I love coffee and I bet you do too.

I’ve spent the past five years working in Charlotte’s coffee industry, hopping from shop to shop, falling in love with this dark brew and the community that surrounds it. I’ve become fascinated with learning new brewing methods, researching coffee trends across the globe, and fan-girling over the #latteart hashtag on Instagram, among other things. My whole life seems to revolve around coffee these days and I don’t see that changing any time soon (I’m totally okay with that).

There are a lot of weird perceptions about the Specialty Coffee Industry out there: that baristas are snobs, that third-wave coffee is pretentious, that the “average joe” (coffee pun! expect a lot of those) can’t appreciate “good coffee”… I think that’s downright wrong. Maybe even a little ignorant. I believe that if people had easier access to their local coffee community, they’d fall just as much in love with this amazing, slightly jittery culture as the rest of us already have. Specialty coffee doesn’t have to be scary. It just has to be delicious. Simple!

So this is for you. For the baby baristas who are just beginning to figure out how to wiggle out a stringy rosetta, and for the coffee amateur that doesn’t know what the hell a rosetta is (thanks for being patient with us, by the way, your cappuccino will be out in just a moment). For the seasoned barista with steam-wand burns all over their hands, and for the home enthusiast who tediously and zealously hand-grinds their own beans every morning. For the under-caffeinated grumps slumped in their chairs and the over-caffeinated crazies talking too loudly on their cell phones in the corner (we hear you, we see you, please talk quieter okay?). I love you all (well, most of you) and want to give you a virtual place to gather, learn, gossip and gawk over coffee.

This is going to be a safe place, a weird place, a sassy place and a sometimes-Diana-says-regrettable-things place. I simultaneously apologize and don’t apologize for the ridiculous things I will say here. Expect a lot of barista’s-perspective posts. Expect to read guest posts from coffee professionals and non-professionals alike. Expect to meet local baristas and hear their stories and ideas. Expect to learn things and un-learn things and occasionally wish you hadn’t learned things. Hey, I never said I was perfect.

If you’d like to learn a little more about me and the blog, feel free to peruse the “About” page. Thanks for reading this and I hope you stick around for more. Let’s talk coffee soon, okay?

// photos by Joshua Vasko