Mugshot
We keep meeting over, about, for, and through coffee. It's our grounds for sharing, creating, and hanging out. Over coffee, we make friends. About coffee, we started a club at Penn. For coffee, we get up in the morning. Through coffee, we made Mugshot. We love coffee because it makes us think a mile a minute about a million things. This magazine echoes that sense of inspired spontaneity. We hope you enjoy the stories you find within these pages. They’re told by our peers and punctuated with pictures of our friends. We chose to shoot most of our pictures on film for an intentionally “slow” production process. Rather than using our phones to record each instance of coffee during our days, we forced ourselves to savor and cherish each frame. We stocked up on disposable Kodaks and scoured our parents’ houses for 35mm cameras. Admittedly, a lot of photos were under-exposed, over-exposed, crooked, and unusable. However, these frames are just as much a part of Mugshot as the ones printed. Together, this body of images is a testament to our experimental mission. We are a patient publication that waits for pour overs and for film to develop. We hope you take the time to let Mugshot tell its stories.
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This magazine is a love letter to the idea of the cafe, the people who devote their lives to running them, and to everyone I’ve had a coffee with over the years.
There was never a moment where coffee was not in my life. Growing up, I’ve woken up and continue to wake up to the smell of my dad’s burnt Folgers. At summer camp in North Carolina, I was fixated on the forbidden ‘counselor only’ coffee pot — I so wanted to have access to it. At the Starbucks on Elmwood Avenue, I had my first coffee while studying for the SATs with an overpriced tutor. And from then on I couldn’t stop.
I peak when I’m sitting in a courtyard or on a patio in midsummer with an iced vanilla latte, a good book, and my parents nearby. I relentlessly seek out those moments. When I find them, I hold them close. If I don’t pick up the phone, expect to find me out back at Café Pamenar or out front at Krankies.
Mugshot is as much about finding happiness as it is about seeking of caffeine hit. It’s about the spaces that bring us joy and it’s about memorializing the small moments that make us who we are.
Yours always,
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I needed to make something squeezable, throwable, and weighty. I needed to do it immediately and with lots of friends. It had to be something tangible that captured the hilarity of being 20 and in college. Alex felt similarly, so we decided to print a publication. Mugshot is what we came up with. We dedicated ourselves to shooting mainly on film and sharing stories about coffee, a staple in both of our lives. Naturally, recalling these early coffee memories and taking photos through a 35mm lens rendered great nostalgia. Now looking at the finished publication, there is a clear sense of reflection and sentimentality for our coming of age.
This past fall, I couldn’t stop thinking about what things I used to do as a kid that I no longer do. I was lovelorn for tinkering and creating. The tactile nature of my childhood, which involved lots of embroidery and collaging, was lost in my higher education and extracurriculars. I recognized a similar desire amongst my friends to build things in the third dimension. My Architecture and Fine Arts friends pursued these desires into their 20s, but other friends opted for the abstract: studying theory, prose, and philosophy. These friends that operated in conceptual realms had similar cravings to me like insisting on making dinner or fixing their own pour overs. The handsiness of such activities gave pause to our days, channeling our millenial anxiety of identity, place, and purpose into craft and mindfulness. The curatorial exercises of posting to our various social media accounts
couldn’t satiate an ingrained desire to make something, like cooking and brewing coffee did. Much of our modern lives do not exist in third dimensions— data dwells in ‘clouds,’ papers are submitted electronically, and people are introduced through apps. This human disassociation in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘ease’ has created our taste for what was— film photos and physical copies. I had an unsatiated need for something local and communal. The sense of permanence and investment that came with a print publication entranced Alex and me.
Here enters Mugshot. Alex and I sought to bring together everyone at Penn we’d met or heard of into the publication. We pitched Mugshot as “a design heavy, photo centric ‘zine all about coffee, featuring the work of Penn students and alumni.” However, for me, Mugshot was never really about coffee. Truth be told, I like the smell more than the taste. As everyone who worked on the magazine knows, I can’t stand black coffee. I’ll take a creamed and sugared Wawa 24 oz. cup before a French press any day. Mugshot was about the people I wanted to introduce to each other with the mission to make something. If we have done our job well, Mugshot was and will continue to be a blank canvas, spring board, and incubator for creative people across disciplines and ages to gather and create. Coffee has become our reason, or excuse, to experiment, hang out, think, and build.
Sincerely yours,
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Our Team Jacob Barnes Hometown: Dublin, IRE Position: Writer, Photographer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Wall and Keogh. Bryan Choo Hometown: Singapore Position: Writer If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: Espresso— intense, an acquired preference, and a no-holds-barred honest reflection of a bean’s quality and roast. Helen Dai Hometown: Warren, NJ Position: Writer If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: A soy latte with an extra shot, because I like to make things more complicated than they need to be. Allison R. Doran Hometown: Chicago, IL Position: Writer Hot or cold coffee: Room temp, leftover from last night, it’s fine. Lea Eisenstein Hometown: Sea Cliff, NY Position: Writer, Illustrator If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: An unnecessarily strong cup of coffee you made yourself. Cheap, unembellished, reliable, and honestly, kind of bitter. 5
Alex Fisher Hometown: Buffalo, NY Position: Co-Editor If you were a cafe, which one would you be: I want to say Sam James Coffee Bar, but I’m really more a Black Tap. Daniel Fradin Hometown: Los Angeles, CA Position: Writer, Photographer Hot or cold coffee: Chilled. John Holmes Hometown: Erie, PA Position: Poet Laureate of Mugshot How do you take your coffee: I don’t. David Huang Hometown: Walnut Creek, CA Position: Photographer How do you take your coffee: From the barista, probably. Nick Joyner Hometown: San Antonio, TX Position: Writer How do you take your coffee: With a grain of salt. Lea Kichler Hometown: Chicago, IL Position: Designer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Little cafe along the Rhone that serves savory crepes. Lori Kim Hometown: Edison, NJ Position: Copy Editor If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Dunkin’ Donuts because I’m cheap and all over the place.
Sammy Krouse Hometown: Boca Raton, FL Position: Copy Editor How do you take your coffee: Here’s my perfect ratio— 15 grams of water to every freshly ground gram of specialty, third wave, single origin self importance. Bobby Lundquist Hometown: Philadelphia, PA Position: Writer How do you take your coffee: With baked goods. Abigail McGuckin Hometown: Radnor, PA Position: Co-Editor How do you take your coffee: To-go!
Nick Newberg Hometown: Los Angeles, CA Position: Photographer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: サルガクコーヒ Daikanyama, Tokyo, JP. Chloe Onbargi Hometown: Darien, CT Position: Writer If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: Skinny vanilla, because I am neither of those things. Jason Pak Hometown: Los Angeles, CA Position: Writer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Il Caffe— I mean what is coffee culture if not snobbishly fashionable young folk trying to further express their boujee lifestyles??1!!1 Cecilia Pan Hometown: Lake Worth, FL Position: Event Coordinator How do you take your coffee: Iced, black.
Nadia Park Hometown: Minneapolis, MN Position: Writer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Stumptown. Naomi Pohl Hometown: Morristown, NJ Position: Writer If you were a cafe, which one would you be: Walking into Function Coffee Labs in South Philly feels like a big friendly hug. That’s vibe goals. Sofie Praestgaard Hometown: Carlisle, PA Position: Designer, Writer, Illustrator If you were a cafe, which one would you be: The Bookmark in Ludington, MI. Kyle Rosenbluth Hometown: Port Washington, NY Position: Photographer Hot or cold coffee: Hot. Max Schechter Hometown: Larchmont, NY Position: Writer If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: Iced sparkling americano (espresso pulled over seltzer) because it’s smart and refreshing but a little weird... Sam Summer Hometown: Kutztown, PA Position: Writer How do you take your coffee: Black as an oily puma at midnight. Paris Thatos Hometown: Queens, NY Position: Writer If you were a coffee drink, which one would you be and why: Definitely the cortado. Cortados are quirky and fun, just like me, and cortados and I both despise these kinds of questions. 6
Table of Contents Foreword : 1 Letters from the Editors : 3 Our Team : 5 Staff Mugs : 9 Keene Valley : 12 Coffee and Clay : 19 Coffee in the White Mountains : 27 Vistas Fuertes : 31 Tell Me About WilCaf : 33 Coffee Date : 37 Winter in Wyoming : 41 The Rosens : 47 The Art of Fika : 61 Detention Mug : 67 A Persian Practice : 73 커피, コーヒー, and More Coffee : 83 Julien’s Morning Routine : 85 The Cafes of Spruce Hill : 89 Behind the Bar : 93 Large Iced Coffee, To-Go : 95 Parsonage Pourover : 101 Coffee is Me and You : 109 Farmers’ Market People : 117 7
closing time at Saint-Henri Micro-TorrĂŠfacteur
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a.
c. b.
