From Prague to Turkey, Italy, and Norway, an Expat’s Coffee Journey: S8E1

Ana Blackstad has experienced coffee culture in so many different places that I ran out of ink during our chat yesterday. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit but seriously, Ana moved to Prague, Czech Republic only 3 years ago but she has made the caffeinated most out of her time there by exploring both local Prague cafes (many of which are listed down below) and those in neighboring countries like Italy, Greece, the UK, Norway, Finland and Turkey. Her love of this beany goodness comes through loud and clear. Ohhhhh, just wait until you reach the part where she describes the best latte she ever had. She speaks of “peak coffee experiences” and the “theatricality” of cafes so eloquently that I think we should all adopt this vocabulary to share the coffee goodness going forward. Who’s with me on this idea? 

Original publication date: October 25, 2019

More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

The perfect coffee shop is kind of like the perfect red lipstick. I have not found it yet. I have many red lipsticks. I probably have twenty and they're all great, but it's like a unicorn for me. No, I found several really nice ones. And to say that I found the ultimate coffee shop, I I haven't yet. And I kind of hope I never do because then my quest will be over.

SPEAKER_06 0:25

Thank you so much, Anna, for joining us for the Geopaths Podcast special and new coffee show.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Hey, good morning. I am excited to talk about one of my favorite topics in the world, which is coffee. So thanks for asking me.

SPEAKER_06 0:39

There's nothing to get me to follow someone on social media quicker than a picture of coffee.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Yeah, that's a good clue that you found a kindred spirit.

SPEAKER_06 0:47

Before we dive into the global coffiness of your caffeinated experience, can you give us a quick snapshot of where you're from and where you're currently living?

SPEAKER_04 0:55

And sure. Yeah. So my name is Emma Hernandez Blackstad, and I spent most of my adult life in Seattle, Washington, a coffee capital of the USA. I'm gonna say that loud and proud. And about three years ago, my husband and I moved to Prague for a work opportunity, and we've been here ever since. And although I will not say that Prague is on the same level as Seattle in terms of coffiness, I think it's a really up-and-coming coffee destination. And Europe, of course, is a great place for coffee. So that's been a fun part of our expat experiences, you know, expanding our taste buds to learn about different coffee cultures over here in Europe too.

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Where else have you consumed this lovely beverage?

SPEAKER_04 1:43

When we were applying for our visa to stay in the Czech Republic, um, we had used lots of our Schengen days already for travel. And anybody who has come over to Europe for an extended period of time knows what I'm talking about, but you can only stay in the Schengen zone for uh 90 days out of everyone. So we had we had used up a lot of our Schengen days, and so we actually had to leave the Czech Republic while we were waiting for our visas, and so we went to live in the UK. We ended up staying for 13 weeks, eight in uh right around Windsor, uh, Maidenhead, England, and um five weeks in Scotland, and had some great coffee time there because my husband was working, I wasn't, and uh so my life consisted of going to all the local coffee shops and having a scone or scone, and if I was lucky, striking up a conversation with a local, and so I had some really nice coffees and scones all over that area of England. Oh, we were just in Norway this past Christmas, and Norway is such a great place. Well, and Sweden too. We the the Christmas before that we were in Sweden, and um, because the days are so short, that Hofika coffee culture is alive and well, and there's nothing quite as comfort comforting as you're walking kind of in this sort of darkening misty evening, and you see this warm glow of a coffee shop and people sitting in the window with these steaming mugs and you know, finding a cozy nook and just kind of sitting and and and I I really like that part of travel is the sort of the going over the day, you know. Before you got to dinner, but it's late afternoon, and that's often a time when my husband and I will pop into a coffee shop and kind of go, wow, that was that was a fun day. What what else did we do? What did you think of that? What did you think of that? And kind of a nice pre going back to the hotel and and getting ready for dinner rituals. See, where else had some very nice coffee in Finland? Again, we end up going to these cold places in the winter, I think because it's cheap to travel there. Yeah. Um it just happens to coincide with my coffee love. One inextricable memory for me, we took a road trip one summer through southern Germany on they call it, I think, the castle castle route route or something, but you get lots of different castles, and we went through the Black Forest and having the Black Forest cake and a cup of coffee. Um linked with that memory for me of beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 4:30

Can you give our listeners a visual of maybe one of your favorite coffee shops? And when you go there, what are you ordering? What are you possibly eating, and where do you sit? And can you just kind of have us see one of your favorite coffee places?

