What’s up guys 🙂
I’m back at Artisan with a flat white next to me, or what’s left of a flat white, thinking about coffee…
Coffee, a strange thing to get excited or be fussy about i know, but i love it. I love the aroma that hits me as I walk into a coffee shop, the whiff of freshly grounded beans with their hints of dark chocolate, the taste of a good cup as it lingers on the tongue, the Zen I feel as I think & write at some of my favs and of course, the alertness that presents itself later in mid writing or conversation.
Coffee is a relatively big deal to me, others love their food and perfectly poached eggs, or their ice-cold beers straight out of the tap or out of the ice box, others their favourite whisky on the rocks or neat or their glass of red wine as it swirls around, gently caressing the wine glass before taking a sip.
I love my coffee, not the 3-in-1 stuff, not the instant stuff, the freshly ground, non-economies of scale roasted Papa Palheta/Coffee Societe/ Artisan Coffee/ Podgy and the Banker stuff.
I’m not an expert or barista or anything like that, yet :p, I’m just someone who started out with freeloading off Starbucks Monash’s ambience with my green tea in my nice green Starbucks Thermos, that is until I met their Cafe Mocha and thus began my love affair with coffee, March 2012. This relationship went on strong for a while, almost a year i think, until I, erm, had an affair with Artisan Coffee BV2 which lead to my breakup with Starbucks, and for a while I was playing the field, going to different places for coffee and blogging but could never find the right one, either the coffee was good but not conducive for my writing or vice versa, until I bumped into Coffea Coffee Bangsar. I found myself at Coffea almost everyday, things were good for half a year until a friend introduced me to the newly open Artisan Coffee HQ; great coffee, 6 minutes from home, lots of natural light, comfy and free parking right smack in front…
Since then Artisan Coffee HQ became my regular place, I am comfy there, most of the people behind the counter know me, they stick my little yellow notes behind the counter, always make me feel welcomed and the coffee is good, there are days where it isn’t good and they fix it, and then there are days where it’s great, like today, great, a perfectly balanced flat white. It’s been a good 7 months since and though I do try out other places (which greatly accelerated over the last 3 months as my Instagram account & Arkay’s QOTDs will testify show haha; i started trying other places around PJ, #CoffeeCulturePJ, & KL, #CoffeeCultureKL, checked out as many places as i could when I visited family in Penang, #CoffeeCulturePG, and Singapore, #CoffeeCultureSG, oh and even when i was in London, #CoffeeCultureUK) no one place has the whole package, Coffee, Comfort, Character & Compatibility, as I feel Artisan Coffee HQ has, and is still my regular place, as my yellow notes on the wall will show 🙂
“…coming to my favourite coffee place to enjoy a good coffee with appropriate music in solitude is when i run maintenance on myself and clear out some of the mess within so that i don’t reach a Level 10 meltdown. I’ve realized that my major Meltdowns come during periods where i don’t do any writing = i haven’t been spending time alone. I find that with my regular
QuietTimes, i’m doing less
frantic running around to put out fires and get more things done because my head is much clearer in comparison to other times without “maintenance”.
Coffee and the establishments that supplied it to me have played a significant role in my life over the last 2 years, they’ve played a part in my recovery.
Seriously.
Coffea Coffee, Artisan Coffee HQ and also Flat White SS 15 provided my a place to run away from the noise and mess of the world and be at peace, an environment that somehow quieten my mind and helped me focus, think and write…. and without my writing I probably wouldn’t have made half the progress that I’ve made. That’s how it all started, I was just looking for a place to runaway to and it’s grown into this love and appreciation.
I guess i just want people to understand that coming to Artisan or Flat White (or Coffea) isn’t just about the coffee, the coffee is great, but more importantly, it’s a place in which i’m protected and sheltered from the outside world
The world is a messy place, and even more of a mess when you have Fibromyalgia. Constant pain, sensitive nerves (to stimuli like lights and sounds too) and almost always so tired… combined that with a brain that doesn’t work as efficiently as it should and i’ve got a situation in which i’m unable to process all these details appropriately so it all just ends up as a mess in my mind.
So it gets very very difficult to have to deal with the normal suff in life…. the regular things like academic pressures, getting stuff done traffic and especially dealing with people… i.e. family and friends. (I love them to bits but sometimes it gets very hard for me to deal with the mess that comes naturally)”
Here I am, 2 years later sitting at Artisan Coffee HQ, sipping a perfectly balanced flat white in an environment that allows me to feel somewhat Zen, away from the noise of the world, a home away from home.
So, aside from being part of the recovery cocktail that’s got me this far, the question now is… has coffee become a passion of mine?
Yes. I’m pretty sure haha.
I see myself learning the art of The Barista and doing it part time; I see myself writing more about coffee, be it reviews, general thoughts & the progress of my coffee education; and even, hopefully, eventually, see myself owning & running my own place, a place just for coffee & cake filled with regulars illuminated in natural lighting amongst the beautiful buzz of great conversation conceiving great ideas and thoughts over lattes, brewed coffees and juices with a little stack of random Arkay’s QOTDs on each table, sort of like a fortune cookie but instead of a fortune they’ll get one of my favourite quotes that will hopefully spark the great conversations. Hahaha, yes, i’ve thought about this quite bit 🙂 I’m not sure about it or anything, it’s just something i’ve been playing around with in my head for a while.
There’s a long way to go if I want that to happen, I’m going to need to learn more, practice, try more and experiment, I’m going to write about it all. The different shops and coffees on my coffee trail, my trial and errors at brewing & barista-ing, the ups and downs on this specific journey.
I guess only after all of the above will I be able to tell if I truly have this passion for coffee or whether it’s just a casual fancy. Time, and effort, will tell.
Keep Moving Forward #KMF
Straight From The Heart
Oh, One More Thing…
“That’s the thing about coffee places, it’s a place you can be alone but not really feel alone. It’s a sort of mid point, away from people that you are always with which explains how one feels alone but surrounded by strangers that cause a little background buzz, a sort of background connection to humanity that brings about the feeling that you’re not alone. Essentially the difference being that you’re alone on a conscious level, a level where you’re alone with your thought and the other being you’re not alone on a subconscious level, where you are aware that there are people around you but you don’t think about it, it’s all just background processes that don’t matter at the moment, just background music if you will. Just comforting background music because, I think, even when we want to be alone, we don’t really want to be completely alone in silence. Why? Because we feel disconnected from humanity, and most would rather not have that. Especially now, in an age of extreme connectivity. “
Like it? Why not share it.
arkaysthoughts 