Staff Mugs Lea Eisenstein
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a. Abby b. Alex c. Max d. Helen e. Sofie f. Allison g. Nick
f.
g.
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four sips of latte and my heart beats fast, wildly i’m going to die (a haiku)
i rarely drink it that way the caffeine HITS me when i need it most (a haiku)
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Keene Valley, New York Abigail McGuckin
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best cafe: Sub-Alpine Coffee definitely order the maple steamer (with an optional espresso shot) and a warm apple butter biscuit
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The Adironack Region has one of America’s longest fall foliage seasons 15
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don’t miss: The Mountaineer this local outdoor equipment store has everything you need to scale all 46 peaks in the adironacks, not to mention a fantastic book selection
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Coffee and Clay Helen Dai 19
I’m not quite sure what initially drew me to ceramics. Maybe it was the idea of transforming a lump of clay into a refined mug or bowl. Or perhaps it was the unpredictability of the whole process that appealed to me— not knowing what you would end up with until your piece emerged from the kiln. Nevertheless, after sitting at the wheel and feeling the smooth, cool clay spin in my hands for the first time, I was hooked. Taking a ceramics course was easily one of the best experiences I’ve had in college. The first project we had in the class was to make mugs. My instructor, Sumi Maeshima, emphasized the various qualities that make a mug both functional and aesthetically pleasing, such as volume, shape, and comfort. I began to realize that there was a lot more to the of making a mug than I had realized, even including the cracked and stained mug that I use every day for my morning coffee. Wishing to explore this notion further, I sat down with Sumi to talk about ceramics, coffee mugs, and artistic vision
Sumi Maeshima is a Japanese contemporary artist who teaches ceramics courses at Penn. Her work can be found online at www.sumimaeshima.com.
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Q: How did you start in ceramics? A: When I was majoring in graphic design for my undergraduate studies, I took a clay class as an elective. One class led to another, and I was really hooked. Back then, graphic designers had to be really neat–– we could not even have coffee mugs nearby when we were working, because we were using actual paper and T-squares and rulers. And everything had to be really precise. Ceramics, on the other hand, was a totally different mode of feeling, using a different material in a tangible way. After getting a degree in Communication Design at Parsons, I decided to go back to Japan, which is well known for a long history of ceramic arts. In reality, all of the ceramics centers in Japan are among the mountains in small clay villages. I was working for an advertising agency that didn’t allow me the free time I wanted to do ceramics on weekends. After working at that agency for five years, I decided to go back to America and study ceramics. I made up my mind in terms of doing ceramics seriously, and I became a resident at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. I think Philadelphia attracts many ceramics artists, mainly because the Clay Studio exists, but also because there are many ceramics programs in art schools and even Ivy League schools like Penn. So it really is a good city 21
Q: How would you describe your artwork? A: My artistic format is ceramics sculpture. This in itself is a little controversial because many people ask, “Why not just sculpture? Why do you put ceramics in front of it?” Well, it is because the ceramics field has developed a bit separately from the rest of the fine arts world. Ceramics in the US used to be known as a craft tradition, as opposed to a fine arts tradition. Even though these two have come closer in modern and contemporary times, there is still a difference in attitude about how we deal with the material. I think that the progression of my art has come from ceramics tradition. Although I don’t make utilitarian volumes, the defining point of my art is the hollowness for me— recreating that sensation of the hollowness of utilitarian volumes. Whether I enclose the form or make it nonusable in basic physical ways, the source of my inspiration is a simple bowl form. Q: What do you think makes a good mug? A: There is no best mug of the world. The element that determines the best mug for that moment and for that person is how that person is feeling, what that person is drinking, what season it is, and what time of the day it is— all those kinds of things. It’s not just the cup itself.
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Even whether it is handmade or machine made is irrelevant. Often people in crafts tend to think that handmade works have a mysterious quality with an artist’s handprint. I think there definitely exists that very basic connection from human hand to human hand and I totally value that. But that’s not the prerequisite of a good mug. The frequency of use and ease of function is relevant in determining what is the best mug is. I get a very rich experience from using Ikea’s things too, and there are designers who spend their whole lives designing that kind of thing. But if I want to buy a beautiful, one-of-a-kind mug, I don’t go to Ikea. On the other hand, if I need some kind of basic, everyday thing that can be broken, I don’t go to a gallery to buy a $70 mug. So there are different usages of mugs, and I think that the value of a mug depends on what your needs are. It’s like a dress. You don’t wear Alexander McQueen’s mosaic dress to go to the studio to produce artwork, but there’s a place for it in this world. Q: What has been your experience with coffee culture, especially in coming to the US from Japan? A: When I was your age in art school, all of my liquid intake came from coffee. But nowadays, I just drink one cup in the mornings. In the US, I 23
find Starbucks Coffee and that whole culture really interesting. European cafes have their own place in people’s lives and in Japan it’s kind of similar. When you get together with friends, the first thing you say is, “let’s sit down in a cafe.” When coming to the US, I realized that it’s only diners. And when people say coffee shops, I associate them with that kind of weak, burntsmelling, so-called “American coffee” that is awful. But I think in recent years, people are thinking about higher quality kinds of coffee and more and more people are gathering around coffee. Just like you said, there is a culture that is developing around coffee. I think it’s a nice way to connect people. Every culture needs to find a way for people to spoil themselves and be luxurious in the everyday. It’s not like buying a car or anything, but it’s just a way to treat yourself, whether it’s once a day or once a month. Even though some people like Starbucks and some people like small cafés, coffee is a nice kind of anchor point just to highlight the day. Drinking coffee or tea is such a mundane act, but if you can find a way to use it to perk up your spirit, that’s nice.
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Reid and Rahul at the Shack late-night
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Elixr’s Kayon Mountain at the Sigma Alpha Mu chapter house
Taylor makes the best homemade ginger tea
Maria misses Bulgarian coffee
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Coffee in the White Mountains Sam Summer
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I have spent the last two summers working and living in a mountain hut. Looking for a change of scenery and enjoying the approval of two very open-minded parents, I left Philadelphia behind in favor of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The huts of these mountains are isolated cabins— accessible only by foot or, in emergencies, helicopter—that provide shelter for backpackers. Popular among older crowds, families with children, and hikers concerned about the Whites’ notoriously volatile weather, these huts make the backcountry more accessible and reduce human impact by confining it to a delineated area.
Even so, a night in a hut is still far from a luxurious experience. Each of the highelevation huts features sheetless bunks, ice-cold taps, flickering solar-powered lights, and a persistent alpine chill. During the night, the wind rips through the Krummholz, causing the windowpanes to rattle in their wood-and-stone frames. As a hutkeeper, my day-to-day responsibilities included: • Packing cartoonishly bulky loads of trash down from the hut to a frontcountry pickup point and packing less bulky—but much heavier—loads back up the mountain, finding myself in the groove between collapse and the salty ecstasy of a hiker’s high maintenance of the hut, which included
cleaning, upkeeping basic systems upkeep, and waging war on black mold
• Offering trail advice to hikers and performing search-and-rescues in the event that someone got lost or injured at a remote location • Preparing hot, caloriepacked breakfasts and dinners, usually consisting of generous portions of butter and cheese, for the exhausted guests
Despite these demanding tasks, perhaps the most appreciated service that a hutkeeper can provide is a constant flow of strong, hot coffee. Even more than it does in the frontcountry, coffee in the mountains fights the cold, electrifies tired hikers, and acts as a social facilitator, offering a common point for conversation and a splash of caffeine-driven extraversion.
