The Barista Who Never Drinks Coffee

The best barista I know doesn't drink coffee.

This sounds impossible, like a chef who doesn't eat or a DJ who's completely deaf or that one guy who builds swimming pools but is terrified of water. But Sarah at Third Wave Coffee Lab hasn't had a cup in 7 years. Not a sip. Not even an accidental tongue burn from a sample. Nothing.

Here's what's interesting about that: she makes better coffee than anyone I know. Her pour-overs are perfect. Her espresso shots make Italian grandmothers weep with joy. She can dial in a grinder blindfolded while reciting coffee varietals backwards. Meanwhile, I can't even make decent coffee after drinking it religiously for 15 years and watching every James Hoffmann video ever made. Twice.

"How?" I asked her last week, while watching her casually pull the kind of espresso shot that would make me question my entire relationship with coffee. Her answer surprised me: "Because I'm not chasing my own taste."

Think about that for a second.

While we're all obsessing over our personal preferences - twisting knobs and adjusting temperatures to match our exact vision of the perfect cup - she's focused purely on technique. On process. On doing things right rather than doing things her way. No emotional attachment to the outcome. No "but I like it a little stronger." No compromising technique because "that's how I've always done it."

She's like a coffee scientist who's never tasted her own experiments. A coffee Beethoven who can't hear her own symphony. And somehow, that makes her better at it than all of us combined.

But this isn't really about coffee. It's about how personal preference sometimes masquerades as expertise. About how "that's how I like it" can become an excuse for not improving. About how distance from something can actually make you better at it.

We think passion for the end product is everything. But sometimes it's the person with no stake in the taste who can truly perfect the process. Meanwhile, I'm over here still trying to make my coffee taste like the bag description. (Spoiler alert: it never tastes like "chocolate covered strawberries with a hint of jazz music.")

Now excuse me while I reconsider everything I thought I knew about being good at something.