Book review - Driven to Espresso by Ray Weisgerber · Wednesday December 2, 2009 by colin newell
People ask me: What is it about coffee and cafe culture that has given it that certain lasting quality? That particular something that keeps it on our radar time and again… I mean, one need only subscribe to a newspaper or magazine or watch TV to experience how pervasive coffee culture is in society. For me, although not a life vocation, coffee has been a steady source of fascination and creative output.
And I cannot help but admire the person that captures some of the energy and puts it into book form. Because from where I am sitting, books are forever baby!
A successful photographer in his own right, Ray Weisgerber’s has put some of his coffee love into a soft cover book that we can all enjoy – and on several levels.
For the coffee lover, the drive-through espresso stand or kiosk is the alter of caffeine, the church of brew, the mosque of hot, black and satisfying java. And as we now know – the thing that makes the coffee stand or cafe that sacred place is its ability to take you away from the everyday. The coffee house is not your home and it’s not your office. And with the blurring of the work place, the cafe has become that one place where you can chill for 15 minutes to a half hour and get away from all the day to day demands.
Ray Weisgerber’s photos encapsulate a part of the American experience that is familiar and reassuring. He accurately captures the breadth of architectural style that is at once common to the North-west but also unique in its variance.
Driven to Espresso would make a great gift for anyone who enjoys a hot cup of joe or simply wants to share in the American journey. Driven to Espresso is available directly from Ray’s website or via online vendors like Amazon.
Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour Chapter 3 · Monday November 23, 2009 by colin newell
Sunset. It is a day. A week. A month. It’s your life.
And birth. A death.
Joy. Elation. Celebration. Renewal.
We hang our souls to dry like tropical themed towels at the pool-side.
And while staring into the sun gives clarity and honesty, home is
where the heart is.
Yes. It is here. Some of the time. And it’s back home with friends and loved ones.
After we hung out with a seasoned coffee farmer at Lehuulu Farms we sat in an old theater cafe up-country where they grow coffee.
The Aloha cafe is at 79-7384 Mamalahoa Hwy in Kealakekua, Hawaii – a mere 15 minutes from Kona, Hawaii.
We start to take root. We realize that we now have friends for life here.
And there. Back home.
I guess. Even though our family shrunk by one recently (and we were broken…)
Our World grew a bit bigger today.
Such is life.
Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour Chapter 2 · Saturday November 21, 2009 by colin newell
Pushing around a rake over coffee parchment to find my soul.
I reorganize and re-balance.
In coffee we are looking for the right amount of moisture in the bean.
In life we are looking for the right balance of love and fear.
Enough love to say Hey and enough fear to say Fool…
Yes. You do get it both ways.
The ying and yang of our existence is just about balance.
A balance that we never actually achieve but spend a lifetime walking the fine line
for.
Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour 2009 · Tuesday November 10, 2009 by colin newell
Hello from Kona, Hawaii. Breaking my silence now.
Have spent a few days on light duty observation of Kona Coffee Fest – and what a wonderful, rural event it is indeed.
Sat with Joachim Oster of Blue Horse Kona (and my dear Wife Andrea) over coffee at the Keahou Outrigger waterside bar and talking about life, death, coffee, birth, the farmers life, the science of coffee and everything in between.
Photo above: I am loading 80 pound bags of Kona cherry into the pulper at Blue Horse Kona
This is why I am here. To get some of those pressing questions answered.
To hang the soul out to dry and to heal.
To let the rays of the tropical Sun trickle charge largely discharged batteries.
To move forward by sitting perfectly still.
This will become a regular home for upwards of a month a year.
I would suggest this kind of down time for anyone. It is amazing. And subtle. And gentle.
It is Hawaii.
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