Every morning at five o’clock, my watch would beep insistently beneath my pillow. With the precision of someone accustomed to a routine, I would silence the alarm (eyes still closed), roll out of my bunk, and slip my feet into a pair of bread dough-encrusted chukkas. From the kitchen window I could see the first tentacles of sunlight creeping over Mount Adams’s inky silhouette. For me and the other hutkeepers, the early morning represented a respite from the usual commotion of the hut. In
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the silence, my first ritual of the morning was brewing four percolators of New Hampshire Country Blend: a critic might have called the resulting coffee “bitter, burnt, and overextracted,” but Country Blend continues to serve as the lifeblood of White Mountain outdoorspeople. Meanwhile, I poured water over beans from the crew’s stash, which was purchased whole and stored in a bag that extolled eco-supremacy. I had ground them the night before. The next ninety minutes would showcase a cross section of hut guest demographics and their respective relationships with coffee. Around five-thirty, the thru-hikers, in sync with the sun, began to stir, rolling up their mats and strapping them onto their packs. Most thru-hikers who reach the White Mountains hike northbound, departing from Georgia and following the spring up the eastern seaboard. Nearing the end of their trek, thru-hikers will have passed months with few creature comforts. Noticing me pouring coffee in the kitchen, they would cluster behind the counter, double-fisting six-ounce hut mugs. Their eagerness was
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matched only by the sincerity of their murmured thank-yous.
Minutes later, a wave of corporate early-risers would follow, unable to escape a circadian rhythm forged by years of commuting into the city for ten-hour days at their respectable white-collar jobs. Their virginal Patagonias and trailrunners broadcasted a lifestyle that allowed for luxuries but little time to appreciate them. They stood in contrast to the thru-hikers and accepted coffee with both dependence and entitlement. Typically, the guest sporting the whitest teeth and fanciest title— invariably a Harrison or Julietta or Chadwick—would comment vaguely (and incorrectly) on the brew’s chocolatey flavor notes and well balanced roast. Such quips were trailed by requests for cold skim milk to which I would respond with a gesture toward a pouch of non-dairy creamer and a polite explanation that milk is very hard to come by in the backcountry.
Next would come a lull that prompted another hut ritual, the one that I found the most tender and romantic: preparing
breakfast. With the delicacy of a loving parent, the cook of the day would slip into the crew’s bunkroom, queue up a gentle track (nothing too harsh) on an old iPod, whisper a goodmorning in each crew member’s ear, and set the French press at their bedside. Before starting their morning, the other crew members could savor a few sips and bathe in the fuzzy muteness of shared sleepiness.
Back in the kitchen, now fully staffed, the day would begin to roll. The biggest wave of guests flooded the dining room, escalating the hut’s murmur to a rumble. The rate at which the morning masses consumed coffee always just exceeded the rate at which we could provide it. Most carried an air of nonchalance, seeking out coffee simply because it was hot, and quite frankly, they weren’t sure of what else to do. Just before we were ready to call guests to their tables with a coordinated scream of “Breaaaaakfaaaaast!” a few families would inevitably shuffle out of their bunks. The parents wore dark circles under their eyes, fossils of a
late-night attempt to soothe a crying kid. With a flash of understanding eye contact, we’d make a point to serve them first. Some, I remember, took a cup of coffee while almost crying with gratitude. Fatigue aside, the parents emanated a deeply rooted happiness that seemed to stem from closeness with their kids. The experience of hiking together without the itchy distraction of a phone (there was only one rock near the hut that offered cell service) seemed to bridge the rifts of age. Playing together and, frequently, suffering together seemingly undermined family hierarchy, and parents could connect with their kids as equals. Kids, imitating their parents, would solemnly request coffee, drawing a duet of exasperated sighs. Obviously coffee is a narrow lens through which to view the huts and their occupants— it would be reductive to define people by their general relationships with coffee. But the variety of individuals who experience coffee speaks to coffee’s power as a uniting force that is capable of transcending age, class, and origin.
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Vistas Fuertes Nick Newberg
curing the hangover
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ATV excursions in the outback
the garage in the Chapel of Jimmy Ray in Nezahualcoyotl
breakfast in San Miguel de Allende 32
Williams Cafe, known affectionately as WilCaf, is a student-run coffee shop at Penn that serves the cheapest brews, pastries, and sandwiches on campus.
Tell Me About WilCaf... Chloe Onbargi, a freshman
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It's embarrassing how much time I spend at the cafe. I just love everything about WilCaf. Working behind the bar is hard enough that it requires all my focus, but not so complicated that I get overwhelmed. It's almost meditative. The people I work with have quickly become some of my closest friends at Penn, and they've helped form my freshman experience. The cafe is also a great way to feel connected to different communities. As a freshman, it's hard to gain exposure to the greater social scene besides Greek life, so it’s great to get to know customers and have friends stop by the cafe. Pay isn't much but I make up for it in coffee and day old baked goods. Also, if I drop a bagel I get to eat it. But I haven't gotten to the "floor bagel" point of desperation yet. If I do, please help.
Eric works at WilCaf and is a self-proclaimed dad
My first day I didn't know any of the bagel flavors. Long story short, some unfortunate customer ended up with a jalapeno cheddar bagel with strawberry cream cheese for breakfast. Not sure I ever saw him again. My favorite drink to make is an iced caramel macchiato because it’s so damn pretty by the end. But making six of them in a row on a hot day during a rush is not ideal because a lot goes into the betchy bev. Like, you have to put the syrup in, add a splash of milk, stir until its all blended, add ice, more milk, and finally the espresso— pretty hurts ya know?
My favorite patrons are a graduate student duo who come almost every day without fail. They always hang about pretending like they’re contemplating the drink menu, but after a couple minutes, they always order two double espressos. It's gotten to the point that I'll just start their drinks before they order. I applied over the summer because I knew I’d need some kind of cash flow throughout college. My parents worked multiple jobs to pay their own tuition back in the day, and I figured the least I could do was make my own spending money.
this is WilCaf’s signature cup sleeve
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Bobby Lundquist, a recent graduate My lowest point at Penn was spring semester of junior year. I was exhausted from overcommitment and treating every moment like it was a performance. It was a daily challenge to live up to expectations. That same spring, as luck had it, a position opened up at WilCaf, and I got the job. Providing an extra perk in our customers’ and my fellow baristas’ days made me feel fresh with purpose, and finally at home. This isn’t a story about me though. In fact, what I realized from working at WilCaf was it’s not about me at all. It’s about who I’m
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working with and what we’re working towards together. To make a cafe run, many small tasks must be continuously completed every day. In this minutiae lies meaning: there is a transformative power of compassion and community in an act as seemingly small as exchanging a cup. In each of these minor moments, we can co-create spaces to practice authenticity and to love each other sincerely. Lots of little things create one big whole. So when you are a part of something nourishing— when you find home— pour your whole self into it. Empty your mug, and welcome what others pour for you.
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Coffee Date Max Schechter Freshman year of high school, I joined my reform Jewish temple’s youth organization, LARFTY. This youth group had a peculiar weekly event on its agenda—a free tall drink at Starbucks on Tuesdays during lunch for members of the temple. When I first learned about this weekly occurrence, it struck me as an odd tradition to upkeep; I had not known that Starbucks had a purpose beyond caffeinating young high school students, let alone a religious purpose. Each subsequent week of high school, I would look forward to lunch on Tuesdays - a time where I could meet and relax with the members of my temple along with the 37
youth coordinator Seth. It is at these “Temple Tuesdays” that I began to feel like a true member of the Jewish community. As I went through the Starbucks menu and experimented with every drink, from Caramel Macchiatos to finally the more refined taste of a Flat White, I discovered my love and passion for coffee. A love that was initiated and propagated (believe it or not) by Judaism. I am able to continue practicing coffee and Judaism at Penn. And to my delight, the two are still not mutually exclusive. Last semester through the club CJC (Conservative Jewish Community) at Hillel, I was introduced to the idea
of coffee dates. By taking out members of the Penn community for coffee (on Hillel’s dime—an added benefit) you could expand your circle and introduce a wide variety of people to what CJC has to offer. I used to be shy, so at first, coffee dating strangers was scary. Thoughts would race through my head as I anticipated the upcoming stressful (although platonic) date. Thoughts like: What if the conversation comes to a standstill and we just sit there awkwardly? Without fail, I found my insecurities to be unwarranted from the moment that the conversation started. Everybody who I’d coffee dated had the utmost interest
in what I had to share with them, was enthusiastic about getting to know me, and were excited to share information about themselves. This is completely logical; why would you get coffee with a stranger if you didn’t want to meet somebody new and learn from the experience? I think that Hillel coffee dates are genius. Coffee, like religion, is really all about community. There is no better way to bring somebody into a community than at a coffee shop. Doing these coffee dates for CJC has taught me to never be hesitant to ask somebody if they’d like to grab a coffee together, no matter the degree of acquaintance that we may have.
