The Narrative's 7053 Profile: Michelle Johnson
Originally published 1/16/20
The self-described Chocolate Barista, tells us how she’s centering the black experience in coffee through her platform, professional connoisseurdom, and tackling the distribution of power and wealth in the coffee industry one drip at a time.
by Cara Taylor
Los Angeles is brimming with bodies. No matter the trends of a particular day or time, there’s always a surprising number of people trying to get somewhere — which means Michelle Johnson and I were both a bit late when we got together at Bloom & Plume Coffee, in Historic Filipinotown. We showed up, both dewey from hurry and late-summer heat, and sat in a corner of the aesthetically mesmerizing Black owned cafe. We discussed who we’ve been, who we are, and our Black perspectives on working in Specialty Coffee. As I asked Michelle what her origin story is, Solange’s I’m a Witness came from the walls and the energizing scent of freshly ground coffee kept me present.
She’s known as both Michelle Johnson, and The Chocolate Barista: a lifestyle blog that amplifies the perspective of Black people in the Specialty Coffee Industry. A unique voice in the field, Michelle’s popularity comes from her refreshingly necessary perspective, her sharp Barista skills and contagious ability to have a great fucking time. She’s a black honey processed coffee made into a cold brew and served ice cold with a shot or two of Hennessy to top it off.
Michelle’s a Writer and Coffee Professional, who’s nostalgic love for coffee goes as deep as her first memory. “From a really young age I started drinking coffee and my first memory is at four years old stealing tastes of [mom’s] coffee while she would go tend to my younger siblings,” Michelle is the oldest of five — “I would run to the kitchen, take a few sips of her coffee, then run away quickly...and it was always super sweet, super creamy.” Michelle recalled this to me with her face covered in the warm kind of glee reserved for lifelong cultural enthusiasts.
When she was old enough, her mom’s daily cup became their daily cup. Because of those moments, she said: “I always wanted to be a barista.” When she was introduced to Specialty Coffee, her professional dreams expanded. She learned intricate details about coffee, of which there are many. The climate of the coffee’s origin, the way it was processed after picking, the parts per million of the water used to brew it — all these factors determine how your coffee might taste. This sweet stimulating drink was part of a quotidian act that was delicious and mom-binding for Michelle, and it ignited for her a career path she’d never imagined.
While working in coffee in DC, as a teenager, her innate methodism and curiosity made her a wonderful student and talented Barista. Her experience was further exalted by the fact that the DC Area is so Black, so she didn’t have to want for role models and mentors who looked like her. “I know a lot of people don’t get that so early on in their careers.” This is unsurprising in an industry that is overwhelmingly white. After a couple of years she ended up making a number of places home: Phoenix, Tempe, Melbourne, and (currently) Los Angeles. In every place she embedded herself into, and enriched the local coffee community. However, every coffee scene she entered after DC’s was as white as a new cafe that moves into a middle-low income neighborhood and induces gentrification.
Despite being surrounded by whiteness, Michelle managed a spectacular coming of age in both her career and her identity. She was promoted to manager of two Cartel Coffee locations in Arizona, she competed strongly in a few Barista Competitions, and she began publishing her blog: The Chocolate Barista.
It’s “a blog and platform that centers the black experience in coffee,” Michelle told me. She made it clear to me that when she created The Chocolate Barista, it was “just lifestyle focused”. The goal was to show people her journey to professional connoisseurdom, and to show people just a young Black woman living. Being so entrenched in whiteness during that period of her life forced her to confront the ways she’d internalized anti-blackness, and she made a conscious shift toward no longer performing it. This being an essential experience of her lifestyle, Michelle wrote about it and published it in her digital home, a place she had dominion over and could feel safe in.
A lot of people — especially Black coffee professionals — met her words with gratitude. Some felt seen, and others felt awakened to the aggressions (macro and micro) they might be committing. That post made The Chocolate Barista into her bridge to the rest of the Black Specialty Coffee Community. To me, this came as no surprise, because I spent so much time working at a specialty cafe and feeling like a myth. "It's amazing how many people sort of exist within the woodwork," I told her as I thought about how energizing it is to tell your story when you're marginalized. It allows people to identify with you, and feel less like myths.
We talked extensively about the unsettling distribution of power and wealth in the coffee industry. How Black and Brown developing countries cultivate this globally needed product, while predominantly white, developed countries profit the most from it. The story always goes like this: A white guy becomes a barista, is heavily supported in his quest toward coffee professionalism, gains some fame from competitions, opens a cafe, opens a handful more, gets acquired by a major food and beverage company, and becomes a multi-millionaire. Meanwhile, the economies of many coffee-producing countries struggle to support their residents.
We also discussed the fact that most white people who work in coffee are convinced that Black people don’t frequent specialty cafes because they don’t like coffee. Michelle’s childhood, my childhood, and that of many others contradicts this excuse. We agreed that many of these cafes move into Black and POC neighborhoods and do nothing to market to locals. They do whatever it takes to protect their bottom line — which usually means attracting white transplants into the neighborhood to put money into white pockets. When this is pointed out to white cafe owners, they tell you that the excess of white dudes in coffee is due to their enthusiastic interest. To this, Michelle exclaimed: “They’re the most interested in everything, because they have access to everything!” adding, “Those excuses come from a place of white people having always been comfortable with shutting out access to things. Now it just looks different than it used to.” Whether it’s covert or not, white people are still working within a “separate but equal” ethos.
Anyone who comes up against the barrier of whiteness that most Specialty Coffee environments put up, should pivot to Michelle’s digital space. They’ll find reflections on identity in the context of this industry, Barista Jam playlists, and more. There’s also a growing number of Black and POC operated physical coffee spaces that Michelle named passionately. There’s Red Bay Coffee, of Oakland, CA. “Red Bay is perfect,” Michelle told me. “[It’s] so centered around Blackness. In their roastery, they have this cutout of the continent of Africa and it’s a living wall with plants inside.”
She recommended some refreshingly accessible coffee carts including Everybody’s Busy in Chicago, and Drip Coffee Makers in New York. As for local LA suggestions, options were abundant. There’s Bloom & Plume, Harun, Hilltop, Hot & Cool, Sip & Sonder, and soon to be a SoCal location of Red Bay. “You can literally spend a whole day and only go to Black and Brown owned coffee shops if you wanted to,” she said gleefully.
That fact makes LA an ideal place for Michelle to foster the growth of the Black and POC coffee community. “My dream one day would be to have a Black coffee conference...A couple of days like barista camp. And everyone’s hanging out and learning together. Not only learning about coffee but also learning about who we are and how we’re creating a space and identity for Black coffee [professionals].”
As a Black Woman and coffee enthusiast — I love it and I live for it, because there aren’t nearly enough conversations being had on this kind of accessibility in this industry. While Michelle continues to find out what LA has in store for her burgeoning coffee and creative careers, she’ll be updating The Chocolate Barista with musings, events to watch out for, and anything else that’s good for the survival of The Culture. Visit The Blog and/or reach out to her on Instagram (@meeshalrj or @thechocolatebarista) to learn about what’s happening in Specialty Coffee.