Friday, December 10, 2004

Tasting

As my regular daily routine of brewing coffee at work, part of the experience is that sometimes I saw our vendors do test tasting for our sales persons in the lunchroom. Some vendors really cook. Some of them just serve.

I understand the vendors are trying to show our sales persons their products and are marketing to our sales to sell it for them. Yeah they do very hard work.. But I still couldn't recognize if they are a good vendor or not until they finish tasting.

A good vendor should have these:

First, they have to bring their own disposable items such as chopsticks and paper dishes. It's common sense, right? If they tried to use our disposable items, they are pretty much not mindful of other people's property. So potentially they can be manipulative. It's not good. If I were a branch manager, I want that they leave by this point even if they have good products. Sooner or later we might lose trust from customer because of this vendor's mentality.

Second, this is also common sense. If they used our kitchenware, they have to wash those before they leave and returned to its original place. That's what normal vendors do.

Third, if you can do until this point, you are a perfect vendor and I can trust them well. Also they do good business w/o any exception. Almost same as second one. But not only back to original position and also they clean our kitchen perfectly. It means they know if we do work in food industry, we have to keep clean no matter what. So if they treat our kitchen well, I bet they take care their items well. That's a perfect vendor and I knew only one so far.

That's what I always look for when watching them do their product testing. Minimum requirement is up to 2nd step. But...

I am really disappointed with this one vendor. He is taking care of Japanese coffee. When I am making coffee, I always prepare the pot of water for the next batch of coffee. But this person.. Whenever he comes to our company, he is making coffee. He always brings his own coffee tasting small cup. So 1st step is passed. Also it's ok he used this water. But, after he made coffee, he never put water back. That's really time consuming for me. When I get a filter water from the fountain, I need 1 min. to fill up one pot water. So if he didn't bring back, I wasted 1 min. because of him. If I have a lot of spare time, it's ok.. But I usually make time for coffee during busy schedule.. So even if it's 1 min.,this delay will reflect on my working condition a lot. Also when I was making coffee, I am still busy and have to finish to set up coffee counter at the same time, too. I don't have any spare time to only watching coffee.

I knew he used this water all the time because only water is gone after he came in our company and when I smell used coffee powders in the filter, it's totally Japanese coffee smell. But it's very hard to prove it if I have only circumstantial evidence. I need to see he is actually using this water. Otherwise I can't tell him because it's still a presumption even if I knew and he can still say I didn't use it. So i really have to see it and get proof. I am waiting for this chance since this guy started working at this coffee company. It's already 3~4 years now. Geee.. He is so good. He always sneaks in the lunchroom and then he already used this water & made coffee after I realized it. Always!!

Anyway.. I want to tell you one more thing. That is people who drink the coffee I make. What's kind of character they have. I am also watching them whenever I have a chance. What mannerisms they have. If they make a mess, if they wipe it or not. They can stay in line or not. If I am still making coffee in the middle of the process, they wait until it's finished or not. You know if he's trying to get coffee in the middle of the process, this coffee is not good taste and remaining coffee is not good either. The taste is ruined for that pot coffee. I still tried to control taste such as reducing water. However If it's hard to control taste, I throw away the whole pot coffee. I know I wasted.. but can't help. I can't serve bad taste coffee to people. I can't get away w/ anything on my coffee. People know the taste. If they drink bad coffee, they will feel frustrated. Coffee should make people feel relaxed. But can't. So if you have character not to wait coffee until the end of the process, usually you are very selfish person. = No cooperativeness. = No good work. Usually I am correct. Even if it's small action, I can tell what is their character. We can't split our character betwn private and work because we are humans and are not perfect.