Coffee Novelist

Are you mad at Starbucks?

Coffee Novelist

February 8, 2026

I’ve started to look through my old Starbucks related posts, partly because of the ongoing baristas strikes. Despite the title, I don’t think this one has much in common. But here it is below.

More recently and relevant to the title is that I did have to opt-out of the Authors in Grocery Stores Program because the folks in charge felt Tripio would perhaps anger Starbucks and put the entire program in jeopardy. That would have meant putting all the other writers and authors involved in the program in jeopardy and out of a possible revenue stream. That seemed a little far-fetched to me, but I opted out of participating even though the program was a perfect fit for my intentions for this year as America’s Premier Coffee Novelist.

I had tried to reach out to the new Starbucks regime. After all new CEO Brian Niccol recently said, “It’s time to tell our story again and reintroduce Starbucks to the world.” I let them know I’d already done that with Tripio. That has been a while now. I’m guessing that they want’ to tell the Starbucks story how they prefer to tell it, not how it actually happened to and for all the baristas who actually built the company one latte at a time, while making a handful of men very rich. Wait a minute. Maybe Jay in Tripio did have something in common with the Striking Starbucks Baristas. Maybe Cosmodemonic was the right word choice after all.

THE REPOST PART

A reasonable question

“Are you mad at Starbucks?”

My editor asked me over the phone. He had just finished reading an excerpt from Tripio. I had sent him an excerpt from in middle of Tripio. He offered that it had been his experience in editing that writers most often refined the beginnings and ends of their manuscripts. He felt that an excerpt from somewhere in the middle of a manuscript offered him a clearer picture of the job ahead. So, I had send him a what he asked for.

Another reasonable question

“Why are you calling Starbucks the “Cosmodemonic Coffee Company”?

I had not thought about it all that much when writing Tripio. I think because it is how I referred to Starbucks throughout the journals that I kept during the early 1990s when I worked at Starbucks. Those journals were the source material for Tripio. It should obvious that I could only be referring to Starbucks when I subbed Cosmodemonic. I saw no urgency or reason not to call Starbucks by the name Cosmodemonic when writing Tripio. Tripio is the authentic telling of how I interacted with and related to Starbucks when I worked there. But no, I was not mad at Starbucks.

**Is Starbucks Cosmodemonic? He would know**.

Why Cosmodemonic if you are not mad at Starbucks?

My future editor was fine with that but was also interested in the “Why?’ So, I explained further. In Tripio, the Jay main character and his new lover Kati, who also worked at Starbucks, both had read lots of Henry Miller at the time their romance starts. Henry Miller briefly worked for Western Union and referred to it as the Cosmodemonic Telephone and Telegraph Company. In Tripio, Jay and Kati use Cosmodemonic as a nickname more out of homage to Henry Miller than anything to do with Starbucks. My editor was not at all sure readers, even readers of Henry Miller, would get the reference. He said that he would like to see me provide a clarification of my use of Cosmodemonic. I told him I would do so.

In Tripio Starbucks is Cosmodemonic

Since Tripio is at least part memoir and there are many passages where Jay is taking notes or reviewing his SotMs, he also uses Cosmodemonic, “to keep work out of my mind as I take notes and go about my off hours”. This shows the struggle the protagonist Jay faces in Tripio. Jay moved to Chicago to “test his metal as a writer, not to find a career.” He is also actively questioning whether he has what it takes to actually succeed as a novelist. The safer but less writerly option is climbing the ladder at this fast growing coffee company he has been working for over two years. In using the word Cosmodemonic in his personal journals Jay is identifying himself more as a writer, like Henry Miller, than just as cog in the growing Cosmodemonic/Starbucks machine.

I just checked an on-line dictionary site and found that no definition for the word Cosmodemonic exists. Since Henry Miller is no longer alive, I can’t ask him for his permission to use the word. Too bad, because I would also liked to have asked him what he thought about the Cosmodemonic Coffee Company.

Not a book review

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February 6, 2026

I don’t review books and hesitate to even suggest books to other folks, unless I know them really, really well. I go into this in an entirely different old blog post. But I just tried to find it but couldn’t in my previous posts. Hmmm, maybe it doesn’t exist. So, to put it briefly, I see a book and a mind as two types of energy. One, a rainstorm and the other a growing tree. When a raindrop hits a leaf, they connect. What are the chances my raindrop hits your leaf? Maybe it’s better I didn’t find that post after all.

