What's Today's Recommendation?
Share
Photo by shigemipics
Botarhythm is a small shop that offers only coffee beans and drip coffee. There is intention behind this simple menu, and there is also a background that took shape naturally over a long stretch of time. I happen to love sweets and baked goods myself, so arriving at a form focused solely on coffee took a good deal of trial and error, encounters along the way, and time quietly woven together.
There is a kind of enjoyment that comes from having more choices. But there are also moments when narrowing the choices deliberately lets you touch something's essence more deeply. Realizing this wasn't a single dramatic event, it was a discovery that formed gradually, little by little, in the course of everyday life.
Which bean a customer chooses, and at what time they savor it. A small story, belonging only to the person who chose it, lives inside that cup. Sometimes that story comes through quietly, in an offhand conversation or simply in the atmosphere of a customer's visit to the shop.
At times like that, I find myself wanting to ask a customer, "What's today's recommendation?" It's usually the customer who asks that question of the roaster, so wanting to turn it back on them comes from a feeling that the time each customer spends here is itself the specialty of this shop. Precisely because that time arises naturally while quietly savoring a cup of coffee, it feels all the more worth cherishing.
Having fewer choices isn't a limitation. It's also a way of offering the freedom to enjoy the open space that remains. This form wasn't calculated, it grew naturally over time. By narrowing the choices, I hope a single cup of coffee can reach a little deeper into the heart, and that its flavor can help nurture a richer stretch of time.
I hope that the time spent in this small shop, tucked away in the countryside, becomes something quietly special for each customer, however unremarkable it may seem. That's not just a wish. It takes shape through the customers themselves, and that accumulation has, little by little, shaped what this shop is.
What kind of story the coffee a customer chooses will go on to weave, together with that time, is something I look forward to, since the answer often leads to a new discovery of its own.
May the cup that has grown naturally here at Botarhythm remain, in your day, a small and quiet joy.