SPEAKER_04 4:46

For me, like the gr the the perfect coffee shop is kind of like the perfect red lipstick. I have not found it yet. Okay, as close as we can get then. An eternal lifelong quest. Like I have many red lipsticks, I probably have 20, and they're all great, but like I it's like a unicorn for me. So are kind of the same way. Like, you know, I've found several really nice ones, and um, but like to say that I found like the ultimate coffee shop, I I haven't yet. And I hope I kind of hope I never do, because then my quest will be over. But for me, I think it's gotta have comfortable furniture. It's gotta be somewhere that I want to linger. So if it's all like upright wooden chairs and rickety tables that don't balance correctly, like that just kind of throws off the whole experience. So in in that situation, if I walked in and I saw something like that, I'd do a grab and go. I wouldn't actually stay there. So some squishy, some squishy armchairs, like a cozy atmosphere, and really great customer service. It's gonna smell good and look good. And if it has a display case full of tempting cakes and cookies, that just is you know, icing on the top. So there's a few. There's one Mama Coffee that's a local chain here in Prague that I like. It's in the Carline district, um, which is where I used to live. And that one's pretty, pretty good. So if you can get a like a squishy booth type chair or one of the padded chairs in the window and have a yummy baked good and a latte, that's a pretty good coffee experience. Nice music, not too loud, so that you can still talk to your companions or still work or whatever. But for me, it's it's kind of an eternal quest. And that's part of the fun too, is checking out new coffee places and and seeing if they meet the criteria. Also in Carlene, here in Prague, uh, there's a place called Muishalek Kavi, which is my cup of coffee. It's translated as that. And that was my my neighborhood, like one block from my house that the Baristas and the servers knew me. They had some really yummy cakes and cookies. I didn't love the coffee though. It wasn't my favorite. So if I could combine sort of that amniots with mama coffee, but uh I will say it doesn't always have to be warm and cozy either. I remember when my husband and I went to Istanbul and we went in July, which I know. Why were we going to Turkey in July? But there we were, and it was it felt like it was 150 degrees, and we saw a Starbucks, and we took refuge there, and they had um ice and they had air conditioning and they had Wi-Fi. For that moment, it was the perfect coffee shop because it fulfilled all of our needs um at that moment. Uh a really nice cold iced iced coffee and a respite from the heat and a place to sort of regather our thoughts. And you know, a lot of people say, Why do you go to Starbucks when there's so many other places? For me, it's comfort, it's comfort. Like I know what I'm gonna get there, I know how to do it. So a lot of times in a foreign country, that will be one of our stops is to get our bearings. Yeah. And to, you know, re refuel and get ready for whatever the day holds. And it it takes a little bit of the scariness out when you can get your first cup of of coffee in the morning and set off for your day um without a lot of scariness and uncertainty.

SPEAKER_06 8:32

Honestly, some of the ones in Shanghai and where I used to live in Nanjing, China, some of the buildings are built so beautifully and the inside is so comfortable and gorgeous that I'll just go and get a Perrier sometimes. I'm like, I want to sit in that pretty, comfortable space.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

So it's Yeah, we have one like that here in Prague that is kind of iconic. It's a Starbucks in this in this cool old building in a really pretty old square. And um, I go there every morning now. Since I changed jobs, that's my new on the way to work coffee um stuff. You take a minute to enjoy the beauty of the surroundings, and some days you just need that predictability of like, okay, I know what this is gonna taste like.

