Brewing Coffee: A Tale of Competence and Accountability

I love coffee. Today, while preparing my second cup—my morning Nespresso—I realized that making coffee has many parallels with the work we do. This simple act illuminated the challenges we face in our operations, the importance of innovation, and how we can overcome obstacles together.

Bear with me.

Making coffee seems straightforward: roast and grind the beans, pour hot water over them, and enjoy. But knowing the basics doesn’t guarantee a great cup. A great cup is the result of many factors, the first of which is the ingredients.

No amount of skill can compensate for poor-quality beans. Powder oxidizes, over-roasting makes it bitter, and incorrect water amounts can ruin the taste.

You don’t have to grow or harvest the coffee yourself, but you should know about it. Visit the farm, learn about terroirs and strains.

(You can outsource this to the Jacu bird Penélope obscura, but that is another story.)

Then there’s processing: roasting, grinding, packing, transporting.

The best coffee in the world, regardless of what Colombians and Salvadorans might say, is Brazilian. But the Italians know how to process it better than anyone, and Illy is my favorite.

The reputation of a brand matters. And so does yours. While you’re not responsible for the production of the coffee, you’re accountable for the cup you serve. That means you’re accountable for the choice of the ingredients. If you choose poorly and that results in a subpar cup, you’re responsible for that.

There are countless ways to brew coffee

As if all the variables in the ingredients were not enough, there seem to be all these different ways to heat water and extract the flavors: Turkish style, French press, Italian espresso machines, Brazilian filtered—and each method has its own variables: the type, roast level, and grind size of the beans; the water temperature, brewing time, and pressure of each technique; and the degree of complexity of the equipment for each.

Understanding and controlling these variables is crucial for two reasons: 1) you can ruin an amazing ingredient by using it with the wrong technique or because of poor execution, and 2) the technique has to be adequate to the ingredient but also to the expected outcome, since not all cups of coffee are made equal.

If the client expects an espresso, you better not use a French press or Brazilian filter, and vice versa.

This is a good catch to introduce us to the next point:

Know the Taste and Expectations of Your Customer

It’s not enough to make coffee you like. My wife prefers her coffee with cold milk. Serving her a technically perfect espresso misses the mark because it doesn’t meet her expectations. We must tailor our products to meet the diverse needs of our clients. But there’s a limit to customization. Let me explain.

If you open a coffee shop, you might be tempted to offer a wide variety of coffees to attract different clients. While customers may appreciate options, ultimately they choose one, and you serve one. It’s easy to confuse the value proposition, believing it lies in offering choices when it actually lies in delivering an excellent cup of coffee.

A coffee shop can experiment with new recipes, methods, and variables, but in the end, it must abandon products that aren’t excellent to provide an amazing experience with what they deliver. You need to experiment fast and cheaply, or else experimentation will consume all your resources without delivering value to the client.

You are responsible for the cup of coffee that you deliver

Automated systems like Nespresso make mistakes less frequent. Instead of managing ten parameters, you just need to remember to add a capsule and fill the water. But if you forget one of these, the result is a subpar brew. Recognizing errors and correcting them before serving is essential. I wouldn’t serve my wife a bad cup; I’d fix it first. Likewise, we should identify and rectify issues before delivering our work.

These variables might not all be under our direct control, but we are accountable for the final product. If we serve a bad cup of coffee, it doesn’t matter if the beans were defective or the machine malfunctioned—we need a backup plan. Never serve a bad product to the client.

If you’re a coffee shop owner or a barista, make no mistake: you don’t sell half-full cups with hot liquid inside—you sell a sensory experience that lasts five minutes in your mouth, warms your body, fuels your brain for hours, and leaves you wanting more.