Hello! The Rules, The Goals!

Buffalo Brewing is a blog about the coffee and coffee-house scene in Western New York. I'm based out of Buffalo. I want to encourage the growth of specialty coffee and good third places in my city and beyond, by encouraging education and a sense of community on both sides of the counter. I also want a place to put my thoughts/rants/opinions/questions about coffee and cafés down where they can, in theory, be publicly ridiculed.

Full disclaimer! I'm Jake Casella. From the sticks in PA, I moved to Buffalo in 2006. I work for Spot Coffee, a small chain and roaster based out of Buffalo. I've been working for Spot for 4 years, as a barista, store manager, and head of barista training/coffee quality. Given how many hours I'm at work, it's inevitable that this blog will be a little Spot-centric at times. And I'm not above making a shameless self-promotional plug once in a while.

That said, this blog should not be considered to represent the opinions etc. of Spot Coffee, inc. Just me! Nor is its purpose only to advertise for Spot, though do I hope you get a good impression of my shop. I want to promote quality, education, and community in the region as a whole, not just as connected to the cafés I work at. I think it's worthwhile for its own sake; I also think that cafés should shoot for “good” competition.

It's my theory, not backed up by peer-reviewed statistics or anything, that coffee shops and their communities are a non-zero-sum game. The more educated coffee drinkers we have, who like quality and great atmosphere, the better all quality cafés in the city will do.

More disclaimer! I don't claim to be an expert on all things coffee, though I am working on it. Don't take my word as gospel, and please jump in to comment on anything I am totally wrong about—I'll appreciate the feedback. Like Socrates, I try to maintain a good balance of being a didactic jerk and loudly professing my own ignorance.

The format! I will be putting up my own rants and thoughts about coffee as they come to me. I will also start visiting various coffee-related businesses and writing up something little about them, hopefully interviewing a barista or owner or something at each. I'd like to tie this in to a resources page and a Facebook group eventually.

The rules!
1.)Stay positive! I am never going to post a negative review, as my goal is to help a community form, and I want the attitude to be open. Constructive criticism is great, but if my first interaction with someone focuses on something I think they're doing wrong, I can't imagine they'll want to get involved. I will not be bad-mouthing chains like Starbucks, Tim Hortons, etc.--they are a part of the coffee scene here, and their impact on coffee drinkers cannot be denied. If I think there is something negative worth talking about so that, as a community, we can think about it and find some solutions, I will do so in a manner geared to be anonymous, focusing on the problem rather than the location where I noticed it.
2.)Keep it friendly! I'm not out to post your trade secrets on the internet. I want to make sure that anyone I talk to, any shop I feature, feels completely comfortable about our conversation making its way onto the web.
3.)Encourage quality! By highlighting people who are doing things right, and by linking to trends and resources, and by talking about things I love in coffee.
4.)Encourage education! Particularly for the coffee drinker who is just starting to explore this crazy world.
5.)Encourage community! On both sides of the counter. One of my favorite things is going to other cafés and talking to the baristas, seeing regulars from my own café and getting a second to talk to them, not as their barista, but as a fellow café-lover. I come from the sticks, I mean really, and since moving to the city I have completely fallen in love with good public spaces. Coffee shops are one of my favorite types of “The Third Place.” I think I have a high standard of living, not because of how much money I make, but because of the presence and quality of the neighborhood I live in. That's what I want to celebrate and promote.

In addition to posting this blog at http://buffalobrewing.blogspot.com, I'll also be posting it on Barista Exchange, where I hope I can get some feedback from the larger coffee community. That's it, wish me luck!