SPEAKER_06 9:12

Absolutely. Let's talk more about what you normally get when you go into these cafes. What's your what's your drink of choice?

SPEAKER_04 9:18

I will usually get uh cafe latte with an extra shot, skinny milk, and if they have caramel, I will have caramel because I really love that sort of caramelly depth of flavor. If not, I'll put some sugar in just because I'm a cream and sugar kind of girl. But again, it kind of depends on what the specialty of the house is, too. So, you know, when we were in Turkey, it was Turkish coffee with all the sugar and the really like the grinds at the bottom or grounds, I guess, because that's what you drink there. And in Italy, it's uh straight espresso so that you can really or a macchiato so you can taste the the coffee. So yeah, it kind of depends on where I am, but my my daily is like a cafe latte. I love a cold brew in the summer. Oh my gosh, it's so good. Yeah. If I could find cold brew here more places than than just the handful of places I found it, I'd probably drink it year-round because I I really like that.

SPEAKER_06 10:15

Do you know what, Anna? It is the easiest thing to make in the world. You literally So you make your own. Um, I do sometimes, yeah. I especi especially in summer. You just take the grinds, you put them in. I I have like um oh gosh, what are they called? Like maybe like a half gallon-ish kind of like plastic bottle and uh for like drinks, and I'll take the grounds, I'll put them in, I'll put just cold water, shake it up, leave it overnight, and then you just filter it the next morning. And I usually add ice because I really like ice in my cold brew, and that's it. There's no way to mess up a cold brew.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Oh, good, because see, I've been hesitant to try it at home because I'm just so rubbish at making coffee, but and so I've been researching cold brew makers and um even looking at Amazon and as a geopath like yourself, I'm a little bit hesitant to invest in new gadgets. But I always have a plastic bottle laying around. So that's a great tip. I think I might try that myself and try.

SPEAKER_06 11:10

Because I used to travel a lot for work. I would take just uh a water bottle that was in the hotel room and I put grinds in that and leave it overnight and then use whatever I could as a filter the next day. Or just pour it very slowly out and just leave the last maybe the last little bit in there with the water because usually the grounds stay at the bottom. I'm sure the makers that they have and stuff have monitor the chemical composition and the ratio more, but the I find that it actually tastes really good just doing it that simple way. Who's usually in these coffee shops in Prague? Because Prague's very heavily touristed. Families or people working on their laptops or tourists or kids or what what do you usually see when you go into these places?

SPEAKER_04 11:49

Yeah, it really depends on where in the city you are. The the place where I work now, Anglo-American University, is in the really touristy part. And so if you go into a coffee shop in in that neighborhood, it's just below Prague Castle. So you'll see lots of tourists with maps and apps trying to get their bearings. Where I live now is a neighborhood called Smihov. And um, it's not as touristy, so you'll see lots of students. Prague is a very student-friendly city. There's a lot of universities here. So you see students studying, you'll see people on their laptops, you'll see um families in the daytime. Um, you'll see a lot of moms with strollers, you'll see multi-generational families. Um, so grandma, mom, and the kids, or grandma and the and and grandpa and and the and the grandkids. You see that a lot. Yeah, so it's it's really a mixture, but one thing I I like about coffee culture here in Prague is that people linger over their coffee and and also their beer and whatever they're consuming. Sure. Um very conversational place. And that took me a while to get used to as an American because I'm a little bit more like, go in, get my coffee, have my conversation, and and leave. Like, you know. Um people here linger and they'll sit for a long time with a with a coffee cup, and that's that's fine here, even at dinner. Like you're you have the table until you're done with the table. There's nobody kind of rushing you along. And so that has taken some adjustment for me to kind of slow down, appreciate. I can always order a second cup. That's been a kind of a nice life lesson here is to just kind of slow down and appreciate what you're doing in that moment, as opposed to thinking about everything that you have to do next.

