Women in Coffee: An Interview with Sadie Heim

Hylan Joseph: Tell me about yourself. 

Sadie Heim: I started as a barista in 2006 at Starbucks. Before that, I was actually working as an automotive technician. So, I decided I wanted to go back to school, thought Starbucks was the way to go, and then I met our current equipment technician. I asked, “Hey, I can combine these two things that I absolutely love. What does it take to get to do your job?”

HJ: That's cool. Are there any aspects of the job that really motivate you to get up in the morning and go, “Gosh dang, I want to go to work”?

SH: Yes. Quite a few, actually.

My current scope of work is, I'm in R&D so, I get to play with all of the new technology we are coming out with. It's just amazing. I get to play with all of the prototypes, become an expert on them, and then help the technicians out in the field with them.

We have a Clover X in our stores, and I adore this machine. It has some problems, but it does bean to cup in about 30 seconds. 

HJ: I'm familiar with that one. 

SH: The Clover X or just the Clover?

HJ: I'm not familiar with the Clover X. Were you around when the original Clover came out?

SH: Yes.

HJ: What do you think of the improvements between the first generation and what you have now? What kind of improvements have been made? Because when I first worked on the Clover, the filter had a constant problem with clogging.

SH: It still was on the Clover X. We went down to a single layer rather than having the three-layer mesh. So that helped a lot with the clogging issues.

HJ: I really truly thought that the Clover was going to change our industry when it first came out. I thought that everybody would buy one. It had that plastic pump, that plastic fill valve in the center of it, and we put two into a high-volume coffee shop and they were having to clean them with sonic cleaner every three hours. And then you turn your head and blink and Starbucks has bought the company. 

SH: Right. To this day, I still adore the Clover. It's one of my favorites. The thing I liked about the Clover X is there is less hands-on time for the barista, which I think is an improvement on the machine. It does the grinding, the dosing, all of that for them and even wipes the filter at the end. So, I like it a bit better from that perspective. Because it's cleaning itself. So, you are not relying on somebody else to do it and less clogging issues arise from that.

HJ: What are your most common technical issues with it? 

SH: Well, it never really made it out of prototype. 

HJ: That is a common technical issue. What is it you find most fascinating about the service business?

SH: The service business, I really like how you get to be a coffee nerd and you get to be a technological nerd at the same time. It is amazing. You get to connect with a lot of different people on just whatever their flavor of nerd is.

HJ: That's a very cool answer. You are the first person that's really brought up the technological and the coffee aspect of it in the interview. I've done about 40 of these.

SH: Really? That's my favorite part.

HJ: What do you think are some of the most important technological advances in our industry, the coffee brewing, over the last five years? What do you think has really driven the industry from a technological standpoint? 

SH: I think opening the door for people to experiment more and not just offer them the one thing has been unlocking a lot more. People want options, they want to be able to brew their specific coffee, they want to try different flavors and different roasts. And I think that helps a lot trying to get better technology out there so we can provide that for them. 

HJ: So what technological advances would you like to see for the future of espresso? 

SH: I would like to see some more customizing out there. I'm loving the IoT that's out there right now. I want to see more of that because I find it helpful for the technicians that they actually know what codes the machine has before they go to the store and they are not relying on someone telling them what the code is correctly. Or they could see when the last time it had maintenance done and it's actually an accurate count (versus, “we are pretty sure we have the paperwork right…”). 

HJ: To speak to that question, where do you see our service industry going in the next five or 10 years? Starbucks is at 38,000 stores, and that's a massive number of stores to service.

SH: It is. I really think IoT is going to be the next big thing for the service industry. The more automated we can get, I think the better. The less time we have in the store, the less disruption of service we have. There are so many benefits to it. 

HJ: Just from an old man's standpoint, you say IoT, you mean Internet of things, right? 

SH: Yes. 

HJ: What do you think of the changes over the last 10 years, and especially coffee industry as a whole? It's taken a lot of growth and some dives. 

SH: It has. I really love it. There is so much more information now it feels like than there used to be and you can just get into a whole different world of just coffee and it's so fascinating. At the guild summit, learning all about water filtration. There were a lot of things I didn't know and I loved every minute of it. Just the amount of information available, I think.

HJ: How long have you been in our industry?

SH: Since 2010.

HJ: In that 10-year period, what are your key takeaways from your experience in our industry? What have you learned while working there?

SH: Oh goodness, there are so many things. I've learned more about plumbing and electrical, what it takes to service machines and keep a store running at the same time, trying to work with other people to figure out how to be less disruptive during business hours, and getting things done quickly. It's a dance and I love it.

HJ: Where do you think our industry is going to go for the future? 

SH: I think there's going to be a higher demand.

HJ: I think, last time I looked, they are projecting that they're going to install an average of 15,000 espresso machines over the next five years. Like every manufacturer and every store is putting in an espresso machine. It'll be like Italy where you can get an espresso anywhere. 

SH: Yes. And I love that. I definitely think we are going to grow big time and I think it's going to become more streamlined from what I'm seeing with how everyone is setting up all the paperwork and how everything is coming together.

HJ: Do you think the additional processes and the drive to automate it is going to affect the quality of the coffee and the end product?

SH: I think it'll help improve it, yeah.

HJ: What advice would you give someone who has decided to pursue a career in our industry?

SH: Be curious. If something catches your interest and you want to figure out how it works, figure out how it works. It doesn't matter if it's related or not. Just have that drive.

HJ: The service industry is not a very diverse industry. We do a feature called Women in Coffee. From that perspective, what kind of advice would you put out there if you were advising someone to get into coffee, or what pitfalls to avoid as they are trying to work in our industry? 

SH: Well, that's a tricky one. 

HJ: It is tricky. We want to make sure that we are lowering the barriers to entry for everybody.

SH: Right. The thing I always heard the most from other ladies, especially when I was out in the field, is they felt that they couldn't do it. So, my best advice would be to pursue it anyway because you can do more than you think you can. And the only opinion that really matters is your own of yourself. That's it. You can't listen to anybody else on that.

HJ: Yeah, I would agree with that. When I first got into the service business, I didn't know what a solenoid was. I could grow cultures; I knew how to make biological cultures and I could use a pipette and a microscope. But didn't know anything about espresso. I had been a barista for 20 years.

Would you like to add anything in closing? 

SH: Oh, I don't think so. This has been a wonderfully outward experiment. So, I appreciate your patience.

HJ: Sadie, thanks for taking the time to talk to me, I really appreciate it. 

SH: Thank you. Have a good one.