Anyway, in Breath, I came across a reference to The Five Tibetans. I don’t even know for sure what to call them. It is perhaps a series of 5 yoga-like movements done in order that conenct the Chakras, mind, body and spirit. The big quailifier here is that you have to believe they do. And I do.

After I came across the reference to the Five Tibetans in Breath, I began to wonder why I do. I think I found most of the answer in this old post that I shared below.

As for Breath, I found it worth reading. But that doesn’t mean you will.

The Repost March 13, 2017

I found it. As I have been writing these posts it has become important to confirm facts and dates. If the writing of Tripio, as recounted in this blog, is going to help even one person find their own voice and thus create their own unique work, then I have to check the facts. In this case, they are found in my journals, or what I call Sketchbooks of the Mind (SotM). Those contain the dates, times and places I need. I keep and always have kept a SotM to track where my thought-producing mind is. I know that now. For the first 25 SotMs I did not realize that that was what I was doing. I am quite happy to be able to pinpoint the birth ofTripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V as a seed planted in my mind garden. But the date is only relevant as it tracks where my thoughts were at that time. My thoughts give the date meaning and not the other way around.

My thoughts in the days before Tripio was born were occupied on a variety of things, which is the norm for most all of us. I was reading the books of James Allen. I noted a few days or two earlier that a 22 minute mediation was “just about the quickest 22 minutes to ever pass”. I was now getting Mondays off as part of the 4-10 hours a day work week. I was religiously practicing the Five Tibetan Yoga rites.

My job was getting to me and I was keeping busy with my two older kids still at the house. My writing consisted of a short story called My Dinner with Padre and an attempt to re-work another short story called Altonstreet and Philpatrick and the Mystical Antagonist. I had also been searching old letters and typed notes from the years I lived in Chicago and put those in a folder which I labeled Chicago Days. This was all noted in the SotM and all taking place in and around the grocery store, paying bills, watching sports on TV, placing calls to relatives and making visits to my therapist.

Why recount all this? I hope I am making clear that there is no “one size fits all” approach to writing and creating. There is no “one size fits all” approach that works for anything in life, really. Tripio was born on an early spring Monday in 2017 among events, people and places that will never be sequenced, made relevant, or affect me the same way ever again. So, there is no prescription for starting a novel here except perhaps to begin your practice of paying attention to your own thoughts which are growing out of your own wonderful, unique, bountiful and beautiful mind.

Maybe that was a prescription. Be that as it may, as spring of 2017 arrived, I was just becoming comfortable with that practice. And, believe me, I am not claiming to be an expert on anything. I just know that just as I was discovering how to track and cultivate my thoughts from an observed mind, Tripio was born. These more closely observed and carefully cultivated thoughts were noted in the SotMs of course. One of which records the original seed of Tripio:

“Odd, but I’m trying to hit on what to write next. And maybe I have. The early days of the Cosmodemonic Coffee Company are stirring in me. It’s there and ready on my desk.”

A squirrel, a new year and me

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January 13, 2026

This year was not going to be a busy Holiday Season. So, about a month before Christmas, I decided to focus on honoring the Winter Solstice. This year, 2025, had not been a great one so this gave me the chance to send it packing on December 21st instead of waiting for the calendar New Year to arrive.

One description of the Winter Solstice that stuck with me was “the death and rebirth of the sun“. Sounds dramatic. But it makes a lot more sense when pondered than a Savior and Santa. At least to me. The days are short and dark as a Solstice approaches and that makes it just bit more difficult to want to do things, go places, and begin things. The sun is dying after all.

I happened to have Winter Solstice off and that morning took a cup of coffee with me out to my front porch. It was warmer than usual that morning, so I sat for few minutes in quiet contemplation. I love writing on my front porch. I will write out there as long as the weather permits. In fact, I have arranged the porch intentionally to provide a desk and light, a chair and pillows, and even small fan when it is hot. All to accommodate writing outside. I feel more at ease near the trees and grass and birds. Writing is just energy, and it flows better in the open air.

I think the sunrise was 7:21 that morning and no neighbors were up and around yet. My house faces east so I had a good spot. On my long days of summer porch writing I start before dawn and will write until the sun rises high enough to shine in my eyes, telling me it’s time to stop unless I want to put on sunglasses to keep going.