SPEAKER_06 13:41

Right. I hadn't thought about that until right this moment, Anna. That's really funny because I I grew up with Italian parents and taking time with your coffee and conversation was just like embred inbred into me at a young age. And I just thought that was yeah, that would be an adjustment if you're used to it being more of a quick beverage uh takeaway kind of thing. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Yeah, well, and and that's one thing I love about Italy too, is that you'll see the people come in, stand at the bar, drink their shot, get on a day, and then you'll see these hours and hours long conversation. And I uh uh that's one thing I love about Italian culture is just that that fine art of conversation and storytelling and the after after dinner talk. So I think that was a a lovely culture that you grew up in and and have an appreciation for that I think I I'm just gonna broadly say a a lot of Americans could could learn from that.

SPEAKER_06 14:40

And they might be. I mean, coffee culture, depending on which coffee place you go to and which city in the US, there are different ones with with that slower vibe of we expect you to to linger and chat for a while kind of thing. So it just it slowly might be happening, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

I think that I think that would be Yeah, and and maybe it was just my lifestyle in the States too was sort of cram as much as you can into every day. I I don't think I ever permitted myself that luxury of kind of slowly sipping. It was more like, okay, get this done, go on to the next thing. So I think that's one of the great life lessons of being a geopath or an expat is I love that you're using that word. Thank you. Well, yeah, I want I wanted to use it. I wanted to get your permission because I think it's such a great word.

SPEAKER_06 15:33

And yeah, please feel free to use it often.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

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SPEAKER_07 16:49

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SPEAKER_08 16:59

A move that was completely out of character for you, by the way.

SPEAKER_07 17:02

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SPEAKER_08 17:08

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SPEAKER_07 17:21

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SPEAKER_08 17:32

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SPEAKER_06 18:20

Let's go back in time a bit, Anna. When did you fall in love with coffee? Is there any moment you can hone in on?

SPEAKER_04 18:26

So I always thought coffee was gross for a long time. It was something my parents drank, and you know, it was an adult thing, and I never really liked the taste. And but my friend Sally, who I hope hears this, was a coffee lover from a young age. And so I would go with her to coffee shops. And so I started off drinking chai lattes because it was like sweet and spicy, and it was and then I started drinking mochas. So there's the chocolate and the coffee, which are two of my loves. And then slowly I started like not ordering the mocha anymore and just going for the coffee. And so Sally was my introduction to coffee as an adult, and I really am glad that I decided to kind of shed that coffee as gross mentality because it's been such a fun part, I think, of of travel and of of um exploring different different places. And um, my friend Sally and I have this shared love of coffee now.

SPEAKER_06 19:31

So hopefully I can be Sally for someone else. And I keep meeting people who have the same experience, and I also had the same experience. I hated coffee my entire despite it being around and my mom made you having a mocha pot at home constantly. I mean, she just did. There was always one or two of those in varying sizes around. I did not like coffee until my early 30s. I was working in a hostel in northern in Northern California, just north of San Francisco, and we had to make coffee as part of the morning ritual of kicking people out of the hostel. And so it was kind of our nice, here's coffee, get out! And I got I really I've always loved the scent of coffee, but I didn't like the the taste of it. And there were some mornings when I was, as a hostel worker is broke and tired, and I just started drinking it just to stay awake, and I actually really loved that blend, and that was my gateway. It was this very chocolatey, very dark Mexican blend, and it was beautiful. And then it was just there was no looking back. Then I just would seek it out every single place I went.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Oh, that's a great story. Yeah, I think sometimes you need a grown-up appreciation of not just the flavor, but also the experience of it.

SPEAKER_06 20:44

Absolutely. Of all the places that you mentioned Turkey, Italy, Greece, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland. Was there any of any coffee experience that blew you away that you'll never forget in any of those places?