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Winter in Wyoming
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Kyle Rosenbluth
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The Rosens Nick Joyner
Ralph and Ellen Rosen are faculty fellows in Riepe College House, located in the Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania. They are known for their Sunday afternoon “Coffee with the Rosens,� where they offer undergraduate students a taste of their in-dorm roasted espresso.
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Ralph Rosen had already pinpointed the experience that began his love affair with coffee before I started to interview him. “It all began with my parent’s percolator,” Ralph began, chronicling his experiences with java from childhood to the present day like an epic poem. He was and still is fascinated with gadgetry, he explains. “You could watch the coffee go from water, to tan, to brown, and darker,” describing the questionable brewing method employed by his parents. He pops this bubble of nostalgia to remind me that using a percolator to brew coffee is a no-no, since it boils the coffee and strips it of its subtler notes. Upon entering their two-story apartment in the Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania, I am immediately offered a cup of coffee and some assorted Trader Joe’s chocolates. Passing me a mug, Ralph remarks: “Well we can see whether this is crisp, defined, creamy, honeybaked, apple filling, cinnamon stick, marzipan, orange glaze. I mean usually I can taste one or two of those descriptors, sometimes I think they just made that up.” I could not parse many of these notes, that’s for sure. After mentioning my inexpertise, he waves it down as unimportant. “If you read the whole thing, you get the sense that it is gonna be this kind of coffee.” The notes come together to form an aura, a summary of parts
that one can taste throughout each blend. This is more my speed. Professor Rosen and his wife Ellen have lived in the freshman dorms for over five years now. They’re faculty fellows in Riepe, living on a hall with students in the Integrated Studies Program, and are widely known for their Sunday program “Coffee with the Rosens.” Their apartment is comfortable, a spacious excitement to that is a welcome departure from the more cramped neighboring doubles in Ward and Warwick. Visitors are welcomed with a stretched burlap sign on the door that reads “Cafe Rosen.” The walls inside are covered in framed prints and artwork, the shelves filled with books and records. There is a small dining area, an ample kitchen, and a circularly oriented living room. The layout is geared for communality and conversation, flowing naturally through and into each other seamlessly. Ralph and Ellen have a longstanding and voracious interest in coffee, one that is never pretentious, elitist, or pedantic. They are genuinely excited about the beverage, and want to inspire this same admiration in students, friends, and fellow faculty. Seated in an armchair opposite the couple, I dive into their experiences with coffee roasting, brewing, and general appreciation. We start with their current roasting set-up. Ralph has two 48
top painting by Thomas Chimes, bottom painting by Kara D. Rusch after a Bill Frisell album called “Go West,� turntable by Nottingham Analog Acoustics 49
mugs in every nook and cranny
a series of landscapes in gouache by Elizabeth Wil50
roasters that he sets on the kitchen floor near a window. He aims a fan at them, and demonstrates how he can position a large cardboard flap over the roasters to divert the smoke out the window. Gone is the powerful kitchen exhaust fan that they had in their previous suburban home. They once talked of rerouting the kitchen vent to the outside, but the architects weren’t having it. “It is a historical home, or so they told me” Ralph explains. “My biggest worry when we moved in was how I would be able to roast my coffee,” he continues. So far, they haven’t experienced an interruption in their roasting capability. Though the process creates some smoke and a definite caramel smell, there haven’t been any comments from the residents on their hall. “Well they never complain about it,” Ellen chuckles. They couple is light and conversational, asking me about the duration of my interest in coffee, and which of their film professor friends I may know. I am happy to learn that they have the same coffee drinking habits as I do. Ralph remarks that his hobby sometimes makes people nervous to fix coffee for him out of a fear of inferior quality. “Look when I am out of my house I do not care what I am gonna drink,” he continues. They both agree that there are levels to coffee, that event the most discerning palate can be turned off in times of caffeine need. “You do not equate a steak to a Burger 51
King burger,” Ellen adds. It is a subjectivity. The best roasts can only gain their comparative flavor advantage if a person has also tasted the more mediocre brews. I asked them how their past six years as fellows have been. Ellen responds immediately: “We love it. We absolutely love it.” After their children moved out and they were no longer tied to school districts, they knew they could finally consider the option of moving on-campus. They had given guest dinners with other faculty fellows in the past and had really enjoyed the configuration. So when an opportunity came up, they jumped on it. Ralph is an eminent professor in the Classics department at Penn, and Ellen has since retired from a career in business and law. “I guess you burn out quicker in business than academia,” he teases. This living situation is incredibly convenient for Ralph’s job, as his office is right across the street in Claudia Cohen Hall. They enjoy the variability of their position, and the opportunity to meet a new group of students each year and chart them through their undergraduate careers. Ralph and Ellen have held Sunday coffee hours since moving in and have since settled on the present 12-2pm time slot after realizing how late their freshman residents rise. They provide food and orange juice for the non-coffee drinkers.
from Hadid to Hodgkin, the Rosens have a book on everything
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the Rosens’ eclectic record collection speaks to their infinite cultural curiosity
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scene from a Sunday gathering
Ralph stands behind his huge espresso machine and pulls shots and prepares cappuccinos, while Ellen “works the crowd.” Sometimes Ralph lets student baristas take over, but his main mission is to provide proper espresso to students who have never had any. Though many students come to college and don’t regularly drink coffee, Ellen has noticed that most students start at some point during their time at Penn. Beyond their experiences at Penn, we move into a more freeform conversation, one that melds the technicalities of roasting with their personal histories with coffee. To roast coffee, Ralph explains, you feed raw coffee beans into a rotating chambered drum, where they are heated to preference. They’re then emptied into a basin and agitated until they cool, and can then be stored or ground and brewed for instant imbibing. Most roaster in coffee shops do 25-30 lbs at a time. His own roasters are a mini version of these, operating under the same principles but using electricity instead of gas. He discovered roasting close to twenty years ago, when Ellen’s late mother bought him a small electric roaster for a birthday present. This device has since broken, and he’s been through a few temporary options since settling on his current setup. He’s had his current two roasters for the past 15 years. “They’re built like a tank,” he
explains. They’re expensive now, like double what they used to be.” But they have the same guts as the present-day roasters, minus the digitization. With the correct care and amount of heat, you can roast coffee in anything from a steel dog bowl to an air popper, he explains. You can roast up to a pound in a hand-cranker even, but it has a pretty steep learning curve to avoid burning the beans. The whole roasting process takes about 17 minutes. Ralph explains: “When you roast a bean, the sugars inside get heated up and caramelize.” He pulls out a chart of roast levels that display a gradient of colored coffee beans, in phases from raw to the seemingly charred Italian and Spanish roasts. “That’s why when you’ve got like Charbucks (as he playfully calls it), it can taste like carbon since that’s what you get when the sugar turns black.” He points to the left side of the spectrum. This is where he demarcates the current coffee trend, in brewing very light roasts. He’s not a fan. “It’s too light. It’s grassy.” It works sometimes though, he concedes, in Ethiopian yirgacheffe. “Whenever I visit a new place, I like to bring back a sample,” he explains. It’s important for developing comparison points, and calibrating one’s own taste and preferences. “We prefer brewed coffee in this range,” he says, pointing to the cocoa-colored beans that represent fall in 8-9 range out of 16. This is 54
in the full-city range, the Rosens’s favorite roast.
Market,” which is cut with chicory like a good French Quarter au lait.
In getting here, the coffee undergoes two cracks. Describing his method, Ralph says “I’ll go upstairs and tell Ellen ‘When you hear the first crack let me know!’”
While in graduate school at Harvard from 1978-1983, Ralph recalls a shop in Harvard Square called The Coffee Connection. This store was opened by George Howell, one of the founders of the movement towards specialty coffee in the U.S. It was Ralph and Ellen’s first introduction to the French Press, another gadget for him to fixate on. The Coffee Connection would eventually expand into a local Boston chain, before a Starbucks buy-out in 1994.
