Market Garden Cafe has a Head Barista

Posted on by Christian

After two weeks of set-up and soft opening, I’m proud to say that I’ve been busy creating an excellent coffee corner inside the Market Garden supermarket in Simpson bay, Sint Maarten. My mission is to show that excellent coffee is possible, even when you grind beans on-demand.

I have helped them design the shop’s workflow and set-up. I told them where to place the machine for best customer contact and how much room a barista needs to work efficiently and comfortably. They bought an espresso machine in the US but didn’t know how to configure the machine. So I calibrated the amount of water, ground coffee, found a sweet spot and frothed milk from the many different milk or milk-substitutes that the supermarket caters. I asked for a Mazzer Super Jolly grinder but they were impossible to get on time, so I’m making due with what I’ve got. The Baratza Forte AP with ceramic burrs is a great machine though!

I am currently sourcing some espresso beans on the island to try and make a damn good espresso. The cafe will be working with Starbucks beans and they’ve already sourced too many to get rid of, so that’s what it is. However, it’s fine for Cappuccino and other milk coffees, iced coffee and frappuccino. Given the island’s taste, that is what sells the most anyway. But for the few coffee gourmands and espresso fans, it’s trivial to get a couple of kilos of great medium roast natural processed beans and please them too. And who knows… maybe I can convert a few of them 🙂

Planned Overhaul for ENIAC Alumni

Posted on by Christian
ENIAC alumni

The alumni association ENIAC of my (Dutch) Alma Mater, University of Twente, wants to redesign its website and focus on its primary services. Many aspects have changed I first moved the website from flexible but labor-intensive WordPress.org over to a hosted (but somewhat restricted) WordPress.com platform. Facebook has become ubiquitous and mobile (smart)phones make it easier for alumni to stay in touch, check content and sign up for events, update their data in the alumni database and post pictures during events.

While the static content, such as official documents for annual member meetings, statutes and the monthly glossy, are still important to maintain, events, sign-up forms, social media and calendars will likely be the center focus of the new site.

Exact requirements and desires are still being discussed by the board, but here is heads-up. The main complication is how to cater to 3 vastly different groups of alumni: < 30, 30-50, > 50

If you are a member of ENIAC and are reading this, feel free to share your ideas for the new site and give your input to me or the board.

Webmaster Support for St Maarten Nature Foundation

Posted on by Christian
nature foundation st maarten

I’m proud to announce that I will be providing my services to the St Maarten Nature Foundation and their hosted WordPress.org site at Bluehost.com. It has not received maintenance since its reconstruction late 2016 and early 2017, could use some speed optimizations using Google PageSpeed tools and I will train its staff in using WordPress on desktop and mobile to update existing content easily.

Posts are already being done regularly, i.e. the blog, but pages itself have hardly been updated, added or edited.

Finally, I will link all social media channels into WordPress and make sure that updates to the site are also reflected in all the channels available so that publicity is maximized.