As I mention when I post with podcast episodes and show notes and other newsletters, I'm using my Buy Me a Coffee presence as an experimental engagement hub to connect my personal and professional endeavors in one place with what we could call a Tip Jar. As I presently live in Las Vegas, that is certainly a thing we find out in the real world...
Any coffee monies will be gathered up and applied to some, well, Coffee!
I get a few beans via Amazon or direct, sometimes I get some beans from a local indy shop if they roast their own (there are many around Vegas, and many more beyond). One of my favorite coffee encounters out and about is a Nicaraguan Tobacco Coffee that I tried at Cafe Frei when they had a real location in Dublin (that location switched to being a regular coffee and sandwich spot, nowhere near as interesting as a proper Frei, which makes coffees from all over the world using traditional methods).
Nicaraguan Tobacco Coffee via the Cafe Frei Webshop
As you may notice, their shop is in their home country, Hungary, and they do not ship internationally last I checked. I'll have to stop in a shop in real life next time I'm in Dubai or France. Or, if you happen upon a Cafe Frei in your travels, well...
Aside from beans, there are so many ways to prepare coffee, there is no shortage of gadgetry, which is also fair game. As I type this I have a Vietnamese Phin, Turkish Cezve, Italian Moka pot, American AeroPress, French Press, a Flair Pro 2 to make manual espresso (so good), and some pour over tools (I like reusable, so I have three different no-filter pour over devices).
And finally, those beans don't grind themselves, so I have a Baratza Encore grinder, which is highly rated as a solid workhorse grinder for home use, it doesn't impress any coffee nerds but it's respectable, at least. In the near term, I suppose if this Encore fails for whatever reason I would get something possibly higher on the grinder ladder, but a new grinder is not on the horizon unless there's some big celebration to engage in.
All projects (especially the ones I haven't listed on the profile yet... podcasts and newsletters are easy compared to writing software without collaborators) are powered by caffeine and chaos, the latter is easy to come by here in Las Vegas, the former is found in roasted beans initially, in a cup of some kind eventually, and in my project output ultimately. I would like to make my actual money from the software projects, which I'll talk about and write about, thus I'm not hoping to be a full-time audio or video content creator as a living (not at this time, anyway). I got that engineering degree for a reason, dang it! But this being Vegas, people are quick to offer coffee or beer or sometimes lunch in exchange for time, so here we are just in case.
Thanks for reading, to be continued...