What does the editor coffee meaning cover in independent media work
A coffee industry information editor spent seven years inside chain cafes, independent shops and coffee self-media, and this account traces that path. It starts with a family Nanyang coffee tradition and a first cup of Blue Mountain coffee, moves through sensory training, and lands on the daily output of content. Confusion and setbacks in the job are discussed openly.
The piece also answers recurring questions about what editor coffee meaning involves in practice: reviewing the experience gained over the years and responding to comments and private messages from readers. For anyone unsure about a career direction in coffee, or curious about how the industry really works day to day, the reflections offer concrete reference points rather than a polished success story.
This article comes from an information editor who has worked in the coffee industry for many years, sharing with everyone his origins in coffee, his work experiences at chain and independent cafes, and the challenges and rewards he faced after switching to coffee self-media. From his family's Nanyang coffee tradition to his first cup of Blue Mountain coffee, from the rigors of sensory training to the daily output of content, he candidly discusses his confusion and setbacks, and also answers various questions from the outside world about working in coffee media. If you are feeling confused about your career direction in coffee, or want to understand the real face of the coffee industry, this article may offer you some inspiration. For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex.
For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account cafe_style)
For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex
The following content represents only personal views and has nothing to do with the Coffee Workshop platform. I just want to take this opportunity to talk about the daily life of a text-based worker (hereinafter uniformly referred to as "I"). The article is not short, but if you are feeling confused about your career direction in coffee, or are interested in entering this industry, I hope you can gain some reference from it.
This article will focus on two main points: first, reviewing what experience I have gained over the years as a coffee industry information editor; second, centrally responding to some questions that netizens often mention in comments and private messages.
"Why did I enter the coffee industry?"
When I was a child, teachers would always ask us to imagine our future careers. The answers I gave always revolved around three: veterinarian and barista. (Later, because I really could not face separations and deaths calmly, I completely gave up the veterinarian option...) In fact, more than ten years ago, I already had a strong interest in coffee, largely due to the coffee-drinking habit passed down through several generations of our family.
My grandfather's mother was born in Singapore, where she lived and grew up, and only returned to her hometown of Nanpanshun (that is, the Guangzhou and Foshan area of Guangdong) after marriage, bringing back the methods of making Nanyang coffee as well. My great-grandmother (that is, my grandfather's mother) once said that this is the taste of home, and it also carries the hardships of Chinese people migrating to Southeast Asia, and she hoped every generation of descendants would remember this flavor.
Influenced by this, several generations in the family have been veteran coffee lovers, and I grew up steeped in the aroma of coffee. The reason I developed the idea of becoming a barista was that when I was four or five years old, my grandfather took me to the revolving restaurant on the top floor of Guangzhou's Aiqun Building (now closed for many years), which was one of the few places in Guangzhou at that time where you could drink freshly ground and freshly brewed coffee.
It was there that I drank the first cup of Blue Mountain coffee in my life and first experienced the appeal of freshly ground coffee. From that moment on, I was full of longing for the profession of barista.
"In the seven years I struggled in the coffee industry, I was also frustrated and confused"
What I did not expect was that coffee underwent earth-shaking changes in the past nearly ten years. By the time I truly reached working age, I discovered that the hiring threshold for coffee shops had already become quite high.
In 2016, I took a trip to Taiwan Province, and that journey opened the door for me to specialty coffee and to understanding the development of the coffee industry. At the same time, I also carried back three books related to specialty coffee studies, and I would flip through them whenever I had time. By now these books are already worn and tattered.
At the time, I naively thought that as long as I read enough books and had a rich enough reserve of coffee knowledge, finding a barista job should not be difficult.
However, reality was quite "cruel." Many independent coffee shops are not willing to hire students who have just entered society and still look very immature to work as baristas. In order to accumulate more barista experience, I worked as a barista at two large chain catering companies, where I laid the foundation for making espresso and also learned about management.
But I fell into confusion. After struggling for three years in chain stores, I began to feel weary of this line of work. The day after day of "shift grinding" and standardized production processes and management affairs made me feel very bored. So I chose to resign and went to work at a matcha specialty store, wanting to see whether I could make myself interested in tea.
As it turned out, I could not, because I love coffee too much!
So I went to an independent coffee shop that roasted its own beans. I originally thought I would just continue the daily work of coffee production, but unexpectedly this is how my coffee media career began.
