Cupping

Last Saturday, Sweet Thing's management and family got together for an official coffee cupping. Talk about your snooty individuals. We were encouraged to be discriminant and determine which coffee was preferable over another. We are not normally encouraged to be discriminant, so it didn't come easy. None-the-less the caffeine slurping was pleasurable.

For a cupping, a few ounces of freshly ground beans are put into a small cup. Steaming water is then poured over the ground beans. The gritty concoction is left to brew for four minutes and then the cupping begins.

First, the individual is encouraged to get his or her nose down next to the lip of the mug and embrace the aroma that wafts from it when the surface is broken with his or her spoon. When the intoxicating aroma is fully comprehended, the individual then tastes the coffee. He or she sets a spoon on the surface of the coffee until the spoon has coffee in it, then the spoon is brought to the mouth and a fantastic slurping sound is made as the coffee is dispersed to every area of the tongue.

Quite amusing, actually. Yes, there was a little gagging as a few errant coffee grounds pummeled unsuspecting uvulas, but overall the event caused little harm. A little enjoyment was even had!

In the process, our forced discrimination determined three brands to be our favorites. When we get our espresso machine up and about we will then have the final judgment to determine the overall winner.

After the cupping the party moved on to a meal. An Italian meal, to be exact. After all the coffee tasting we needed something to overwhelm our palates.

What A Zoo!

In places of unknown, fears are elevated; emotions run high; tension attempts to tear apart all that has been put together. During such times it is essential that life, purpose, and sanity not be neglected. Overwhelming support is key in such a miracle.

Sweet Thing has been in the midst of pushing through first phases of "ideating" to apparent physical achievement — many contract meetings and emails have led to many design meetings, which, sadly, have led back to more contract meetings and emails. We love our place — it is perfect for traffic — but we would like some allotment for bumps in the road. Who wouldn't? How many people expect to get things perfect on the first attempt. So, that is the why of our intense correspondences: Sweet Thing WILL be successful and a good lease agreement is a vital step.

On another, happier, note Sweet Thing's management has begun its weekly meetings. The first meeting was simply to provide assurance of job descriptions and to provide assignments for each to accomplish before next meeting. There is little more exciting than actually using physical things (i.e. people, hard copy documents, etc) to produce progress—virtual and imagined progress looses its comfort factor after a time.

Tonight will be our second manager's meeting. Assignments solutions will be related, ensuing ideas pitched, and final decisions promulgated within the organization. It is very exciting. We have a very talented and productive team!

Tomorrow Sweet Thing's management will meet again for a blind cupping. We have five brands of coffee that we have looked into serving at the shop and tomorrow we will test them all together. The hope is that through this process we can narrow the field down to two or, at most, three brands and then (when we actually hook up our espresso machine) we can compare the coffees as they would be served in the shop. For some of us this is a completely new experience and we hardly know what is required of us, but we are slowly learning to become snooty connoisseurs.

At some point in the near future we plan to roast our own beans, but in the beginning, simplicity dictates, that would not be possible with minimal employees.

So, Sweet Thing still exists, yes, and is more real than ever. We will have updates from the meetings with new ideas and such. Opinions are more than welcome—as was stated earlier, "Overwhelming support is essential in such a miracle."

Below, for you enjoyment, is the platter that Martin (our pastry chef) prepared for us as an introduction to his wares. Quite fantastic.

Meetings and such

Last week we met with the land owners. We got a lot of information and a lot of promises and a lot of hope... but we didn't have a lot of progress. It turns out we have a problem.



Yes, we are in the process of changing spaces. The space is a better location, but we will not have the outdoor seating we were hoping for. But, if everything works out (which, we have no reason to believe it will), we may get something even better than outdoor seating. We will not share what that may be at this time for fear of jinxing the endeavor.

We will meet again with the developers this week or next week, depending on schedules. That meeting should determine, for sure, the terms of lease, square footage, and so forth. That will be a happy day.

And then the week and month following should be a lovely combination of stress and progress.

We're moving forward... really.

It may seem as if nothing happens around here, but, honestly, we actually work hard. Our two largest obstacles (floor plan, and lease) are close to being realized. We received an initial floor plan before turkey day, which Shawna immediately marked up and returned for updates. We expect an update any day now. The wretched part about the floor plan is that the estimates the designer gives us hinge entirely on the terms of the lease... which, obviously, we have not obtained yet.

Today we did get some reaction concerning the lease. A fellow with significant clout at the developer was spoken with and a time set for a lease meeting. This has happened before and resulted in a canceled meeting. But this time it is with a different fellow. Hopefully a different result will ensue. Once that is complete it's off to the bank to beg for money, and then off to find some willing contractors to make quick work of our little plot.

Yesterday, we had a rather festive time. In the evening a pastry chef we are, so far, well pleased with dropped off a platter of his wares that we might get an impression of his baking style. Mmmm. Fantastic. It's amazing how we randomly run into all these fantastic contacts we have.

All in all, things progress. There is so much stinking paper work involved with every dadburn process it gives one urges to harm things. Overwhelmed is a pretty normal feeling these days. If we just keep our heads about water, though, we should be good.

Ugh.

