Meet Your Barista: Brendon

Here at The Coffee Genre, we’re all about community. We’ve already met tons of locals, and we’re excited to get to know even more! For just that reason, we’d like to take a moment to introduce ourselves too. This post is the first of our Meet Your Barista series, where you’ll get to know more about the awesome people making your morning coffee.

Q: What’s your name, and how long have you been a barista?

A: My name’s Brendon, and I’ve been a barista for about three years now. Of course, I just started here at The Coffee Genre last month. I had a couple of chain store jobs before that, but this is my first time working at a local business.

Q: Why did you decide to become a barista?

A: Well, if I’m being completely honest, the free daily coffee was a major draw of the job. Beyond that though, I’ve been a coffee drinker for a long time, and I wanted to learn how to make my favorite drinks. After I became a barista, I had access to all kinds of new coffee-making equipment. Espresso machines, steam wands, pour overs… pretty much everything. It’s been fun learning how to make latte art and helping customers decide what to drink. I always loved the smell of fresh coffee in the morning. Now, I get to have that all day.

Q: What’s your go-to drink?

A: Definitely an iced, triple-shot latte. I have one (sometimes two) pretty much every morning at work. I’m not big on sweet things, so I like my lattes plain—no syrups or sugar. I’d recommend it for anyone who likes their coffee bitter and needs a little caffeine boost in the morning.

Q: What’s your favorite book genre?

A: Fantasy for sure. I grew up on a lot of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Artemis Fowl, which is how I first got into the genre. They were the kinds of books that combined fantasy with the real world, and I really liked that about them. From there, I moved more and more to high fantasy and sci-fi books that took place in completely fictional worlds. My favorite series right now is The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. It’s all about the world building and the character depth for me.

Q: Are you reading anything right now?

A: I’m actually between books at the moment, but I just finished Tress of the Emerald Sea, also by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a standalone book that follows the story of a girl who leaves her home and sails out into the sea to find her lost love. If you’ve ever seen The Princess Bride, the book is actually inspired by Sanderson’s thoughts on what would have happened if Princess Buttercup had refused to accept the news of Wesley’s death and sailed off to find him. It sounds like a romance novel, but it’s more along the lines of fantasy and pirates.

Q: What’s a fun fact about you?

A: Well, I’ve studied Spanish for eight years and Chinese for four, plus a little bit of Thai. I’m pretty much fluent in Spanish at this point. As for Chinese, that one’s still in progress. I’d really like to keep learning languages, though. It’s a type of learning that I really enjoy and that I’ve found useful in my day-to-day life.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like people to know about you?

A: I really love dogs, especially big ones. My family has a chocolate lab named Snickers and an Australian shepherd/rottweiler mix named KC. Ask me about them at the shop sometime if you want to see dog pictures!

Thanks for reading our first Meet Your Barista post! Check back in four weeks to meet another member of our team.