though sometimes, just for a moment you get a glimpse of the good the world has to offer, and it is in these moments of refreshment we find reason we keep our maps up and our coordinates steady.

It is with both joy and sadness that we bid our fair maiden Emily Brock good-bye.   Joy that she will travel off into the world and continue to shine, sadness that the our little roaster will reflect a space she once held so well with a emptiness.   Emily was the first of our brave interns.  She grew into a wonderful friend to us all and one of the many unsung heroes of the coffee world.   The hero does have one thousand faces, Emily was one that even Ancient Athens would have adorned as a goddess.   Simple, brilliant, caring, thoughtful, sweet, steadfast, and a pure bread hustler of the good.

Cleveland look out!  Good bye Emily.   We love you.

Team 1000 Faces

Dreamers don't dream, they just stop editing.  

They close their eyes and fall off the edge of the map.   Deep below the sea and further farther yet gone behind the scene.    Arrested into the arms of madmen, serpents, and shallow settled nymphs singing songs never hear before and never again sung....

This is the essence.   The voice.  The microphone.  Your mouth touching the metal and resonating a sound against the crowd wondering what it was you said.   That blurry word unmistakable, so that you needed to lean in just once more so to get it across.  Bumping the stand, and eliminating the map of what was said..

Better yet.   Better more.   "Fail again, fail better, fail more" or was it "Follow your bliss" or was it "his palms are sweaty knee's weak arms are heavy there's vomit on his sweater already.."

Can't remember now.   After a while quotes begin to merge.  What others have said to you becomes what you are now saying, though something else has come about.   Something unique that is beyond that which you thought was needed.

This is because the HERO HAS 1000 FACES.  Everything is unique and special.  Everyone can.

This is because we have ONE SHOT.  Moments come and go.  Passing is past.

One shot like J-Mac in Queens-Athena, Rochester.   One shot like young Arthur in pulling the sword.  One shot like Jackie Robinson stealing home.   One shot not to hate.  One shot to let go.  One shot to be calm and ready. One shot to snap back to reality.  One shot to dream.  One cancer to beat.  One mother to love.  One coffee to roast.  One haircut to cut.  One pig to slaughter.  One poster to print.   One moment on top of another, but still one never the less.   

Do it right now.

There is a right and wrong for us.   The producer society is right, the consumer society is wrong.   

What?  Whoops parden me....let me try to write this a little more clearly....

Turn your town around.   Invest in Slow.   Shop at Farmer's Markets.  Take walks with your neighbors.  Raise your voice at the town hall meetings.   Bring chickens to your homestead.  Abandon sugar and milk when it comes to your espresso shots.     Become a PRODUCER.

The only thing I can think about when it comes to sustainability is risk.   Risk to reach out and create a secure new node in the web/fabric of the local community.   Risking to say what you desire.  Risking to stay at home and work all night on that brownie recipe that will make the storms swell.   Risking to become a co-producer. Risking to walk outside the malls and plant a seed.  The risk to become a developer.   The risk to demand. Demanding to the end to fat of laziness.  Demanding to get into the funk. Demanding to get into the stench. Demanding yourself to get off the wall and sweat with others.  Demanding that we stop chewing others fat and start creating. 

If America is going to survive this time of tenuous markets and crumbling infastructure, we are all going need to turn and look at how we can become producers and co-producers, and stop the ceaseless gorging of consumption and co-consumption.  This is the remix.   This is the chorus...

Consumption is consuming yourself, producution is producing yourself.   

We are a society of beautiful artisans, not supporting one another.   We outsource ourselves to death, while our neighbor has the sturdy hands to make that which you desire.   We buy greens shipped in from across the country when the farmer next door grows one's ten times more ripe.   

Desire isn't the evil, it is how we outsource our desire that is the villain.  The western translations of Zen aren't getting it right, the translation is off... desire is fine.   As long as it stays home.   As long as it stays local.   As long as it notices the tiger-strips in the espresso and clicks the off button right at the right time....3...2...1...

Off.

BM

Out of this conversation we have come up with something that we are proud to put out there to our beloved community.   We are wanting to put forth: THE BURLAP CHALLENGE.   Basically it goes a little something like this.

We have the burlap.

You have the creative genius. (We have that too, we hope.)

The idea is to challenge you to put together a piece of artwork using the burlap material.  The piece can be functional or non-functional (e.i. a piece to hang on the wall.)   There are many creative examples of how people have put this material to use, but we want to see what your brilliant little minds can come up with.  