The leaves on my neighbors’ trees across the street were long gone of course and the branches bare against a grey pre-dawn. It was cloudy so it wouldn’t be a dramatic sunrise. But the sun was coming back to life regardless and I was going to be there. I sat for a few more minutes. No cars came past, and none of the neighborhood dogs were out barking. I was alone on my porch, with my coffee and thoughts and ready to leaved ’25 behind.

Then I noticed movement way up at the top of the tree directly in my view. A squirrel had joined the party. I wasn’t sure why it was up it that top branch. There was nothing for it to eat and no neighborhood cat had chased it up there. But it was up there anyway, facing east, tail waving and chattering in squirrel-speak. It seemed to me that the squirrel was making sure I didn’t miss out on what it knew without looking at a calendar or device. The sun was alive, and new year had arrived.

Since that morning Christmas and the New Year have come and gone and I did my best to partake. But I had already celebrated the birth of the sun and moved on to the new year. Several weeks later I remain convinced that squirrel went up that tree to celebrate and honor the rebirth of the sun with me. I hope I’m invited back next year.

Thanks

Coffee Novelist

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December 13, 2025

Thanks for checking in this year. Just been hibernating in the real world and been enjoying the break from all this filtered reality. But I plan on seeing you all next year! Have a great Holiday Season! Thanks, Jerry

WordPress just congratulated me on 7 years of blogging.

Time editing reveals opportunity

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October 30, 2025

It is not an edit, a fix, a mistake. It is an opportunity. A chance to make something better. Who is this world hasn’t benefitted from a second chance in some way or another? I know I have. In fact, I can think of many times when I’ve been given many more chances than I may have deserved. If viewed in a positive light, a mistake is simply an opportunity to learn something.

Editing your own work is a must, but who wants to do that? It is like going out to your garden the day after you pulled weeds and planting them all over again. It must be done, but it ain’t fun. There is a great tempation to send the piece off to an editor you trust, if you are lucky enough to have one, and tell them you’ve done all you can do, now its your problem. Or words to that effect. Problem is, that person charges by the word.

Always do the free stuff first

So, it is a great practice to befriend editing your own novel, poem, essay, or work of choice. We all must do what works for us. I have come to trust in the passing of time. If you can’t beat it, join it.

This practice developed over the course of writing the two or three novels that came before The Trier Goes to London. The trust in that process grew over time as well. So much so that I planned on time-editing TGL over the summer to return to it in October. And I have.

And, it has worked for me. The passing of time gives me the distance to see my own writing more objectively, more clearly. Then the decison to move, change, delete and rearrange my own amazing words is just a business decison and not an emotional one.

But I do have to two rules to follow. You heard me. Just two. It’s not that I ignore all the others but the two that guide my hand are:

Delete for heat- That means don’t give the reader any chance to become distracted or lose interest. Every word or bit of punctuation must have intention or the reader my find themselves “out of the book“. Needless to say, this is quite challenging in this day and age. I try to model the New Testament or Dashiell Hammett, neither of who wasted any words. I like to call my “style” New Testament Noir. I get the to point. I get irritated by writers who try to stuff their MFAs into each paragraph. But that’s just me.
Never take the easy way out– For me that means don’t get lazy with adverbs or dialogue just to get to the next word or line or even chapter. Adverbs rob a writer the opportunity to be creative said Stephen King. It goes without saying that this means everything must originate from your own mind and not any other source. Well, in my case I almost always add caffeine to my mind. But that’s just me.

So, here are just a couple examples of opportunities I’ve let father time reveal to me as I revise The Trier Goes to London. Have a look.

Original 1

“A great many wagons are gone through this place with ammunition for the Saxon army.”

“No use. I can read it.” Philpatrick said.

“Not that. This.” The Widow Giles had emerged from her nook holding the Proclamation out in front of her. She took a step towards Philpatrick.

Father time edit suggestion

“A great many wagons are gone through this place with ammunition for the Saxon army.”

“No use. I can read it.” Philpatrick said.

“Not that,” The Widow Giles had emerged from her nook holding the Proclamation out in front of her. “This.” She took a step towards Philpatrick.

I feel like there is more heat generated by moving “this”

Original 2

“What you selling mate? Your bottom?” The questioner had stepped out of the Blackened Bean to find Altonstreet and Philpatrick blocking his way. ‘How much then?”