After this point, there’s a period of silence, and then “it sounds like a machine gun” as the beans begin their second crack. Ralph sticks around in the room at this point, as the beans near his preference point and must be allowed to cool. When they aren’t roasting their own beans, they like to patronize different shops around the city, looking for optimal roasts and new gadgetry to purchase. He weaves a listing of his favorite coffee places into a larger narrative of the specialty-coffee movement in America, which was pioneered by several East Coast roasters. He moves backwards into his own experiences sampling a variety of American offerings, which have helped to evolve his discerning taste. Ralph picks up right after his parents’ glass percolator, the one that had initially captured his interest. He began seriously drinking coffee in his undergraduate years, using his little Mr. Coffee machine to brew Yuban and Martinson. He narrowed these down from many of the major brands he had tried thus far. In graduate school, he and his roommates needed to buy something even cheaper, and settled upon the New Orleans brand “French
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“That was a real watershed moment,” he explains. “Or coffeeshed moment,” as Ellen jokingly interjects. Right after they got married, they shifted over to a wholebean subscription service from Community Coffee, another New Orleans roaster that still exists today, and even sells their grounds in K-cup form. After Community Coffee, they switched over to Torrefazione Italia, a brand that has since been absorbed into Starbucks’ high-end groacery store line. But their most formative experience came later on in the early Internet age, with the purchase of Ralph’s first electric roaster. It came with a flyer advertising Sweet Maria’s in Columbus, Ohio, seemingly the only place to order beans online. This was the company that produced the roasting chart he showed me. Even today, it remains their favorite website for information
about newly sourced coffee and new beans to roast. Oakland-based owner Tom Owens regularly updates the website with everything having to do with new brewing methods, new roasters to try, and new ways to appreciate coffee. He keeps regular travelogues, visits growers, and records everything meticulously. “It’s like a wine website,” Ralph adds. This brings us to the 1990s, an important and explosive time for coffee in the United States, one that helped shift attitudes towards taste and general appreciation for the drink. Up to this point, Ralph thinks that people had been drinking their coffee too weak, resulting in general dissatisfaction with taste. “The 90’s were a fun period, because Starbucks was increasing
people’s consciousness and better beans were available,” he explains. Even though he still thinks that Starbucks and other West coast companies overroast their beans, he concedes one thing: “They taught Americans to make their coffee a little bit stronger than they generally had been.” Philadelphia’s own development as a coffee city was mirrored on this same scale, a progression that Ralph and Ellen were able to witness and partake in firsthand. In 1984, Old City Coffee popped up on Church Street, he recalls. They were pioneers of specialty coffee in Philly, which got bit by the bug a little later than Boston, and still center their brewing operations in Reading Terminal Market. Its Philadelphia monopoly may be over, but Ralph bets their brew is as good as the best of them.
56 latte prep on the Alex Duetto by Izzo
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The Art of Fika: An Illustrated Guide to Coffee Culture in Sweden Sofie Praestgaard
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The weakness of the coffee in Sweden makes it such that Swedes can drink a lot. No one should be able to drink 7+ espressos in a day, but stranger things have happened in Stockholm and Uppsala. In short, they are the masters of the light roast. Their coffee is easy-drinking, their cafes are candlelit, and their baristas are blonde and ever-smiling.
workday or weekend. It is a time to meet with friends old and new in a space that is warm and welcoming. It is a time to clink mugs of coffee, not wine or beer— but nobody will call you out if you do. It is a time to up your caloric intake with plates of fresh pastries. It is a time to talk about stuff that matters and stuff that is pure fun.
The Danes’ Hygge is very much en vogue at the moment, but Sweden’s Fika is similarly mindful and more suited to Mugshot. Fika is woven into the fabric of the nation, offering a respite from monotony in the midst of a
To outsiders, Fika appears indulgent. To Swedes, it is a normal part of life. To fika is to slow down, enjoy, learn, laugh, and yes, it can be used as a verb too. There is a fika that can be had at any time of day, on any occasion.
Glossary : Kaffe: coffee Brygkaffe: basic brewed coffee Islatte: iced latte (served cold, but usually without ice) Smörgås: a sandwich, usually open-faced Räksmörgås: shrimp sandwich, usually served on rye bread with mayo, lettuce, baby shrimp, and lemon Godis: candy Choklad: chocolate Jordgubbar: strawberries (extremely sweet and always fresh picked in the summer, often served in a bowl with milk or cream, and topped with sugar) Mjölk: milk
Socker: sugar Paj: pie Sockerbullar: sweet, airy buns filled with custard (kind of like a donut) Kanelbullar: cinnamon buns Semlor: a sweet roll cut in half and filled with cream, topped with powdered sugar, traditionally eaten for fat Tuesday Chokladbollar: balls of oatmeal, cocoa, and sugar, topped with coconut or spinkles Kakor: cookies Peppakakor: ginger cookies 64
Detention Mug Naomi Pohl
I was never a troublemaker in high school and certainly never received any detentions. I was, however, keen to participate in my class’s senior prank. After much deliberation, my class decided that our prank would be a concerted walk-out. At a specific time on the last full day of school, everyone in the senior class— all 350 of us— walked out of school and threw a party in the parking lot. This walk-out happened to take place during my AP Statistics class, and my teacher happened to be the only
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teacher who gave detentions for the walk-out. Technically we were all cutting class, but hey— this was probably the least harmful senior prank ever. When I brought the detention slip home to my dad, he laughed. “Who gets their first detention on the last day of high school?” he asked. He hung the detention slip on our fridge and a few weeks later surprised me with a mug with the slip printed on it. I brought the mug to college to remind me of one of the better decisions that I made in high school.
Naomi at home with her detention mug and BeyoncĂŠ
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Lea and Erica adore brownies and decaf cappuccinos from The Witches Brew
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Helen with her eggnog latte at Anthony’s in the Italian Market
Daniel with one of Naomi’s mugs at the Dinner Project
Alex’s dad at Tommy in Vieux-Montréal
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A Persian Practice Paris Thatos
It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them‌ and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. -Herodotus, Histories
I bet they would’ve gone nuts over coffee. -Unknown 73
In 500 BCE, the writings of Herodotus opened up worlds to his contemporaries. Some two millennia later, they open those same worlds to us. We know from his Histories that period Persians went all out for birthdays and took their dessert with a little bit of dinner. We know that they dressed like Medeans for parties and like Egyptians for war. And oddly enough, nestled between passages that described sheep roasting recipes and the proper place for a kiss, we are told in casual terms of their systemic commitment to perspective, not just as an idea but as a tool with which to navigate the troubled waters of decision making. If the practice indicated above, of deliberation and re-deliberation, is not exaggeration or anecdote, then it paints the classical Persians as a people equally aware of their capacities and their failings as rational creatures. And if they approached these meditations with the same appreciation of drunkenness as cognitive researcher Aaron Duke (who has correlated changing blood alcohol content with degrees of utilitarian decision-making) as opposed to as unrepentant alcoholics, it reflects their knowledge that the rationality that people base their decisions on are as contextual and emotional as epistemologists have long bemoaned them to be.
And the moaning continues. Stubborn and reactionary, the twenty-first century human is no better at unpacking the cluttered milieu of their mind space than their great^(n) grandparents were. Rather, they appear even less aware of their shortcomings. It is not a matter of effort; these problems are wired into human cognition, and for good reason. The neural processes that have guided H. sapiens since we clicked into behavioral modernity fifty thousand years ago still bear the mark of their ‘pack predator’ origins, those emotional and interpersonal pitfalls that served us so well in evading jungle cats or settling disputes with a club. It did not behoove us then to consider the emotional perspective of the tiger. It did not behoove us to reflect upon the contextual view of our impendent dupe before bringing the branch down over their stupid head. But in our modern age, where cooperation is valued over domination as the mark of success, we are left psychologically incapable of constructively solving our problems. Far be it for anyone to recommend drunken decisionmaking in a vacuum for anything more important than what to eat. The culture of dialogue has shifted, or at least expanded, from the bottle to the mug. People nowadays are more likely to find a sports game at a bar
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and a conversation at a coffee shop. The music tends to be better too. So it might be that in these experiments a wine skin should be substituted for morning coffee, or a vegan lunch, or a sinner’s autobiography. This is not an exercise for the sake of theatricality. Rather, it is a necessary response to the reality of modern narratives. The observer cannot deny that at their most reduced, the workings of modern institutions insist on an inflexibility of judgment, on a right and a wrong. And despite the constant call to understand one another, to listen and not attack, the entrenched ideologies of our time have solidified an indifference or disregard of the other into social necessity. The consequences are intimately felt. In America, the two-party system has mutated into ‘sports-team partisanship,’ politicians have reaped more as demagogues than as public servants, and discourse has framed the ability to concede a point as a weakness, not a virtue. Rivals are invalidated through a refutation of sincerity or intelligence, and the mainstage social issues with one hand lavish praise onto their supporters and with the other hand insult and demean those who oppose them. Whether or not the praise or demonization is warranted is inconsequential for the benefit
of human society. Beyond politics, the judicial landscape is litigious for no reason but uncompromising self-interest. The green movements meet resistance on the most inane of fronts for the same reason. Corporate interests continue to place earnings over welfare. Even in personal relationships, conflicts rooted in anger or fear seem incomprehensible to one party even as they reduce the other to tears. “One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word ‘I,’” linguist-philosopher Wittgenstein stammered some seventy years ago. Quite. He also said, “What can be shown, cannot be said.” So shown it must be, over the foams of every coffee shop, dancing from the meniscus of every bottle of beer. By way of the relentlessly quoted Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness… broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Immersion and exploration, of other places and peoples, relieve the ego. Strangers cease being aliens and become companions in this strange, wild ride. More importantly, we are taught that we are all fundamentally the same. We are all, after all, fundamentally human. It might go without saying.
