Anita Tam On Discovering the Tools for Success [084]

I can't say enough good things about Anita Tam. She's the owner of Slow Pour Supply in Houston, Texas and has made social justice and advocacy for baristas part of her business model. 

Anita is a musician by training and is keen on tools. What are the tools you need to be successful and how can tools help you get better at your craft? After making the switch from music to coffee, she noticed that she was hitting a plateau with her latte art, so she went abroad to learn more and noticed the best latte artists used pitchers that were way different than what she had seen before. 

Slow Pour is the sole American supplier of the WPM Pitcher, which is narrower, bigger, and slightly slanted. But the mission of Slow Pour isn't just to make latera better. It's to empower baristas to take control of their craft. Anita's company provides latte pitchers to pretty much anybody who needs them—no matter what. 

She personally helps competitors whenever she can, as created a number of scholarships for folks who want to compete but maybe don't have the financial resources to do so. Along with that, Anita is the Co-Founder of the Houston Coffee Collective, which brings baristas together through educational initiatives and a free job boards for folks looking to post new opportunities throughout the Houston area. 

So how does she do it? For Anita. It's more of a question of how can she not—she's someone who can't help but want to help. In this interview we give the microphone to Anita, a person who normally doesn't like to be in front of others and is usually behind the scenes and we learn what it takes to keep her going.