‘Uh, no. He wants to see the.. the magic…no… the pouch in my back pocket,’ Altonstreet said.

“He wants to see it first then?” The customer looked at Philpatrick. “Buyer beware, eh?”

Father time edit suggestion 2

“What you selling, mate?” The questioner had stepped out of the Blackened Bean to find Altonstreet and Philpatrick blocking his way. He faced them empty-handed, a few days of growth on his chin, a smile on his lips and caffeine blossoms on his cheeks.

“Selling?’ Altonstreet asked more to acknowledge that he understood. He understood the language, the fact that it was a question, and that he and Philpatrick would be able to communicate here in London in sixteen seventy-five, or thereabouts, without much difficulty.

“Your bottom?” The questioner had stepped out of the Blackened Bean to find Altonstreet and Philpatrick blocking his way. He must have enjoyed his time in the Blackened Bean as he seemed to not be too irritated that the two strangers were directly in his path. “How much, then?” He asked, keeping the smile in place.

‘Uh, no. He wants to see the.. the magic…no… the pouch in my back pocket,’ Altonstreet said.

“He wants to see it first then?” The man with the caffeine blossoms looked at Philpatrick. “Buyer beware, eh?”

Felt like I took the easy way out by just describing the plot-expediting character as “questioner”.

A trip back to Starbucks store #204

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September 29, 2025

A trip to my Starbucks #204

It is the summer of 1992. In my “Starbucks novel”, Tripio, Jay works at a Starbucks store #204 located on north side of Chicago on the corner of Clark, Diversey and Broadway. In Tripio, for the sake of brevity and authenticity, I refer to it simply as store #204, or even just #204. Tripio is a historical fiction novel, set at time when there were around 100 Starbucks locations up and running. However, store #204 was already showing sings of decay from 1,000 transaction Saturday mornings when Jay arrives there as the new Lead Clerk. Jay is an aspiring novelist and so he liked the store’s physical character and the stories it told. His co-workers were mostly aspiring to make a living at one art form or another, so Jay felt he fit right in.

There are several passages in the book when Jay writes that he feels at home at #204. He finds comfort settling back in there for a shift after returning to the city from a trip downstate: “ I had spent too much time here not to treat #204 as a home away from home.” Looking back, that was no accident. The decision Howard Schultz made to empower employee partners with health insurance and stock options was vital to it’s growth and success. In effect, that decision put owners in every Starbucks.

If only I could

I had a strong desire to physically take a trip back to Starbucks store #204 as I was writing Tripio to confirm the details that had gone into the book. I also wanted to look again on the Days Inn that stood diagonally and across the street from #204. There were many, many nights I closed #204 and had to get back to open or at the very least be back for a morning shift. If I closed, I locked that door after midnight. If I opened the next morning, it was at 5:30 or 6 a.m.

The Days Inn stood just across the street on those nights, calling me, tempting me. A shower and bed was just minutes away. My apartment was a long bus ride up Clark. It could take almost an hour before a shower and bed there. I would then have to make the return trip on almost no sleep. A night at the Days Inn would remedy all of this. But no money, no way. So, I made do with my tripio over ice.

Then, the summer 2017 arrived I took the opportunity to drive to Chicago and see both places. I had finished Tripio. I wanted to confirm the details of #204. It had been 20 plus years. My trip back to Starbucks store #204 was also a gift for my daughter. She was headed to college in the fall and we went together as a going away present. That is why I did no research on whether #204 still existed. I was going anyway.

You can’t go home again

Not surprisingly #204 was no more. If it is true that you can’t go home again, at least you have a shot if it still standing. A new collection of newer storefronts had taken over the whole building that housed and surrounded #204. I can’t say I was actually surprised. However, Store #204 was still very, very much there for me: I could still hear the thud of the filter basket hitting the bar across the dump bucket positioned on either end of the espresso bar, the grinders clicking on and the shriek of the hot steaming wand entering the cold milk. I pictured where I stood to expedite the lines during the 1,000 transaction mornings. I thought that I could even catch the scent of a massive urn of Sumatra Mandheling brewing as the morning crew went about the opening process.

Not having a physical confirmation of #204 may have made me work harder to recreate #204 in Tripio. I had to work to rebuild it, and I did. Look for proof when you read Tripio in the scene where Jay dusts off an “order here” sign that hung unnoticed by almost every customer and most partners who had ever entered #204.