We are born with our insensitivity, but evolution can occur whenever we are willing. The next time you have a headache, go about your day without taking an Advil, to feel what it’s like to be in pain. Then you can form your opinion on healthcare. Next time you’re late, skip the coffee you’ve had every morning for four years. Then you can acknowledge that addiction is more than just an errant craving. Then talk about it. And then have the same conversations at a bar. Then take a jog and speak over stretches. Then road trip and ask some strangers for input. Maybe one of them is a modern Herodotus, and they’ll
codify your lofty awareness into something future historians can argue over. When astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell went to the moon he could place the Earth between his forefinger and thumb. He spoke later of how that sight of our planet, so small and so boldly blue, gave him a global perspective of how mean and petty politics are. Dr. Mitchell expressed how he wanted to share that perspective with people, a politician for instance, though it might have involved “dragging him by the scruff of his neck.” We do not all need to go to the moon or manhandle politicians. We can start by filling up two cups.
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there are more plants than people living in Abby’s apartment
green tea is best bought in bulk on 10th street 77
Pineapple & Pearls in the Navy Yard
Cafe Pamenar on Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market 78
Edward at Open Coffee Bar
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CC with an Elixr brew
coffee and conversation
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Ella and a cup of Tandem
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Lori & Max behind the Philo bar
Jack and the mug his sister got for him
coffee in full bloom
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커피, コーヒー, and More Coffee Nadia Park After a meal or whenever guests were over, my parents would always ask me, “Nadia, can you please make some coffee?” Sometimes with a pout, but often with a smile, I would walk into the kitchen, and mentally transforming myself into a barista. The following actions would be automatic: boil the water in the kettle, pull out the mugs and spoons, and take out the mix coffee, composed of grinded coffee and sugar packed into a long cylindrical bag, ready to be poured into hot water and served right away. I eventually became a master at taking the kettle off a split-second before it would signal that it was boiled and also at measuring the perfect amount of water to coffee ratio to fit my customers’ preferences. But of course, my barista life did not remain that tedious and uneventful.
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Last summer, I was finally able to graduate from instant coffee and enter the realm of drip coffee using single origin beans. I took classes from a Japanese barista who ran a coffee shop in the suburbs of Seoul. From tasting sessions to practicing how to pour water, I
was simply mesmerized by the complexity and beauty of the process. Explaining the aromas and flavors of a Kenya coffee or a Brazilian one was like asking me to test my vision for color in finding the blue square that was slightly darker than the other twenty blue squares which were of identical shades. Nevertheless, I started to brew coffee daily, rigorously following the steps I was taught for months.
Now, half of my room has been taken over by coffee. I stare at my Kalita Wave, Hario V60, Chemex, Baratza Encore, and my beans from New York, Boston, Korea, and Philly. But being the greedy Ariel that I am, I constantly sing to myself: “I’ve got Kenyan and grinders a-plenty. I’ve got Chemex and light roasts galore. But who cares? I want moooore.” I realize that I am kind of addicted to coffee. But I love to share its flavors and bring people together with it. I cannot wait to see where coffee will take me next. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be setting up a coffee shop in San Francisco or Seoul someday.
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Julien’s Morning Routine Jacob Barnes
Julien answered the door, bleary eyed, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a Yeezus sweatshirt. I had already been up for the better part of two hours.; I had showered, chosen my outfit, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair. Yes, it was not even 8am, but I wasn’t about to let that get in the way of my morning routine. To be honest, I was a little surprised by at Julien’s appearance. I was used to the image of style and poise he maintains when walking around campus, so I didn’t quite know what to expect— perhaps I imagined that he simply slept in a well pressed sweater and symmetrically cuffed jeans. He plodded away from the door, motioning for me to follow him to his bedroom. I did so dutifully, treading lightly as not to wake his roommates. Not yet having had my coffee, I probably did a pretty poor job. Julien closed the door behind me, turned around and looked 85
at me blankly. “What now?” he said. Having never actually verbalized my thinking, I did the best I could to explain. I said, simply, that I wanted to document the morning routine of one of the most stylish people I knew. I told him I wanted to capture a period of vulnerability— the period before morning coffee. Nodding in understanding, he took off his sweatshirt and motioned for me to start shooting. I took the lens cap off of my camera and got to it. The first thing he did was walk over to his coffee machine to and turn it on. What followed was a kind of nonsensical series of actions that followed without much indication of order. Going to his closet to select his outfit, he chose seemingly random pieces of clothing to put on his couch, moving the kitchen upstairs, his bathroom and to his bedroom, frenetically. Upstairs, he set
two eggs to cook with some spinach, periodically checking on their progress. When done, he brought the food down to his bedroom for him to sit with, amongst the shirts and pants he had previously selected. The coffee machine had finished, his mug full. Grabbing it, he moved back to his clothes, took out a blue A.P.C. sweater and some jeans, added them to the pile on his couch and returned to finish the last few bites of his eggs. Pulling out an ironing board from behind his bed, Julien began ironing his shirt and sweater. The more I watched his routine (if you could call it that), the more opaque the process was to me. Every day, I repeat my own routine— I shower, pull my clothes in the same order, brush my teeth, fix my hair, and grab my books. Even my socks go on
the same order every morning: right then left. To me, this seemed like mayhem. There seemed no method, no order. What I thought was going to be an exercise in comparison became one of contrast. Throwing on a pair of blue jeans and white Comme des Garçons x Converse Chuck Taylors to match his sweater and white shirt, he moved to the bathroom to wash his plate and brush his teeth. Exiting the bathroom, I finally saw the Julien I knew— ironed clothes, matching colors, a relaxed, self-confident style. How he had gotten there was beyond me— the moving parts had seemingly coalesced at just the right time, meshing just as he had to leave. Grabbing his backpack and taking the last few sips of coffee, he directed me to the door. “Well, that’s it,” he said.
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Ultimately, I realized something quite simple. While I expected to see variations on the same theme — that is, my theme — the only overlap in my and Julien’s routine was coffee. One drink, consumed sip by sip, perhaps the least memorable part of our day. Julien didn’t need the regiment, the order, the routine that I did. Yet, every day, walking past him, I think “damn, I wish I looked that good.” He constructed
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his morning, his routine, his own way, put his own spin on things. Yet, he still turned out each morning better than I ever could, each of us getting to the same ends: dressed, ready to go, cup of coffee in hand or just had. Julien’s routine,emanated, in its commotion, the poise that Julien carries himself with. In the midst of a tornado, Julien walked away spotless, hair combed, shoes tied.
The Cafes of Spruce Hill Ella Konefal
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Behind the Bar Allison Doran
I make it my business to loiter in local coffeehouses as much as possible. While West Philly is known to have some of the best coffee in the city, I will often buy a cup to just spend time around the people who are making it. Barista work is a flexible job, and in a big city, it’s one that can provide the chance to meet more interesting people in one shift than some people might in one week. It also does not hurt that the gig supplies endless free coffee. It should come at no surprise that Philadelphia’s young and talented artists, musicians, and writers tend to spend some time behind the bar.
