The I-IV-V progression in music forms a basis for the blues.  One can play the progression, even create some variations, and call it the blues.  The progression, or one’s use of it, does not make that person a blues player.  I should know – I have spent the past 25 years working blues progressions, notes, and riffs into my own guitar playing and still have yet to feel adequate enough to perform.  As much as I admire and listen to, study, and try and emulate the greats, I certainly am no bluesman.  A bluesman knows who he or she is musically.

This is somewhat how I feel about espresso.  At Bull Run, we spent a number of years offering a couple of different blends with the label ‘espresso’.  The coffee was run through an espresso grinder, dosed, pulled, and offered as a beverage that is commonly referred to as espresso.  As much as we admired tasting and reading about espresso, we certainly were not an espresso company.  A roaster who is an espresso company knows who they are.

Sometime during the summer of 2009 we set out to go beyond our own inadequacies and create awesome espresso.  Like Robert Johnson leaving the plantation in Rural Mississippi with a burning desire to master the blues, Bull Run arrived at an espresso crossroads.  It was at this crossroads that Dogwood was born.  Stephanie had a name for our journey of awesomeness, which was inspired in large part by native Minnesota red-twig Dogwood.  Its hardiness and crimson beauty during our winters speak to who we are and where we live and work.  We found our path beyond the label ‘espresso’.  We stripped everything down, seeking the bluesmen of espresso, and started anew.  Dogwood Espresso exists in a manner similar to how a bluesman exists.  They are one of many, created and honed over time, with a bit of regional influence and style.  They are humble but confident, with respect always offered the masters who have gone before.  They are not compelled by what everyone else is doing or saying.  Their beauty and significance resides in part to contradiction and paradox.  There is simplicity in I-IV-V like there is simplicity in a demitasse and a couple of ounces of coffee.  The feel, depth, and longing conveyed from a place of simplicity emanates from a very personal place of unrivaled complexity.

I look forward to the next 25 years and hope to find myself musically along the way.  I am certain Bull Run is further along the way of knowing who we are.

Author: Greg