Bitter Press

Thoughts: Correspondence Course with Mr. Carmichael

On a Monday night, the last thing I expected to see in my inbox was an email from Todd Carmichael, one that began with this paragraph:

Before I become completely ostracized there are number of very important topics in roasting that are never properly discussed on blogs like yours. I have 9 of them, and this is the first. Would you mind discussing it?

Then he went into point one of nine, which I won’t reprint here, but can say that it may be a valid concern about gas roasting. I figured that hey, maybe he did want to pursue an honest to god back and forth discussion, and participate in the overall pursuit of great coffee. So I sent him an email back, detailing what would be needed for me (or anyone) to take him seriously, and consider this first, valid point that he had sent along.

Hi Todd,

Sounds like you have some valid points here about roasting.

But before I could even consider taking any ideas or opinions or thoughts you might have seriously, I’ve got a simple three step program.

1. Acknowledge that the articles you wrote for the Esquire blog are wrong — not wrong in content or opinion, but wrong in the sense that the tone and attitude delivered a piece of writing that helps no one. So far, all it’s done is angered the coffee community — the entire coffee community — and discredit your entire life’s work in coffee. You’ve been around horn, you were there at the big bang of American coffee. You’ve got knowledge to share, but this isn’t the way to do it.

2. Apologize publicly for being such an ass in those last two posts. Write a blog post about how you got caught up in the mess, you said things in a way to get a reaction, and that you really didn’t mean to be so stupidly hurtful in your last post.

3. Join the discussion that everyone else is having, as an active participant and not a hate-spewing outsider. We’re all grouping together, forming a loose coalition of knowledge sharing, and we’re doing it in a respectful way. A lot of youngsters — like me — missed out on most second wave coffee establishments. It’s a shame. The third wave of coffee is a derivative movement, and that’s where me and my peers are starting from. Without knowledge of what came before to inform my actions, I’m just a derivative of a derivative. We want to hear what you have to say, and the email you sent has an extremely valid idea behind it. I don’t roast. I just make coffee in a coffee shop. So that’s an issue I can’t directly comment on, but it’s an idea to be considered and addressed.

Problem is, Todd, no one is willing to discuss these things with you. You already walked out into where we live, dropped trou, and took a shit all over our stuff. A crazy, horrible, runny shit. That hurts. Now, if some guy walked into your house, pooped on your cat, and then said, “hey, I have a theory about the way people scoop cat litter,” you’re not going to be very willing to discuss cat litter with them, are you?

Just consider it.

-Jesse

Lo and behold, Todd replied back — twice.

Thanks.

I guess the topic isn’t that important to you. I see.

What I will say is that indeed, we all work hard, and I will continue to do so as I hope you do. Bond away.

Appologize? For my way of thinking and expressing myself. This is America.

I tried.

T

The next email goes into detail about his issue that he wants to discuss, but instead of coming off as a concern he wanted to discuss, it turns out that the whole thing was a “gotcha” attempt all along. Apparently, everyone is roasting coffee wrong. Which I think sums up everything I really need to know about Todd Carmichael. I won’t reprint his full point here, because I promised I wouldn’t discuss it unless he followed my three criteria.

I don’t like Internet squabbles. I think they’re not very representative of people’s true personalities, and can come off as more combatant than they need to be. This is something that most people learned after one or two bad experiences when they first started commenting on Internet boards. And yet, there are the trolls — people with no lives who want to contribute nothing to the conversation except their own inflated ego. And I think we all know exactly where Todd Carmichael resides.

Don’t feed the trolls.

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