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I am not exactly “punk,” but I do have fond memories of the Golden Tea House. A nowdefunct, all-ages DIY venue that operated out of a house just north of the 40th Street SEPTA station, the Tea House was the heart of the West Philadelphia underground music scene for years. That underground scene was, and still tends to be, relatively inaccessible to Penn
students. This is partially because of its secretive and isolationist nature, but mainly through a general consensus that the University is an antipunk force of gentrification. It was only through chance and a love of coffee that I had the opportunity to visit the Tea House in its final year. I was first introduced to the House through Phillip and Daniel, both longtime baristas at a popular cafe perched at the end of the Schuylkill Bridge. Phillip and Daniel were big, friendly guys who had completed undergrad in Virginia before moving to Philly to make music and— to keep the tour bus moving— some excellent fair-trade coffee. Daniel is the type who probably reads more books in a month than the English department does in a semester. He told me stories while he cleaned the espresso machine, and we quickly became good friends. One day, he told me that his band was playing at the Golden Tea House and that I ought to check it out. When I arrived
at the Tea House, I looked out of place, having missed the memo about the strict black jeans and beanie dress code. But when Phillip and Daniel’s band went on, I felt at home. Over the next few months, I had come to realize that every single member of that cafe’s staff worked in music or art. Chris, the charismatic lead barista and an art school alum, performed original songs every weekend and taught guitar. One of the girls working there had the toughest-looking little hands I’d ever seen, spotted with barista’s burns from steaming milk and hardened with the distinctive practice calluses of a violinist. And then there was Matt, the most technically skilled barista of the bunch. He poured perfect, intricate latte art with an air of profound disinterest. Curious, I once asked another barista about him. “He, uh, makes noise,” she told me. And she was not wrong. It took weeks, but when I finally coaxed a YouTube link out of him, I was equally delighted and disturbed to watch a video that seemed to have anticipated Jon Rafman’s aesthetic paired with music in the form of impossibly abstract (but expertly mixed sounds. My own eventual parttime barista work taught me
firsthand that there is, in fact, one downside to staffing your cafe almost exclusively with talented musicians: when everyone is going on tour at the same time, scheduling shifts is a Kafka-esque nightmare. On any given week, E might need time off to record, N and J could be out of the country, and the four baristas who played in the same band would all need Saturday night free for a gig that– surprise!– two more staff members would be opening for and everyone else would want to attend. While the frazzled manager’s scheduling spreadsheets might have looked like a levelfour Sudoku, the constant concerts meant that most weekends, everyone who was not stuck closing the shop would be at the same shows. It was easy to feel a sense of true community, especially when many of the shows were held in co-ops or coffee bars, and the baristas could talk shop with the staff and take espresso shots together in between sets. I am on the other side of the counter these days but am drinking more coffee than my budget or body chemistry really allow. But it is not so hard to justify my macchiato habit with the knowledge that West Philly’s coffee shops are keeping the underground scene alive. 94
Larged Iced Cofee, To-Go: A Manifesto Lea Eisenstein
Here is what I know to be true: The true mark of a New York native cannot be found in the full-bodied “awh” that pools in her pronunciation of “water.” You will not find it in the haste with which she bypasses the steps of an already-moving escalator, nor in the ignorance of her own snobbery as she regards a relatively inoffensive wedge of inland pizza. You will not hear it in the way she states, flippantly, but with a just-perceptible trace of bitter superiority: “I’m from New York.” You cannot smell New York on her.
New York is found in the way she orders— and accepts— her coffee on a day in May, July, or September: large iced coffee, to-go.
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Milk? Sugar? It does not matter how she takes it. She checks the time as she waits, glances down at the muffins
swaddled in brown paper. Her eyes do not linger. Soon, the cup sails over the counter. Clear plastic. Tall and slender. Slick with anticipatory perspiration as it waits to exchange warm hands. Contact. This is the point at which you know. The first moment you can tell. The critical juncture. It is found in the decisive contraction of the pupils. Does she grasp the cup weakly? With hesitation? Do the corners of her lips pull taut, pursing? Quiet, quiet. Does her breath puncture the air in desolation? As soon as it comes, the disappointment evaporates. Anticlimax. She pays cash. This transitory surge of dismay upon the sight of plastic—this is where you find
it.
Large iced coffee, to-go. The New Yorker knows what this means. And she knows all too well that the definition is not ubiquitous.
Large iced coffee, to-go is not a suggestion or request. Its ice cubes are never slick, glassy, or perfectly rounded. It does not glint in the light like thin honey. It does not fit snuggly in the palm, does not cooperate with either its handler or the laws of physics. And it never bares its full truth through clear plastic. Large iced coffee, to-go is a clarion call, a command. It is not large but colossal. It physically consumes its drinker, insisting on her full attention. It is dense, white Styrofoam with a translucent snap-on top. Always. And it’s is dirt cheap. In short, here is what I know to be true: a self-proclaimed native New Yorker who accepts anything less than a titanic, Styrofoam, caffeine cask is no New Yorker at all.
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East Village
pregame at Bayless’ apartment
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munchies at Dumpling Man
Picnic on College Green
that’s Alex!
food truck fruit plates are a spring staple
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University City
U. city is home to Penn, Drexel, and a lot of frats, srats, and cafes
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Matt, Marie, and Erin hitting the dancefloor at Pilam
Penn & Drexel were ranked as America’s 1st & 2nd most caffeinated campuses
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Parsongage Pour-Over Jason Pak
If you ask anyone who went to boarding school about the best hangout spots, he or she will glow about the roof of the dining hall where the southern California sunset would glow a thousand different shades of pink and orange, or the lawn in the center of campus where students would toss lacrosse balls to one another or pass a Frisbee in the dying light of early fall. These places of congregation are where people made memories: meeting their closest friend, getting rejected by their high school crush, and seeing their parents after a long first trimester As the weather grows colder and the work piles up, students find themselves in their rooms and the libraries, cramming for finals and losing sleep, leaving these sunsoaked gathering spots meant for friends and fun. However, at Cate, a West Coast boarding school that breaks from the stereotypical East Coast prep school atmosphere, I found myself returning to these places of congregation during my senior year, when I would normally be cooped up in my room. One of these places, strangely, was the bathroom of my coastal-facing
dormitory, Parsonage. On one Wednesday in November of my senior year, I ran into the bathroom, washing my face as quickly as I could before sprinting to class. Having not slept the previous night, I rushed to prepare for my day, which consisted of six classes, four of which had essays due and another for which I had an exam. Before I could run to first period, my prefect stopped me for a second. “Jacob, I need to go to class,� I begged. Without saying a word, he picked up his glass carafe, poured me some coffee into one of his many Klean Kanteens and gestured for me to go. I smiled meekly, looking into the black liquid that I swore I would never drink. Tumbling into class as the bell rang, I sat down, panting. I was exhausted from the sleepless night, lack of food, and the morning commotion. As class began, I glanced back into the canteen of coffee that Jacob had slapped into my hand. Bringing it close to my nose, I breathed in, feeling the heat rise through my nostrils and smelling a dark, chocolatey scent. With fogged glasses and an even hazier mind, I sipped.
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That was my first coffee experience. It went terribly. I burnt my upper lip and my tongue. It tasted bitter, just as I thought it would. I got thirsty afterward, and my lips were chapped. Yet the next morning, I was excited to see Jacob coming into the Parsonage bathroom with a plastic cone, a box of paper filters, a small-sized Swell water bottle, an electric grinder, a glass carafe, and a massive bag of Stumptown coffee. Already dressed for class, I should have just left. But I found myself lingering, observing Jacob diligently work through his morning ritual. First, he filled his Swell bottle with piping hot water, which came out of a faucet on the bathroom counter. Next, he took two tablespoons of beans and dropped them into his grinder. Then, he placed a brown, paper filter into his cone and washed it with hot water. I watched him as he calmly yet meticulously continued with his routine. He poured the grounds, placed the cone on his glass carafe, and began to pour the water. Slowly.
