A Warm Brew

Introduce yourself!
I’m Natalie, and I’m a Political Science and History fresh-graduate. Since gradating, I’ve honestly just been working part-time at a café called Apartment, but also traveling to Europe during this little summer break to meet a friend in Helsinki to host a little baking pop-up, which is super exciting!

That sounds fun! When did you first start baking?
I started baking with my partner during the post-Covid period, but then we took a really long pause in between—we’re not very consistent with it. But we had some friends overseas who really wanted us to go and just bake with them, so that’s what we did.

Is that when you also started coffee-making?
Yeah, this was about two years ago actually. I used to go to Apartment as a regular customer for a long time, and then the opportunity came up for me to work there part-time, so I took it on to see what it was like being behind the counter instead of just having the coffee.

Every place does coffee differently, and they have a different value system for how they want to present their coffee. So it’s just about understanding how each particular spot chooses to present it—it’s always interesting. So that’s why I always just order the same few drinks at different places, so it’s easier for me to make these comparisons.

What’s your go-to coffee order?
Probably just a filter or an espresso, but it really depends on what they have there.

What kind of traveler would you say you are? Are you the spontaneous type, or are you more of a planner?
I feel like I’m the kind who likes to have a friend in the city, because I like to enjoy the city more from a local perspective, even that means just taking on their daily routines. But if I had to pick one or the other, I’d say I’m the spontaneous type, maybe having a certain destination in mind but going wherever, whenever during the time that I’m there.

What else do you and your partner enjoy doing together?
We’re quite the homebodies, so we always end up just chilling and talking at home. We’ll also hang out with my French bulldog, Tomas, and bring him out for walks, sometimes with my friends too because they all have dogs as well.

My partner also worked in the coffee industry too so we have pretty similar tastes and interests. The bulk of our time at home is spent making coffee, cooking, or, for me, doom scrolling (laughs). It’s really bad! That said, we do like to have friends over too for food and coffee. My mum is pretty particular about outside food, which is how I got into the habit of cooking and having friends over instead of hanging out and eating outside.