Jenn Chen, Specialty Coffee Writer and Photographer

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Title: Writer & Photographer in Specialty Coffee | Lifestyle/Brand/Dog Photographer
Preferred Pronouns: She/Her
Company: Jenn Chen Media, LLCLocation: San Francisco, CA
Find online: https://digest.jennchen.com/ • https://jennchen.com/ • https://bsky.app/profile/thejennchen.bsky.social • https://www.jennchen.photo/ • https://www.instagram.com/thejennchen.photo

What they drink: Cortado when at a shop where she knows and trusts the baristas. Cappuccino at unknown specialty coffee shops

"It really is a fake it till you make it situation. I think when you work for yourself, (long pause)...you have to believe in yourself enough to keep going, and if you don't do that, you're not going to succeed...at all."
• Jenn Chen

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From Jenn Chen:

As an introvert, I prefer to work solo or closely with a few people. When working with clients in brand photography, I utilize my years of working as a marketing consultant to walk them through a high-touch, high-context process I've developed specifically to pull stories that can be told via images. I believe that the brand photos you take should be strategic and designed specifically to represent your brand.

As a photographer, part of my job is to translate your ideas—be they feelings, textures, words, etc.—into a visual narrative. I'm very much not a "show up and take pretty photos" kind of photographer; instead, I approach this work as a collaborative, creative partnership.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE POD

As we age–loaded term–our experiences, or our memories of them, get more selective.
Jenn's first coffee experience that changed her perspective about specialty coffee was at MadCap Coffee (Grand Rapids, MI). They offered prix fixe* coffee and desert pairing. It turned her around on what coffee could be when a craft product was combined with an experience. Table-side coffee service is more common outside the United States, as cafe's often overlap with restaurant service.
*Prix fixe: A complete meal or menu offering at a fixed (or flat) rate. Modifications are not, generally, offered.
In college, Jenn started a coffee club on campus. Then took a coffee roasting class, only to learn that she didn't love that aspect of coffee. She was looking at careers in wildlife rehab and veterinary science or coffee. "Obviously, I chose coffee," she said. In part because jobs that matched with her education didn't pay well.

Barista jobs don't always pay well, either. She started looking at adjacent industries for opportunity, and landed at GroupOn early. They offered benefits along with the burnout of a startup just taking off. On the side, she was blogging about the Chicago coffee scene.
Ten minutes into our chat, Jenn proffered that when you quit somewhere, people ask you what you're going to do next. When she left GroupOn, she started saying she was going to start a coffee business. Then she did! It was a coffee walking tour centered around the L-train in Chicago. It was called Cafeventures. It was an interesting job, but as someone who is introverted with high social anxiety being a tour guide wasn't a compatible career.

However, she learned that she loved working for herself. She wanted to stay in coffee, but decided to make herself the brand to avoid having to educate people on what it was she did.
We are both introverted with bursts of extroversion, and an affinity for plants and animals. I really enjoy the social aspect of hospitality. I can turn it on, so to speak, but I need long stretches of solitude to refuel. As I've gotten further into my career, I'm better able to recognize—albeit not always appease—when my need for some solo (or just the wife and pup) time is peaking.
Marketing, especially tailored digital marketing, can confuse the line between making choices and being guided into a decision by an exterior force.
You can spend a day in the Silicon Valley without a corporate branded fleece vest.
There is no one simple path. For Jenn, it takes her time to commit to a decision, but once she does, there is a period where, even the best laid plans, can be waylaid, but she keeps pushing forward.

"It really is a fake it till you make it situation. I think when you work for yourself, (long pause)...you have to believe in yourself enough to keep going, and if you don't do that, you're not going to succeed...at all."

When she has moments of doubt she has a "weekly business owner mental-health breakdown." At least, it used to be weekly. Things have modulated since she launched her self-employment career 14 years ago. When work and/entrepreneurship overwhelms you, It is important to find things outside yourself to focus on. For Jenn, hiking with her dog, plants, or a comforting show that she knows will let her release some emotion, sometimes through tears, that will let her go back work the next day.
Anxiety can be a driver to the work that we do.
Jenn's dog is a pit mix named Zoey.
There are a lot of unintended consequences to the decisions we make.
Hustle-culture can suck. It is okay to step back. Build things slowly. Working 18 hours a day and suffering through it, isn't necessary for everyone. You need to work towards a pace that matches your personality, skills, and need.

💡

For entrepreneurs: Don't take advice from someone who hasn't been where you are and isn't where you want to go.

Screenshot of the SANA website. black and white photo of two smiling women standing outside smiling at each other holding coffee plant starters. Text in blue against the white of the sky. — Check out SANA a mental health non-profit for women coffee producers. Image ©sanaprograms.org

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CA BULLY RESCUE

In this podcast, we mentioned the interview with Sprudge founders Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen . Listen to it on YouTube:

SIMPLY GOOD

The coffee brewer sitting behind me is a Simply Good Coffee Brewer. We've been brand partners with them for several years, and believe it to be a great value for the casual coffee consumer looking to make a pot of really well crafted coffee.