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“You want some?” Jacob asked. After grabbing two mugs from my room, I sat with Jacob on my balcony. Sitting in my hammock and watching the sunrise, I gripped the body of my mug, absorbing the coffee’s warmth with my palms. “You know, I always thought coffee tasted bad,” I told Jacob. He laughed and replied, “Coffee tastes bitter. It keeps you from sleeping. It makes you thirsty. But I love it because I’ve learned to appreciate its fragrances, the ritual behind it, and the history and culture of it. Enjoying coffee is maybe one of the most meditative practices you can have in your life.” “Yeah, whatever,” I smirked. After smelling my coffee, I drank. The temperature was perfect, and the coffee’s fruity accents came through without being too acidic. Warming me up from the inside, this cup of coffee was as colorful and fresh as the soft sunrise above the Carpinteria beach. Coffee is not just a ‘drink’ thing. It is a meditative thing. It is a cultural thing. It is a people thing.
Cornell
that’s Abby!
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1:05am at Louie’s Lunch food truck
Ithaca is gorge-ous
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King of the Road Trip
a quick coffee on Killearn Road before heading off to
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somewhere on Taconic Parkway in Hudson
sugar, but no cream that way it looks like it's black as if i'm hardcore (a haiku)
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Coffee is Me and You Bryan Choo
Coffee occupies a special place in my life. It’s a drink that many use to get through the morning. It also does so much more. Coffee paves the way for emotional connections, new experiences, and rich discoveries. Coffee is about experiences: How do “coffee spaces”– be it the favorite neighborhood cafe or the warm embraces of someone’s home– make us feel? As the specialty coffee movement touches seemingly every sidewalk corner, cafes have begun to bleed into homogeneity. White-washed, brick walls,
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wooden tables, minimalist finishing– each of these “specialty” coffee shops looks identical to the next. For me, what really distinguishes a cafe from a specialty coffee shop is the unique experience that I encounter the moment I walk in. From the emotions that the finishings evoke to the shop’s peripheral engagement in the community, a well-designed space feels warm and open. In these spaces, we are encouraged to experience the community, be it through pieces of work from regional chocolatiers or upand-coming local potters.
Coffee is about connection: the cafe has always been the quintessential social space. To me, inviting someone for coffee has always represented more than just a cursory introduction. It is about meaningful engagement and conversation. And now more than ever in our hyper digital world, the cafe is a sacred space for valuable face-to-face interaction. The cafe has been witness to some of my most intimate emotional connections, where we have shared excited monologues about our dreams, grappled with mini-existential crises and lamented our recent dating experiences. But setting aside time for coffee does not only apply to fostering connections with others– it also represents maintaining connection with the self, a time to disconnect from the world and take refuge in a sturdy cup of black liquid, our thoughts, and maybe a good book. I cherish these momentary retreats away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, where I can enter a haven of my own. Coffee is about discovery: one of my favorite travelling activities is seeking out
new cafes and being able to experience how different cultures embrace the ritual of coffee. Whether it be lounging on a sunny morning by the sidewalk with espressos in hand or sitting around a freshly brewed pot of coffee postlunch with cake, it’s always interesting to observe the nuance of coffee drinking around the world. There used to be a time (not long ago) when cafes were the hubs of communities. It was in the cafe where one would be updated on the latest happenings through chance encounters. And these same places would be located in the most interesting of locations, serving as an anchor for a crowd that is adventurous and free. In an increasingly factioned world, some of my favorite spaces are those that hanker back to times bygone and catalyze the rediscovery of community. In the end, coffee is fluid– it is what you and I make of it. Coffee is about fundamental human connection, about establishing a link to the communities around us. Coffee is ultimately about me and you and everyone else.
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prepping the pour over at Cantook Micro TorrĂŠfaction
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Dispatch Coffee in Mile-Ex
before the rush at Tommy
morning light at Savoie Fils
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a welcome sign in Montréal’s Underground City
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in-house roasting in Québec City at Cantook
Alex’s mom at Tommy
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cold brew at Coffee Market
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two Philly jawns
a chalkboard in Abby’s sculpture classroom
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Farmers' Market People Daniel Fradin
I recently found my grandmother’s old polaroid camera hidden behind some cookbooks in the bottom shelves of her kitchen. Recently, I brought the camera with me to the Clark Park Farmers’ Market on 43rd and Baltimore. My plan was to capture portraits of people and then interview them about their relationships with coffee. I found that the types of people who shop at farmers’ markets are usually friendly and accessible. Also, Green Line Cafe sits right across from Clark Park, so I knew I would be able to catch a good amount of coffee drinkers. The people I came across confirmed my theory on farmers’ market people; they are friendly and outgoing, interesting and diverse, and most of them drink coffee. Here are a few of those people:
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Rabbi Rodrigo
Do you come to this park often? I was raised a block from this park, but then I moved to Spain, to Segovia. Then I moved back to this park. What’s your dog’s name? Snoopy. [To Snoopy] Snoopy! Come here! [To me] He’s old now, but I’ve had him since he was a puppy. [To Snoopy] Snoopy! [Snoopy slowly waddles over] Are you a rabbi at a temple around here? No, I don’t belong to a temple. I write Torah on old scrolls. Do you like coffee? I have never tried coffee. I don’t believe in caffeine. Tell your friends not to drink coffee. [To Snoopy] Snoopy!
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Sylva
Do you drink coffee?
Sometimes. I like stirring coffee.
Do you live near here?
I live really really far away in Lancaster.
That is pretty far. What are you doing at this park?
I’m with my dad. He sells all kinds of stuff, and pies.
Do you help make the pies?
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Yes! I’m a baker. My favorites are sticky buns.
Jesse
Do you come to this coffee shop often? Only on Sundays after playing AfroCuban drums in the park. Are you in a band? Not a band, we’re just some friends who like to play Afro-Cuban music together. I play drums. [He uses his fingers on the table to demonstrate his drumming] Where are you from? California, I’m in Philadelphia for school.
I like California. I used to work in Los Angeles as a door-todoor salesman selling brooms to the blind. So you’re taking photographs? Yeah. Why brooms to the blind? [Pause] Can I ask you a question cause you’re a creative person? Sure. Do you know where I could get some things embossed?
Anonymous Do you drink coffee?
Oh, yes. I drink coffee a few times a day. What’s your favorite kind? Whatever’s cheapest. What are you doing here today? I work for Planned Parenthood, and I’m getting the word out. Are people mostly supportive? Most people are polite, but last weekend someone snuck up on me from behind and whispered in my ear, “Margaret Sanger is a eugenicist.” But people are mostly friendly. What happened with that guy? I just ignored him and then people walked over to see if I was okay. People are usually friendly in this neighborhood.
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Joe & Mike
What do you guys do?
Mike: I’m a lawyer, and Joe’s a carpenter. He makes more money than me because I’m a lawyer for poor people. Joe: And I’m a carpenter for rich people How do you know each other? Joe: I know Mike’s wife. Mike: Yeah, she gets around. [They both laugh] Do you both drink coffee? Joe: I only drink tea. Mike: He’s too highstrung for coffee. I drink about 16 ounces a day. I make it at home and then carry it around with me in a thermos.
Where’d you get that cool mug? Mike: I found it on my porch one day a few years ago. I use it every day now. Joe: Where are you from? California. Joe: Oh, I used to live in Ventura and ride motorcycles around the Hollywood Hills. Do you still ride motorcycles? Joe: No, that was in the 70’s when I was more flexible.
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Sue What’s this flyer you’re handing out?
Oh. (pause) Do you come to this coffee shop often?
It’s for a choir con cert. I’m in the choir. I’m an alto.
Maybe I’ll come!
Is he your boyfriend?
Do you like monk chants?
I don’t know yet; I’m trying to find one.
Um, I don’t know. Why? 123
Sometimes. I’m just going to meet a guy for a date.
We only sing monk chants.
Bianca Do you drink coffee? Yes. During the week I make French-press coffee with Trader Joes, um, their French coffee, and on the weekends I get coffee at Green Line. Are you a mushroom farmer? I don’t grow them, but I sell them on the weekends. During the week I’m a travel agent. How’d you get started selling mushrooms? I started a few years ago to make extra money to go to Africa. Did you go? Yes, it was amazing, but I still sell mushrooms because I like it.
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Mugshot would like to express our gratitude to the following individuals and parties for supporting our project. We are infinitely indebted. Kelly Writers House Student Initiatives Fund Noah, Luke, and Daniel at Enclave Broudy Printing Photo Lounge The Impossible Project
Connect with Mugshot web: mugshotmag.com instagram: @mugshotmag email: themugshotmag@gmail.com
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