Just a few years ago, I often had this conversation inside my head:

I don’t know about X

I should know about X!

(Feeling bad about me)

Strangely, and marvelously, those words have mostly floated away …

This morning I sat on Izy Coffee’s black couch with my friend Bart.  He and his wife Larisa own the place.

Soon Bart is heading to Brazil to meet his coffee growers for the first time.  The owners and managers of the plantation are women, and many of their employees are women who have troubled lives.  It sounds like such a humane business.  Just the types of people that I see Bart associating with.

My friend told me that his roaster is in Belgium.  And I asked …

What is a roaster?

Not missing a beat, Bart started describing the coffee process from coffee tree to cup.  Not a hint of judgment.  AND … not a hint of judgment from me to me.

I’ve vaguely known that coffee beans grew on a bush, and I thought they looked like this hanging there:

The reality is that coffee beans start as little green berries, and they’re harvested after they turn red:

The bean is inside the berry!

Bart and I smiled a lot as we sipped his brew and talked coffee.  I sat tall.  The unknowns create the adventure called life.