What's the story (morning glory)?

Every cup of coffee should have a story to tell, I think. The ones I have every morning, possibly have the same one line story but it is an important one - It is a cup which forms the boundary between the fuzzy-ness of last night's dream and the hard cold reality of the following day. It's the warmth from that one cup which offers comfort and courage to face the rest of the day.

The cafe I visited this weekend -  Cafe Jocolatte, had the perfect environment for exactly that - stories. And they proved it by their tag line

 'Drink coffee, eat chocolate and talk'

Simple and profound and exactly my thoughts!

It was a much overdue visit, but it finally happened. The cafe has one of the most welcoming interiors, and many more surprises waiting to be explored once you are inside. It is not more than 15 minutes walking distance from my place and so I have no idea why I waited so long to walk right in!

The place is possibly closest to what I had in mind for a physical representation of SYB. It looks cosy from outside, but is actually quite spacious once you go in. There is a garden with outdoor seating as well (for warmer days - Yes English summers are a 'real' phenomenon!! They do happen once in a while :-) and more space upstairs. The walls are decorated with bright art work (which are for sale - you can take a look at their website) and most importantly I loved my flat white which went perfectly with the Toblerone-almond tart.

If you are able to zoom into the picture above, you can also read about the advertised 'Marcussens tea'. With 25 herbs going into it, I think it has it's own special story to tell!

Also for the non chocolate eating, non coffee/tea drinking people (surely there must be a few such outliers!) there is also some wine on the menu if you fancy.

As for me, I shall now proceed towards the refrigerator, and relish some left overs of the Austrian 'Sachertorte' also bought from the same place ;-)

Parting thoughts - while coffee, chocolates and cakes may not solve our problems directly, at right moments and in right amounts, they are a bit like good friends. They make us feel warm and comforted, and sometimes gives us the much needed kick to wake up and solve our own problems!

Sell Coffee, not your soul

Show must go on

 I need to apologise for the delay in posting here. My current personal life turbulence have obviously made an impact on the progress of the SYB blog. This makes me think what kind of dedication is required in the successful running of any business. It is not acceptable to neglect your business even for a day, no matter what goes wrong in your personal life, because there are people (customers) who depend on you. 
I know I had promised marketing ideas and business plan, but I have to postpone that for the next time since I need to get going soon. But for now I would like to leave you with the links of the two things that we did do recently and really enjoyed.
One is the Cirque du soleil (Varekai) performance in Royal Albert Hall. The show was really good, and the performers really talented. I especially liked the live music, it was soothing and exalting at the same time.
The other nice thing we attended was the London Flamenco festival show at Sadler's wells theatre in London. I have only once before been to a flamenco performance in Barcelona. This show however was a bit different from the other one. Flamenco is a very powerful performance, and the dancer as well as the singer has to put a lot of emotions into the dance. To me this dance expresses more strong emotions like anger, love, joy than the subtle ones. But that's my limited understanding of the art I suppose. At one point during the show I thought that Flamenco and the Indian classical dance Katthak have quite a lot in common. and it was really surprising to see the similarities.
With that I am going to take your leave for now, will be back soon with more updates on coffee, art and life.






Sell Coffee, not your soul

Introducing Art-space - featuring Black Sheep

Today is also the day to reveal the second and very important facet of this blog-space. While coffee to us is the blood that runs in our veins, it is only the means to achieve a greater end. The end is so varied that just using the word 'art-workshop' does not really do justice to it, in case its wide spectrum is not perceived correctly. SYB will be a place which not only sells coffee but also promotes art of all and any genre. Anything that is creative and demonstrable will be promoted here in this virtual space. So if any of you guys out there write, paint, sing, play music, dance, do dramas, write clever computer programs to do something 'cool', please please do let us know. All of you and especially if you are at a stage similar to us (which is at the starting point, full of passion and rearing to go ahead), please write to us and SYB will make it its business to know you and get you the right viewer-ship.

With this aspect in mind, I would like to put in a few words about our visit to the Black sheep art gallery in Oxford City, which we visited yesterday. We were just passing by this place when some of the really nice paintings from this gallery caught our attention. Also the gallery was nicely heated, making us automatically walk into it... since I am new into the art scene, I was generally looking at some of the oil paintings which were displayed. Punit on the other hand was having an interesting chat with the lady at the counter (and casually name dropping as well, and talking about the similar paintings he has seen in Paris and Tate Britain). One of my favourite one there was an abstract sky painting with a burst of red in it. Another one and I think by the same artist, Jonathon Show, was a deep blue sky with lightning in it.

With this serene picture in my head, I am going to sign off here. Although I had some more stuff to share, I think its time to call it a day for today. 

Coming up next 
-writing a busniess model
-marketing ideas for SYB 


Sell coffee, not your soul