Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Writing for Young People
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Seed to Cup

August 26, 2016/in Blog / Levi Rogers

My job is as a roaster and green buyer for a coffee company. I roast the coffee but I also source the green (unroasted) coffee beans (technically green coffee is a seed and not a legume), and so it’s my job to taste samples and figure out what roast profiles work best for each specific origin or blend. It’s a fun job at times, and incredibly monotonous at others. For a while, I worked by myself: I would “cup” the coffee—the process of evaluating a coffee based on objective and measurable standards—and then come up with the profile.

View this post on Instagram

"Actually, this seems to be the basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis — a good hot cup of coffee." — Alexander King

A post shared by La Barba Coffee // Utah (@labarbacoffee) on May 28, 2016 at 7:18am PDT

 

To cup coffee, you measure a small amount of freshly roasted whole beans, say 11 grams or so, and grind them in a few bowls to smell and taste. You first cup or evaluate the coffee based on its dry fragrance just after grinding and before you brew the coffee. Then you cup for aroma, which is how the coffee smells once it interacts with hot water. Finally, you take your fancy tasting spoon and slurp the coffee to aerate across your palate and taste for balance, acidity, sweetness, body, and overall consistency.

As a “professional,” I mostly know what I’m doing. What coffees I like and what aspects I like about various regions and varietals, and what I think works well in our coffee lineup for the season. It is a job easily managed by one person. However, as our company grew and we added staff, I realized the additional benefits of cupping, tasting, and evaluating coffee as part of a team are much more holistic. To hear other people’s critiques helps me create and curate coffee origins and roast profiles that are more diverse and complex than when I do it in a room by myself.

Around the same time, I realized the principle also applies to art and writing.

For many years I thought of writing as a solitary, purely individualistic endeavor. In my mind, I saw Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Woolf and Wallace typing away in dark rooms somewhere, their eyes half-glazed with a mixture of genius and insanity. This was my picture of a writer. A lone artist hammering away at the page in a Parisian bar, a café, or a New York apartment, isolated.

The process of writing is, after all, a solitary endeavor. You do not sit around in the park with a group of friends and write together like it’s a card game. You do not write with others the same way you dance or make music. You sit by yourself and try to come up with words.

But the next steps of writing (and arguably the most important) are rewriting and editing. And these steps are best done within a community.

Contrary to my desire to be a genius artist all on my own, I need others to help me make art. While I wish I were the person who is 100% autonomous and brilliant, the truth is that everything decent I’ve ever done is better when vetted by others. Sometimes it’s my wife or my family. Sometimes it’s a close friend or fellow artist. Sometimes it’s my colleagues on a journal, such as the one you’re currently reading. Often times, the best writing and art seems to come out of a collective where artists and writers are in constant dialogue with the world and others in their community.

View this post on Instagram

Cupping new samples w/ @_gabbigram @hucalberry @levijustinrogers @meredithenzbigilis @feralchildrenofarchitecture and Joe (joe struggles with technology we'll just go with his real name).

A post shared by La Barba Coffee // Utah (@labarbacoffee) on Feb 5, 2016 at 10:36am PST

 

What I didn’t understand as a young writer (though I am still a young writer) was that succeeding in the world of published and professional writers is not so much based on your own individual genius but your engagement in the literary community. Everyone belongs to a particular niche, genre, cohort, time-period, or community that fuses them and hones their craft. Finding a community helps you learn what particular niches grab you, what you like, and how to learn objectively from pieces you don’t subjectively “like.” You read works by classmates and friends, in journals, from editors, by agents. All artists—whether they be comedian, writer, painter, dancer, or musician—are generally part of a larger group.

There might be reclusive or solitary examples like J.D. Salinger or Emily Dickinson, but in general, works of art or ideas are often created in cultures or pods of community: Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Sandburg of the Beat poets, for instance, traveled together and wrote about each other in their New York and San Francisco communities. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Stein loosely collaborated as ex-pats in Paris. James Baldwin and William Styron exchanged letters while they each wrote books dealing with race in the South. Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace had a close relationship. Martin Scorsese and Robert de Niro have made nine movies together so far and garnered multiple Oscar nominations/wins. Each of these pairs or triplets or groups complement each another, even if they were not editing and critiquing each others’ work directly.  Sometimes its just a sort of mysterious collective consciousness.

Collaboration breeds creativity.

So when I get an article published, though the byline may say written by Levi Rogers, what it really means is written by Levi and Lauren, David, Mike, Alex, Katelyn, Mary, Lyndsay, and Nick. Because while it may be “me” sitting alone at a coffee shop in Park City at this particular moment, the piece didn’t start solely with “me” and it won’t end with “me.” All of them will be involved.

Just like coffee is a complex undertaking that passes through multiple hands including farmers, importers, green buyers, roasters, and baristas, until the coffee seed becomes a brewed cup, so it is with writing.

Levi Rogers, author's photo

Levi Rogers is a writer and coffee roaster out of Salt Lake City, UT. He lives with his wife Cat, his dog Amelie, and his many socks, all of which have holes. He’s currently an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Local-123-Berkley-L-0686.jpg 1500 2000 Levi Rogers https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Levi Rogers2016-08-26 10:32:472022-02-09 15:09:28Seed to Cup

Friday Lunch Archive

  • 2022
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014

Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Diana-Hardy_QVC_Feature_Photo.png 533 800 D. E. Hardy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png D. E. Hardy2022-05-06 23:45:322022-05-06 19:25:59QVC-land

Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/waldemar-brandt-eIOPDU3Fkwk-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Lisa Levy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lisa Levy2022-04-29 23:49:582022-04-29 20:27:32Escape Artists at the End of the World

The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/alec-douglas-iuC9fvq63J8-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Megan Vasquez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Megan Vasquez2022-04-15 23:45:322022-04-15 08:32:48The House in the Middle

More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Antigone in NYC

May 2, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Ann Pedone
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/nathalie-stimpfl-EDKWnb-kZV4-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Ann Pedone https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Ann Pedone2022-05-02 11:53:542022-05-02 08:54:07Antigone in NYC

Slackers Rule

April 26, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Karen Regen-Tuero
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/erik-hansman-PL5VrlAISt4-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1706 2560 Karen Regen-Tuero https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Karen Regen-Tuero2022-04-26 16:08:292022-04-26 16:08:29Slackers Rule

Ownership Records

March 28, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Lucy Zhang
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/james-fitzgerald-2XlWpFPzsdc-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Lucy Zhang https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lucy Zhang2022-03-28 11:55:502022-03-27 19:38:27Ownership Records

More Amuse-Bouche »

School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

Here at Lunch Ticket, 2021 represents ten years of our literary journal. 2021 marks the start of a new decade, one I can only hope will stand as tall and iconic in the history of our publication as the jazz age in America. What we’ve put together this fall is what I call and will fondly remember as our “Roaring 20th Issue”.

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instalunchticket on twitter
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2021 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top