SPEAKER_04 20:57

Well, I'll tell you a couple things. One that comes to mind is our first trip to Italy. We decided to go to the Cinqueterra and um on our way there, we we went through Genoa and we were in our hotel the first morning after we had arrived in Genoa. It was, I think it was the best western. I don't remember much about it other than breakfast was included. So we went down to the breakfast room and they come around. Would you like coffee? Sure. And I just remember taking a sip of that coffee, and it was so good. And it was just plain that's included with your hotel room coffee about the flavor. And I think it's just Italy. I don't know. It's just once you cross the border into Italy, it was just so good. And my husband and I both kind of locked eyes over the breakfast table, and we're like, oh my gosh. That was just kind of one of those moments where we're like, oh, this is this is good. We're gonna enjoy this. trip for so many reasons but the coffee we have to have coffee as many places as we can so that was a that was a really great coffee moment and then recently here in Prague I had I think what combines the best of theatricality of coffee and the flavor of coffee is a place called venue and we have a group of geopath friends and we go to brunch fairly often a few times a month um we'll go to brunch together and this place has a ice latte which is something I would order anywhere right ice latte summer so it comes out on this beautiful tray the the server brings it out and there's this tall tumbler filled with ice cubes and then on the top there's two espresso ice cubes okay dark brown espresso ice cubes oh my gosh and then he brings this little jar or jug of steamed milk and he pours the steamed milk over the espresso and the ice and you just watch as this magical alchemy happens and the espresso ice cubes melt and mingle with the hot milk and it was beautiful and then on the side there's a little picture of like simple syrup so that you could sweeten it to taste and and then the flavor was great too. So it wasn't just pretty but it was actually really tasty as well. But there was something about that theatricality of it and the presentation and being there with good friends and it was a warm day and an ice latte that tasted really good and it was just I have been telling so many people this place like go order an ice latte.

SPEAKER_06 23:47

Beautiful now I found their website is this a gallery like an art gallery as well it looks beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

It's kind of an art space and um restaurant cafe really good brunches and just really really nice service in a world of iced lattes that have made no impression whatsoever that one was just they did it beautifully so yeah that was that was great.

SPEAKER_06 24:12

That's the thing about lattes they are yummy but there's so much milk that a lot of times you can't taste the coffee it's pretty watered down right and this one had a very nice coffee flavor.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

It wasn't bitter it was pronounced but it wasn't like in your heat and something about watching those espresso ice cubes melt and mingle with the milk. I wish I had a video of that just to watch it over and over again. Well sometimes you just don't expect stuff and you're not ready for it. I really like um the presentation of a really good Turkish coffee with the little tiny silver cups and oh I would say a Thai iced coffee when you watch it drip drop by drop into your cup. That's a pretty nifty experience and I have not been to Vietnam but we have some really lovely Vietnamese Thai restaurants in Seattle that will do that that slow dripped coffee at your table. Those are pretty fun I like those oh there's also a place here in Prague called Eska and they um are a full service restaurant but they also have a bakery part downstairs and they have one of those super elaborate Japanese cold brew makers. I don't know if you've seen those yeah they have one of those but it's huge I I don't even know how big it is but the coffee that comes out of that thing the cold brew is a revelation and I'm sad to say that I only discovered their velvety delicious cold brew like a few days before we moved out of Carlene and moved to a different part of France. So I haven't been back since but if I'm in that neighborhood I will go back there for a cold brew because it's do you know what I just I just learned last week that cold brew originated in Japan.

SPEAKER_06 26:03

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

You know it doesn't surprise me I think there's kind of that art and beauty like you were saying you can make it at home with a plastic bottle. Sure or you can do things the Japanese way right which is so beautiful and so elegant and that was a great a great find and I'm sorry that I found it so late but I will be going back there for cold brew for sure.

