I have a surface level knowledge about coffee, I know that. You can say the same thing on what I know about shoes. I have other interest, like watching NFL (I even chose to get this game pass over NBA league pass), but coffee and shoes (Kape at Sapatos) are what I tell people when I’m asked what my interest are.

I do that so it can seem that my interests are relatable, and not as a test if I would like to talk to them or not – I do not want to come off as snooty. I wrote about almost everybody relating to coffee, and well almost everyone needs to wear shoes. A funny thing happened related to this recently.

Organizational changes have become normal at work. We had a recent one and it started with a virtual meeting with the management team. Now, I don’t really like talking much in social gatherings, even with my actual friends – so imagine how I would be in this setting. At one point, they asked me what my interests were. From Kape at Sapatos, care to guess which one of the two they chose to talk about?

They chose coffee in a heartbeat. Someone asked me what kind of beans I’m drinking and then immediately proceeded to tell me where to get authentic Café Amadeo beans. Someone shared they just bought a pod machine and asked if I have one myself. Someone from Batangas just said all available coffee in the market originated from their province, and just renamed to whatever. The most senior said he already knows what to buy me for Christmas. All these (there were some more) were fired at me simultaneously under five minutes.

It eventually turned to someone missing getting coffee at the nearest Starbucks in the office or the affordable brewed coffee from the Donut place inside the office. They also proceeded to start planning when and where they can get coffee in person. If ever you didn’t believe my claim that coffee was relatable to almost everyone, that is just further proof for my theory. Eventually, someone let me answer a question and it was what my coffee brewing equipment are. I showed them the Fellow Stagg EKG, they praised how nice it looked like, and then immediately got shocked when they found out about its price.

Again, I don’t want to sound snooty. During all these, I kind of had an idea how I did not really want to have conversations with most of them unless it’s about work. It’s not because I thought they couldn’t really converse with me intellectually, it would be foolish to form that conclusion from that brief and random interaction, it’s because they kept talking above each other without really listening to anyone. I guess that’s why I chose to share the damned, overpriced kettle – I just went with the flow of what they wanted, to do some minor flexing around the topic of coffee. It’s also to be noted that none of them were aware of shareyourkape, or that I was managing shareyourkape.

To be honest, I would have liked to talk about shoes (okay, sneakers) during that window. I knew some of the people in that meeting also liked shoes (I even bought a couple of pairs from one of them about two years ago). The conversation eventually moved to Axie Infinty (I have not tried it, did not catch the beta test for iOS), and I could not help but think that the person who has “scholars” is running a predatory business based on how much of the profit they pocket.

So, just a heads up, I might open up with either Kape of Sapatos if ever we get to talk personally.

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