Many Updates

It has been ages since this blog has been updated, and for good reason—there has been little information to share. For the past month all has carried on in a boring manner—we baked and grocery shopped. That's pretty much it. Now however, things are moving rapidly. It is time for the build-out to be kicked into gear, and who knew there were so many intricacies involved? The city and county have honorable goals, I'm sure, but those goals inhibit progress above anything I've witnessed. So, a lot of the work is simply to learn what hoops to jump through.

A few weeks back we finally got our design fellow in to see the building. He took measurements, asked questions, gave advice, etc. He is currently engaged in preparing a preliminary restaurant design for us. Hopefully we will have it soon. Once we get it we then need to review it and decide on any changes. Then it all happens again. Until we are satisfied. Good luck with that, huh?

Once the floor plan is done we will be able to move forward with city and county permits. These are extensive processes that involve many signatures, many agencies, many pointless documents, and, after all seems complete, many weeks of dumb waiting. Ugh. If our government was more efficient in its processes I doubt it would be the largest employer in the nation. Sigh.

It appears, from talks with the developer of our building, that build-out completion is no longer targeted for late December. It seems the grueling process will drag on until late January now. Disgusting. We already have our business cards made, too! But what can you do?

Another bit of news is that we no longer deliver to Bikini Coffee. This is a twofold blessing (though it wouldn't seem so): first, we didn't make enough products to actually turn a profit; and second, Bikini's management's form of communication was hand-penned notes written on various coffee shop paper products. Phone calls were not returned. Emails were rarely acknowledged. Essentially, we now will save money and headache. Not that it wasn't nifty to have a customer, but, honestly, some things aren't worth the effort.

So, now it's all effort on build-out and OLCC (which is another governmental pile of pooh we shall not venture to describe for lack of time in the day). The first and most essential thing is the floor plan which we hope to have this week. Once that is in hand the ball begins to roll whether anyone is prepared for it or not.

An update will come when we get the floor plan.

By the way, our business cards are amazing and fantastic!

Eerie Silence

Sorry folks, for the great expanse of nothingness. All loyal readers have probably been lost due to boredom. We will try to rectify that situation, but help may be needed.

With the election upcoming and the economy flying into the side of the mountain I think several folks have been a tad distracted of late. A ton of blogs and vlogs I frequent have failed to update in the last two weeks. It's a mite creepy. It's like everyone has found a cave to hide in to await the end of the world. Except celebrities. There seems to be ample trash on them. What a weird world we live in.

Sweet Thing, however, does not desire to hide. Yeah, the economy is essentially toast for a while. And now may not be the optimal time to begin a business. But Sweet Thing has banked upon our country's inherent love of sweets and its desperate addiction to coffee. It's nuts what people will sacrifice in order to maintain their daily ration of sweets and coffee. Not that we are complaining.

This week will see headway in shop layout design and, soon thereafter, the beginning of construction. We have a design sketched, but official measurements and cad drawings will be taken and created this week. Shawna's dream is becoming more real—it will officially be on paper soon. We'll see how well that translates to reality. No doubt it will translate well... the time required to do so is the only thing in question.

Shawna has been in talks with potential clients. It sounds like one will be on board after the first of the year and the other (hopefully) before. We are a young company. We have one client. We are not expecting to gross a million in a month. But none-the-less, after the enjoyable creation of a spreadsheet, it appears one more customer could put Sweet Thing into the black. Impressive.

Bag O' Muffins

A while back we took a delivery to Bikini and on the way back to the car were accosted by a drunk Australian. He stood on the street corner engaged in jovial conversation with a few of his inebriated buddies. We stood at the street corner also, and silently waited for the light to change that we could traverse the street. The man, in his happy, drunken state, fixated on the contents of the clear tote we carried.

"Are those muffins?" He asked. (Now, you must recall this man was Australian. So, despite the normality of the words written here, the speech was not normal. As is the case with the Australian dialect, all vowels have somewhere between 5 and 25 vowel sounds per vowel. Imagine a man attempting to speak with a two inch marble in his mouth. That would sound about right. I will not attempt to regurgitate the speech in writing as it attacked the ear. I will leave that to your imagination.)

The man did not wait for our answer. He continued on in exuberance. "It's a bag of muffins!" For some reason muffins excited him. In his excitement he did not realize that a bag is a sight different from a tote. We'll forgive him though. The man then excitedly ran out into traffic. He waved his arms frantically overhead. His cigarette glowed with the motion. "Everybody stop!" He continued in his dreadful accent. "Bag o' muffins coming though!"

We obliged the idiot and crossed the street. Had shock not affected our sensed we would have granted him a muffin, to be sure. Sadly, our senses had been affected and thanks we did not proffer. It is doubtful he desired thanks, though—his posse's raucous laughter trailed us all the way to the car. They thought it was a grand lark.

Perhaps this visible muffin business is a marketing tactic we could utilize at a later date.

This is all for now. There is little to scrawl about these days as things appear to have adhered to some sort of schedule and have become mundane to say the least. So, if there is anything I've failed to touch on that you want to hear about please let us know.

A Couple More Things

Just a quick entry to say a couple things.

Yesterday the message was relayed to us from a co-worker of a friend. Said co-worker (who happens to be female) shared that Bikini Coffee in downtown Portland has the best rice krispies. Ever. And they are so big.

Fantastic. We can now begin our official adoring-public count. I'm sure the count is larger than those who actually comment on the goods, but we shouldn't assume too much―it makes us look conceited.

Also our logo is finished. Here it is in all its glory. Pretty, huh?