SPEAKER_06 26:25

And that's E S K A, right? Yeah Eska Yeah found them too gosh the food in Prague looks so good.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Oh and I should make a little plug for my friend Alison and I um have our Prague restaurant reviewing Twitter account Alison Micheski has what how many projects is she in anyway sorry go ahead and plug and then I'll yeah she's all over she's the amazing woman a renaissance woman but uh together we are at Las Saboritas L-A-S-S-A-B-O-R-I-T-A-S on Twitter and we roam around Prague and anywhere else that we're traveling and rate restaurants on a one to five chile scale. Oh my god one chile being not very good and five chiles being drop everything and go immediately. So we've really enjoyed working on this little side project together. If folks are interested in Prague food and culture and coffee they can follow us there and and read our restaurant reviews and we're always taking suggestions of places we should go and that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_06 27:28

I think that's how I found you actually is because I hooked up with her via podcasting and and just the general internet Twitter probably the We Are Expats Road Core it's such an incestuous world online. She was on two shows actually on Geopaths she was on the Expat Rewind show episode 18 if I may plug and Virtual Expats episode 30 and we did talk about food a lot and I've been following her feed and drilling over that but I had no idea that she also had a a a specific feed with somebody else with just food. I'm definitely gonna follow that now oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Yeah she she and I met when she moved to Prague somehow we found each other on on Twitter and when I saw that she was here in Prague I said we should meet up sometime and we just became really good friends and we were always talking about food and restaurants that we had been to and like dissecting everything from the presentation to the ambiance to the service to the flavor and then we were like one day we should write restaurants together. That would be fun. Okay. Such a good idea we've been putting it together for about a year and it's been really really fun to explore Prague and try things that we wouldn't normally try and you know just really dig into the local culture here. And so and and plus you know getting to do fun restaurant reviews with a friend what what could be better than that.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

Well are you drinking any coffee right now?

SPEAKER_04 28:53

I'm actually not and you know that's a funny thing that I know that people don't really believe about me because I love coffee so much but I don't really make coffee at home because I'm really bad at it. I actually had a boss one time that um prohibited me from making coffee at work because like she found it undrinkable and I've never had a lot of success with making coffee at home. So for me coffee is mostly a social go out and have somebody make it for me somebody who's an expert at making coffee and that's part of the ritual for me is going somewhere and having somebody prepare it. And so yeah I my husband has a French press that he'll use every once in a while and so I'll drink that but to make my own I'm not I'm not a skilled coffee maker.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

And I'm I'm finding that the more coffee conversations I have with people on and off the mic, a lot of people are in that camp. I'm kind of 50-50 I will make coffee at home but I do really really prefer when somebody else does it because it's like you said it's just so much better.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

Mm-hmm. And it's all part of for me it's part of the ritual like going to the coffee shop, figuring out what I'm gonna have the sound of the shh when they're steaming the milk and the the sound of the coffee cups and the china and the murmured conversations it's all part of the for me kind of the mystique and the experience and and I'll be honest with you we left our Mr. Coffee at home in the States when we came over and it seems like here it's either like I see a lot of French presses or I see like super complicated espresso home espresso machines and I'm not really into the pod culture like the coffee pod. And that thinks well of you I think well some people are really into it and I think the convenience of it cannot be beat but it's just not for me. And so yeah so for me it's really about either some nice quiet time for myself and a book or a social activity with friends.

SPEAKER_06 30:54

This is only the second episode of the Global coffee show. I'm gonna try to get as many different people in as many different places as possible because I think the differences in how coffee is made and and displayed and all of that is just so cool. So knowing all of that, what questions should I ask them? What do you want to know from future guests?

SPEAKER_04 31:13

What do you see as the future of coffee? It's possible to love something to death and where are we headed in terms of uh preserving and making sure that that's there. So are they sh are they changing the way that they buy coffee or consume coffee or who they buy it from fair trade. If the dire predictions that I see online are true, our coffee future is endangered just like our the rest of our future right if if uh climate change continues the way it's going and stuff. So I kind of wonder about you know how we're going to preserve and protect this love that we have. And I think that if we are our true lovers of coffee that maybe we should find ways to make sure that we can preserve that for future generations.