"When I first came into contact with media work, it was a great test of willpower"
The scope of self-media work is very broad. My initial task was to continuously produce coffee knowledge and update a coffee knowledge public account. From the first day, I began to doubt life, and suddenly realized that the coffee books I had read in previous years were far from enough to support my daily work.
I had to work overtime until very late every day to finish my work, which could be said to be a very mentally torturous thing. Because you can only keep flipping through books, constantly from various channels, searching and scraping clean every bit of knowledge about each coffee-producing region, coffee brewing techniques, coffee roasting techniques, and so on... (It really was scraped out painstakingly; every detail could become the subject of an article.)
Not only that, because my previous work involved only coffee from fully automated machines, my understanding of coffee making and flavor stayed only at book knowledge and espresso with flavored syrup added. Therefore, every time I cupped, I was especially troubled! Because I really could not taste it, and had no idea how to distinguish it.
In order to improve my sensory abilities, whenever I came into contact with fruits and various sauces, I would force myself to distinguish the flavors in them, and I would also smell those 36 bottles of aroma samples with mixed feelings. Through this sensory training, in the process of constantly trying, recording, trying again, and recording again every day, it took me a full month to learn how to distinguish and identify most flavors.
Many people may think these things are actually unnecessary, because green bean merchants provide flavor references. But coffee bean roasting methods vary from person to person, and the taste of coffee will also show different expressions.
It is like the same bean roasted with different curves. Although the color looks similar to the naked eye, the actual difference is very large. So why is there a difference? This requires discussion from the information and condition of the green beans themselves as well as the roasting process.
Only by doing it and feeling it yourself can you write a more authentic experience, and only then can you understand that many things are not as simple as they look on the surface.
"Since it is boring, why do I still choose to stay?"
Looking back now, I often joke with friends around me: for someone as impatient as me, being able to work here for three years is unbelievable even to myself.
As for why I stayed, it may be because when everyone truly calms down and gains a deeper understanding of coffee and the coffee industry, they will find that it is a very interesting thing.
Over these years, constantly receiving different knowledge, information, and sharing and feedback from coffee practitioners has really been exhilarating. As a listener, I rarely express personal positions on what everyone shares, but I will gather everyone's personal experiences and views into articles to share with everyone, so that people can understand the most real coffee industry.
"If there is no news, you do not have to post!"
This is a comment I have often seen over the past few years. Everyone follows a public account for different reasons. Some want to see coffee knowledge, some want to see coffee industry development, some want to see gossip, some want to see very simple popular-science-style knowledge... Different articles have different positioning, and the positioning every day updates according to that day's information.
The coffee industry is neither too big nor too small. Does news happen every day? No. So when there is no news, my work is still to provide everyone with coffee-related information (not the same meaning as "news").
Every day I agonize over what to write and what can be told to everyone from an impartial angle, hoping to help everyone understand this industry from different perspectives.
We cannot guarantee that every day's article will satisfy every viewer. What we can do is hope that when people search for related topics, they can have an opportunity to have their questions answered.
"Is working in coffee media hard?"
No job is easy. Every position has its own torturous aspects, and more importantly, it depends on how you view this job. Personally, I very much enjoy this job, because what happens and what I experience every day becomes the key to opening new doors for me.
While doing coffee self-media, I am also a worker in a coffee shop. Of course, my daily work is not just sitting in front of a computer typing.
The first thing I do every day when I wake up is open an information app and quickly browse through it, then go back to the coffee shop to open for business, then sit down and carefully check everyone's questions and shares. I am also responsible for production, chatting with customers, and exchanging ideas with peers. Every passing minute may become the key to my inspiration. Maybe I will not write it immediately, but it will always be useful at some point.
I enjoy this job because what I see and hear every day keeps me from becoming obsessed with one specific area or matter. Simply put, my curiosity makes my range of attention very broad.
I cannot say that I can learn everything especially deeply, but what I learn is a gain. Being able to use what I have learned gives me a great sense of achievement, so I can keep going.
"Is the coffee industry worth everyone persisting in?"
For any profession to be sustained, it is based on one's true love for the profession and the ability to calm down and understand the industry. Being able to enjoy your work is a very happy thing.
Every industry has development from different angles. You must find the direction that suits you and makes you feel happy and accomplished, so that you can better persist.
The coffee industry is not only about baristas. If you really want to work in the coffee industry, you might as well learn about the entire industry chain, find where the shop you are interested in is, see how much time and how much energy you are willing to spend on the same thing every day, and then choose the direction to invest in.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