So, my trip back to Starbucks store #204 was a success even if it physically was no more. I had confirmed my memories. But the best part was that I finally got to stay at the Days Inn. It is now called The Versey. Yes, the bed and shower sure felt great after all those years of waiting to get there.

I review ten great coffee loving authors

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September 29, 2025

This is a repost for National Coffee Day

If these ten authors were my customers at my coffee house

I can imagine having coffee without writing. I cannot imagine writing without coffee in me or at least nearby. In the evenings, I often sit with a mug nearby with no intention of drinking it. It helps me write just to have it nearby.

I came across this list of quotes by ten coffee loving authors the other evening as I was not drinking my coffee. It struck me that I have lot in common with them, especially the bits about being a coffee lover and a great writer.

To confirm the latter, I imagined all those below as if I were a barista and they were my regulars. My reviews of them as coffee drinkers, not writers, is below their own quotes on coffee. Hope you like them.

Their quotes and my review

Honore de Balzac

‘Were it not for coffee one could not write, which is to say one could not live.’ Balzac used to drink 50 cups of coffee a day. He woke at 1 am each day and wrote for seven hours. At 8 am he napped for 90 minutes, then wrote again from 9:30 to 4 pm. He said: ‘As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move…similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.’

As a barista – Always asks for “ just a warm up” in his cup so we can’t charge him for refills.

Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard had an interesting coffee ritual. He poured sugar into a coffee cup until it was piled up above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid. Then he gulped the whole thing down in one go. He wrote: ‘At any rate, I prize coffee.’

As a barista – When I see him in line I always look to see if the sugar dispenser on the condiment stand is full.

Voltaire.

Voltaire was said to have drunk 30 – 40 cups of coffee (mixed with chocolate) every day. Although he lived to 83, his doctor warned him that his beloved coffee would kill him. He was a regular at the famous cafe Le Procope in Paris and you can still find his desk displayed there.

As a barista – He always orders his mocha made with extra chocolate, but with skim milk.

Gertrude Stein

Stein also loved coffee. She wrote: ‘Coffee gives you time to think. It’s a lot more than just a drink; it’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.’

As a barista – One of those clueless people who has no idea we were closing, even when I started putting up the rest of the chairs and turning off the lights.

Benjamin Franklin

Franklin had high standards for his coffee. He said: ’Among the numerous luxuries of the table…coffee may be considered as one of the most valuable. It excites cheerfulness without intoxication; and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions…is never followed by sadness, languor or debility.’

As a barista- A bit of a prick, but leaves good tips.

Alexander Pope

Pope enjoyed coffee. He said: ‘Coffee, which makes the politician wise, and see through all things with his half-shut eyes.’

As a barista- Tried this line on just about every female barista we have.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau said: ’Ah, that is a perfume in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to open the door to take in all the aroma.

As a barista- He actually lives near the bakery.

Dave Barry

Barry wrote: ‘It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.’

As a barista- The worst. He expected us to start his drink as soon as he stepped in, even if there were twenty people in front of him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe was an enthusiastic coffee drinker. Goethe was interested in decaffeinated coffee to reduce his insomnia. His friend, Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, was able to isolate relatively pure caffeine from coffee beans in 1820.

As a barista- A pain. Always asks why we didn’t brew more Swiss Water Process decafs.

Jonathan Swift

Swift needed coffee at least once a week to write. He said: ‘The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.’

As a barista- Nice enough guy but always wants to talk when there were ten people in line behind him.

There’s free coffee near you today

The Land Before Starbucks- the time before coffee was click-bait

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September 29, 2025

An all-time favorite post of mine, reposted for National Coffee Day

The land before Starbucks

In Tripio, Jay’s prehistoric coffee landscape does share much with the one in which the modern barista roams. Tripio is three plots and narratives alongside and intertwined with each other. The Starbucks growth narrative is told from a barista’s perspective. Jay starts out as a barista. And even when promoted up the chain to store manager, Jay remains a barista at heart. After being promoted Jay still takes pride in his performance on the espresso bar at his current store. He realizes that he must display mastery of the espresso bar for the customers and store functionality.