SPEAKER_06 32:06

I am very intensely focusing on the the joy aspect of it but I knew I needed to bring it up or somebody needed to bring up the the complications of coffee eventually. So I'm glad that you did it in the second one. So thank you for that. And just to bring a China aspect to this because I do that um because I'm here um there's a a local podcast by two Chinese women and they do the a podcast in English and they did a recent episode on coffee. They cover many different topics but they did one on coffee because the southern part of China Yunnan province Y U N N A N is a big coffee grower but they're having a lot of the similar problems that other coffee plantations and whatnot have. And so they did an episode on those issues that seem if you're from the West and you've been hearing about free trade for a while seems obvious but it's something that's fairly new to Northeast Asia because coffee is still a fairly new thing. So coffee and the conscious part of how is it grown? How did it get into my cup that's still also a fairly new thing. So I'll I'll put that down in the show notes for you guys to listen to but it's an it's an interesting thing to think about is it's it's a thing that brings so much joy but there's a lot of like any other commercial thing there's a lot of greed that can go into it too. So yeah it's good to have that balance.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Yeah the dark side of something that we all love and enjoy.

SPEAKER_06 33:23

I'm so jealous that you were able to bring dark into I was trying to do a visual coffee thing to tie to the greed and you did it.

SPEAKER_04 33:31

You went there Yeah well I I am so glad that we did this because it's not often that I get to talk to somebody in China about coffee culture there. So and and you know it it is such a great uniter no matter where you are in the world. I mean there's tea people and I I really like tea too but coffee is my love and um there's so many people in the world that share that that same passion. So it's it's fun to have this dedicated time to just talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

When I thought of starting this show I was like I don't even know if we'll have enough to talk about but here's five questions to start and now we're you know over 10 and there's still so much more we can explore and I'm so happy about that. Because like you I love coffee and I live for those what how did you call it those uh peak peak coffee experiences.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

I love that and and I I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Hawaiian coffee. My husband is from Hawaii and uh we had some really lovely Kona coffee and um there's some some really nice you know small um coffee development still going on in Hawaii that's another place that I think has a a small but vibrant coffee culture as well.

SPEAKER_06 34:53

Sure. Well we don't we don't have to stop the conversation now I do love when guests come back and talk about different aspects of things. So in a few more months or a few more experiences later if you want to come back just let me know and we'll press the record button again and we can dive into any other aspect. Anna thank you so much for sharing your caffeinated joy with us today.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

This has been really fun to talk to you about I appreciate the invite and like I said just the the the sheer pleasure of spending quality time talking about something that we both love so much and making a new friend in the process is great. And I'm at at Anna Blackstad A N A B L A C K S T A D and at Las Saboritas if folks want to follow and I'll I'll follow back and can continue the conversation on social.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Absolutely and all of the food and drink stuff that she was talking about we will have in the show notes for y'all at geops.podbean.com Anna thank you so much and yes happy coffee drinking to everyone if there is a man to be strum a chord and sing to me that there will be another time a time for you and I with candles books and wine correct albums filled with photographs and rooms that echo to that I'm so happy I could die I could die I could die I won't have to try until I do I think of you I'm so happy I could die days of change and coffee smooth lights on the exotic moment lazy morning hotel with a time for you and I'm empty bottles of shade on the window pane dress and let this chain I'm so happy I could die I could die I could die when they try till I do I think of you I'm so happy I could die do have deserted streets and have hearted retreats will I manage my defeat I think of you home to build alive trips made to the hardware store dances on the kitchen floor will it time for you to die working mind broken heart collaborate the greatest art through the empty parts I wonder why I wonder why wonder until I do I think of you I'm so happy I could die I could die I could die I would have to try until I do I'll think of you a star until I do I'll think of you a light to grace my eye until I do I'll think of you I'm so happy I could die Membership fees apply after free trial.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

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