Growing Multiple Passion

I have been in the coffee business for almost ten years now, and feel that passion starting to fade away, but I kind of see coffee from a different angle right now than I was five years ago. Working full time in the industry at the beginning was very difficult to get the chance of being hired even as a barista. Apart from that I always wanted to be an athlete when I was a teenager, learning multiple different sports at the time kept my mind active and creative. From joining a football club, karate, table tennis and badminton. I was lucky to represent my hometown in the capital to perform kata during the national karate tournament in Jakarta back in 2005/6s if I can recall.

Picture 1.0 - My first pro pingpong paddle

During my time in university I was also trying a couple interesting sports and activities just to develop my interpersonal skills since I was quite reserved and not doing well to socialize with others. Joining theater and performing arts on stage plus working in a local cafe part time. Over the time I developed my confidence to interact with people plus I am being elected as lead of an English organization in uni make me be my true self to speak up. While in a way that by being a barista at the time as well helping me a lot to deal directly with customers and interact with them. Then I graduated from university in 2013 and started pursuing my coffee career full time. I was doing a couple of geeks in Malang and Surabaya, East Java, and found an opportunity in Jakarta (capital).

Jakarta is like a turning point and bright light for me in my coffee career, getting to know the people and the industry better. I made a lot of connections which was helping me to grow myself branding as a coffee professional at the time. Until I decided to close my career as a barista and try the regional barista championship in 2018, I did not win at that time but I will be interested to join a couple more just to get connected with the people and accelerate the way I am learning things in coffee. Foraging connection and opportunities till these days because you kind of need to know people to be somewhere in the industry (coffee).

I am taking my time off from coffee for almost three months and moved to Bali. Until someday I missed being part of coffee over again, so I worked at the coffee farm voluntarily on the weekend during pre and post harvesting season in the north part of Bali. While I made great connections with this couple of business people from portuguese and japan that happen to rent a plot of land in the same farm that I worked with. Then I decided to work with them full time as a coffee specialist while helping out their cafe and roastery operations for a while till we made our way to send the coffee for national cupping competition in Jakarta still in 2018 ended up winning multiple places in that competition. Gaining that confidence, one of my former bosses is also trying to introduce coffee to the Japanese market. But what I found is something else that ignites my passion in coffee over again which is when I was operating the cafe and roastery. I found out that coffee roasting is going to be my next journey in coffee.

Picture 2.0 - Coffee Cupping Competition that we won

I was a big fan of Tim Wendelboe at that time when I saw him just upgraded the roastery with a new machine like the Loring smart roaster. I frantically set my goal that one day I will operate that same machine in my own country. Out of the blue, I got an opportunity to be an apprentice roaster in one of the well known coffee roasters in Bandung, West Java (three hours from Jakarta). I packed my bags and moved to Bandung within a couple months after serving my original duty in Bali.

Picture 3.0 - Me and a bit of Loring Smart Roaster

I was not aware that I left my other passion to be unexplored and dedicated my full attention to coffee. If I look back to where I was ten years ago, I made such an unexpected and adventurous career in coffee. “You never know what is in store for you, new adventures are waiting for you” the saying that I found in a fortune cookie in one of Thai restaurants somewhere when I was in Ottawa, Canada during my trips in 2017s, literally happened to me. I do not know how many of you that believed in law of attraction, which is if you manifest something and you worked you a#s off, you will get there eventually. Back to the subject that growing multiple passions was a bit challenging since you only have 24 hours in a day so that you need to keep up with the time. Once you pursue one thing, you use your laser focus on that thing until you make your way to become master of that particular thing.

This bubble in my head plus dealing with my monkey mind and anxiety can potentially ruin my life but I am very grateful that I still made it far beyond my coffee journey and continue on with some of my other passions and hobbies. My big piece of advice is that you can never know your true self until you break yourself apart just to know what you are made of. But do not ever lose your interest or start over again on something that you have already built for so long, like my example was my coffee career. You might not make it today but you will make it eventually.