This was the time, I call it the land before Starbucks, when Jay (me) cared about how you drank your coffee. Yet, it was not even the first time, nor the last time I cared about how you drink your drip coffee, latte or mocha. I cared about how you took your coffee when I worked at The Oregon Street Coffee House, Boston Stoker, Brazilia Coffee, Starbucks, Barnes and Noble Cafe, Aramark Refreshment Services, Filterfresh Coffee, Hubbard and Cravens Coffee, Julian Coffee Roasters and Harvest Coffee Roasters.

In any case, all my coffee extensive and varied coffee experience came before I came to know blogging. In that way consider myself a dinosaur. Yet I also consider myself a heritage barista. A spiritual great uncle to thousands of baristas come and gone since the start of the first Bush presidency. And much like the singing dinosaurs, I once knew, I did go extinct. Unlike them, however, it was partially it was by choice.

A confession

I can very honestly say, I do not care how you take your coffee. You see, I’ve been there and done that for real. I once had to care about how you took your coffee because it earned me the money I had to make in order to keep food on the table, to feed my dino-loving sons. I HAD to know, memorize and prepare your coffee drinks to keep my income coming and my life going. Then, I truly cared about how you took your coffee.

The flip side is that I don’t care about how you take your coffee now. So, I am not going to use coffee as click bait. This means that I care about you as readers and followers of this blog too much all to tell you I do care. I won’t pretend I want to know, now, just to get a couple cheap clicks. That honesty and work ethic kept me working in coffee for all those companies for about 25 years total. I will apply those traits to my career in blogging, no matter the duration.

Stepping off my high eohippus, I admit that I actually enjoy responding to click bait once in a while. Just don’t expect it from me here. I am reasonably sure that dinosaurs didn’t sing. And this coffee dinosaur doesn’t have to pretend like he can.

**Coffee is no longer a product at Starbucks, just an ingredient.**

The Siren Agent

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September 29, 2025

This is a repost for National Coffee Day 2025 –

To submit a query, please use the form below. Please fill out all fields. If an agent wishes to read your submission, he or she will contact you in response to your query, usually within 6-8 weeks.

Which agent would like to submit to?

https://www.fineprintart.com/art/history-of-the-starbucks-logo

There she is. My agent. She and I actually worked together in the early 1990’s so it may not seem entirely fair for me to call on our old relationship to help me get Tripio published. But, when I asked her directly she didn’t say no. Nor did she send a rejection email. I didn’t even have to tell her “Why I chose her to submit to”. No need for a publication history. No need to create a query letter. And since we already knew each other, I didn’t even have to submit a bio.

I first thought of looking up her old contact information again when I was close to halfway through the “memoir” version of Tripio. I was beginning to realize that the piece I started was going to be a novel. I was noticing that if I had told anyone what I was writing then, I said I was working on a “Starbucks novel.’ I tried not to look ahead but as the writing continued I knew that the “Starbucks Novel” was how I would have to sell the book. No one would care about an unknown writer who had just finished a novel. Boring. But, someone out there, reading my query with a Starbucks in his or her hand, may just be intrigued by Tripio.

When the time came, I did find her old contact information. I was told by her gatekeeper that she was closed to queries for at least six months. In a rare show of self-belief and conviction I insisted on at least leaving a message. I told the gatekeeper that I would be remembered because when the two of us worked together at Starbucks there were only 450 employees and it felt like everyone knew each other.

Wouldn’t you know it, she called me back the next day. I didn’t have to wait 6-8 weeks. We hit it off again just like old times. I told her I was a lot older now but felt great. And she replied that she has gotten a little less willing “to show some skin” like she did when I first met her. I asked about the old guard. She said she doesn’t see much of them anymore but she was sure they’d love to read Tripio. It was her idea that I send blurb requests to Howard Behar and Kevin Knox. And she was right, they have both said yes.

We caught up for a few more minutes but she had to go. A lot of Starbucks are still opening around the world and she couldn’t talk too long. She also said that Howard Schultz was writing his own book and wished me luck on mine. I hung up, regretting that I had not given her my contact information so we could stay in touch.

A very short history of coffee

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September 29, 2025

A repost to Celebrate National Coffee Day 2025

The History Of Coffee: Its Origins And Claim To Fame

I know that I was poking fun at brevity in a recent post, but here I go. I’ve been reading way too much on the history of coffee, so this was just a way of letting of some mind steam.