Provenance 🗞️ Slow News Day #46

Hey,

I’m a coffee snob. There, I said it. I’ll own it. I’m one of those wankers that’ll grind beans at home and time how long I let the grounds bloom before adding more water.

Take me as I am, it’s all I can offer.

Being a coffee snob has done more than make me insufferable, though. It's helped me see and appreciate the craft in everyday items and experiences.

A cup of my most pretentious speciality coffee can be traced back from roaster to importer to farmer. The transparency that speciality coffee prides itself on pulls back the curtain and shows every step of the process that took it from a tree in Timor-Leste to my mug in wherever-the-hell-I-am.

This doesn’t only apply to hipster-friendly cups of coffee, I’m pleased to say.

There’s craft in everything.

The chair I’m sitting on was shaped by hands (or hands programming a machine) out of pieces of wood. Wood that had grown for years in, probably, another country and was felled, cut, and transported all so I could sit here right now and type this email.

Everyday items have an astonishing lineage. Everything does - people, plants, even mass-produced soulless instant coffee. 😉

Take the slow road with me on this and look around you. Your desk - what’s its history? The mug or glass you’re drinking from - how did it start? A painting - was it really made brushtroke-by-brushtroke?

What started with speciality coffee has become something much greater, much deeper. But I won’t complain that it took a lovely filter brew to get me there.

Slow down guide

Need a little help moving slower?

Ease your way out of Friday afternoon with this newsletter, a nice cup of something, and a little background music. Steal my setup if you aren't sure where to start.

After I press send, I’ll be supping on a cup of Ozone’s Sumava Lactico roast. It dropped through the letterbox yesterday after I was persuaded to grab a few bits after buying some of their Nespresso pods as a birthday gift for my brother. Couldn’t help myself. It’s fruity and with just the right hints of booziness, a real stunner. (FYI, that’s a referral link that gets me 1,000 loyalty points if you make a purchase. I don’t think you get any extras, sorry!)

To make up for the lack of kickbacks, I’ll offer up Field Guide’s Tupperware, instead. Some soft piano notes, delicate vocals, but a little undercurrent of head-bopping groove and beautiful motion. It’s not quite a discount on beautiful coffee, but I can’t think of anything much closer.Take it easy,