If you are interested and have a little extra creative time on your hands, come by the roaster and we will gladly provide you with 5 burlap sacks to work with.   Once we have gotten a critical mass of entries we will collectively decide which to put forward as a joint 1000 Faces/DJ Spooky production.   Maybe we have some genius product we want to start making together or maybe we have a beginning art piece that we want to you to continue and we put on a show at a gallery for you....this is an open system contest. 

Sound cool?   Well go get em.

More details to come.

Gettin' fresh ain't easy.  

It takes more than a dozen roses at your lover's doorstep.  It takes more than a new pair of pink Puma's at the local YMCA Tuesday night pick-up game.   You've got to have a depth understanding of what it means to get fresh.  You've gotta have a Gilbrianian conception of "let there be space in our togetherness."   You've got to have the empty gym time that created the emergent quality of Tim Hardaway's cross-over.

Gettin' fresh takes...understanding, time, and most importantly patience.

Over the past couple of months we've been talking to a lot of different coffee people around the world about how to get fresh.  We have coffee harvest calendars pinned to our three by three cubicle walls.  We have stamped arrival dates on our jute sacks. We have priced out freezers for green bean storage.  We have stacks and stacks of papers piled up in our in-box.  But most importantly we have rounded up a room full of coffee ubergeek's who occasional spit out the profane:  (read with a whine) "IT tastes a little baggy."  "I'm getting a little cardboard in IT." and occasionally sing out the sacred: (read with a holler) "IT tastes a little green still."  "I'm getting a lot of fresh fruit in IT."    

BUT COFFEE IS MORE THAN A 'IT'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coffee is people, place, and persona.   Product or IT is just one of four quadrants involved in a integral understanding coffee.   We need to consider the relationship of buying an expected amount each year from a farmer you have made a agreement with, we need to consider the realities of an ecosystem's production output v. input measurements, we need understand how American redirectionality towards boutique will effect a communities collective identity or how that collective identity can interface will multi-dimensionality or how to translate freshness to Spanish.  You dig?  There is more, these are just tiny sign-posts in the thought arena around this.

So when it comes to getting fresh.  There needs to be a holistic understanding of what it means to embrace a seasonal approach to coffee.    That is the sea we are swimming in....backstroke, freestyle, and breast-stroke.

Our menu will be contracting over the coming months.  Slowly you will see coffee's disappearing from the list of offerings on our website.   Things are gonna be getting simple, but we want you to know that the complexity is there behind it. We might be lighting just one candle, but the placement of that candle has all the meaning. Instead of ten coffee's we might just be offering two or three at a time.   Our Espresso blends are gonna be a revolving doors two month expressions of our art.  The components might drift down to one or two origins for a given window.  This is something we have carefully considered over time and will continue to work it.    

We are not in the business of jumping on fast moving trains.  1000 Faces is moving towards promoting freshness because it the way of the expressive messenger.   Buy offering coffee's that are only within a window of time out from the day the cherry was pulled off the tree, we are empowering ourselves to show that coffee is alive.    It lives!!!!

Still, all the talk/action of seasonality in coffee is, for not, if the consumer doesn't become reborn as a co-producer.   We need you to take an active part in understanding your coffee, moving from the passive to the active.   The same way you tend to the local farmers market, the same way you think critically about where your news is coming from, the same way you arc your wrist on a jump-shot, or tell your children about sharing....for seasonality to become a true reality in the coffee world there needs to be a agreement from beginning to end that this is what we are going to do.  

The truth is: you can't have it your way.  This manipulative marking schema is the furthest thing from the truth we have ever heard.  Moreover, the consumer is not always right, but the co-producer is because they are workin' it, hustlin', and finding room for rest/patience. 

We will taste the coffee!!!!

This is all in the journey of decommification.   This is the journey of re-establishing humanity.  This is the journey of the hero with 1000 faces.

Get fresh.   

Each participant will enjoy more than they can handle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roast Date: 3/23

Process: Raisin

Origin: Minas Gerais, Brazil

In the raisin process, coffee cherries are dried on the tree before being picked, so they dry like grapes into raisins. This causes the seeds (what we call coffee beans) to absorb a lot more sugar, similar to dry or natural processed coffees. 

Our Moreninha Formosa Raisin was stealing hearts and taking names on the cupping table this morning.  Up against six other coffees, it was by far the favorite.  The dry aroma gave up cherries and nuts (I had the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" in my head), and at the break we smelled chocolate and red wine.  Mouthwatering acidity, cloves and melons, blueberries, blackberries, raisins and plums when slurped.  Tarragon and lingering red berries in the clean aftertaste.  

-- Erin