An Exercise In Specificity

Why pushing for greater specificity can transform the things we make—and the relationships we forge

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Photo by Jemimah Gray on Unsplash

I’m an editor for a coffee publication called Fresh Cup, and I love my job. I have edited others’ work in previous roles, but this is the first time it’s been my primary focus. One of my favorite bits of feedback to give authors—one note that I feel is both easy to implement and which punches up a piece really beautifully—is to get more specific. 

The crux of a story is in the details. As a reader, I always find it satisfying when an author gives me the answer to a question before I even have the chance to formulate it. A coffee shop is small, you say? How small? Small like patrons are literally out the door once the line is three deep, or small like the customers are elbow-to-elbow, and the sheer thought of having a private conversation is almost impossible, and instead the communal conversation becomes part of the shop’s identity? New Yorkers might know the two coffee shops I’m referencing here: The former is Third Rail Coffee, and the latter is Abraço (at least before it expanded in 2016—you can tell when I left New York). “Small” is the start—but small can be small in many different ways. 

Beyond writing, specificity can be a tool to establish greater clarity and focus in other parts of life. That lesson was hammered home for me by Jackie Nguyen, the owner of Cafe Cà Phê in Kansas City and my most recent podcast guest. In our conversation, Jackie talked a lot about her “why”—why she opened Cafe Cà Phê, and the specific audience and needs she wanted to address: 

I have a BFA in musical theater. My adulthood and all my college studies was singing and dancing and voice—I know show business, but I couldn’t really tell you anything about starting an LLC. So, I did a lot of research. I took a lot of free online courses, and one of the branding courses suggested me to read this book called “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek.

And that book really changed a lot of how I began to see my business. It basically says, “Why are you doing what you’re doing? What does it mean for you personally?” And you have to be super specific: If your why is, “I want to make sure that my Vietnamese-American narrative of who I am, growing up in San Diego, California is shown because I believe that there are other Vietnamese Americans that want representation,” that’s how specific you can be with your why. That will be an anchor for you to always go back to.

What touched me about this sentiment is how often I think coffee lacks specificity. Sure, a roaster can put every single detail about a given coffee on the bag—but why did they start roasting coffee in the first place, and why did they want to work with that farmer? Specificity isn’t just piling details on top of details—it’s about knowing why you're taking the actions you’re taking, and being clear about communicating them. 

For Jackie, founding Cafe Cà Phê was about building a space she felt was lacking in her new city, and using the cafe to showcase her story and demonstrate to other Vietnamese Americans that they could own businesses like hers. That goal becomes a guiding principle for the rest of her business decisions, from the sweeping to the small-scale. Establishing a specific mission or purpose up front is almost like building a safety net around you—one that always provides the answer you need, no matter the decisions you end up facing. 

That’s not to say that visions can’t change. When I first started Boss Barista, my idea for the show was broad and weird, and I didn’t know how to pose interview questions without first thinking of others. “Will listeners find this interesting?” I’d constantly ask myself. Partly, that was down to my mistaken belief that I could be everything for everyone—but a big part of it was also insecurity, and not necessarily understanding why I had picked up a microphone in the first place. 

Now, the goal for this space feels clear: I write about coffee and the intersection of labor, equity, and service work, focusing on a product that’s both widely available and ubiquitous in most cultures—yet marred by its historical relationship to exploitation and lack of transparency. 

Within coffee, pushing for greater specificity doesn’t just have the potential to change the way we communicate—it can be used as a tool to address the industry’s inequities.
Sometimes it can feel like individual actors are trying to solve every issue on their own, which they can’t do. But by focusing on what they actually have the potential to make meaningful change on, I think more coffee shops and businesses have the power to be more impactful. 

Specificity is just that—a throughline when you need it, the string in the maze that always leads you back to your starting point.

For an exercise of specificity in action, know that right now I’m sitting at my dining room table, having just watched Game 2 of the NBA Playoffs matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Phoenix Suns (I’m a basketball girl now, and I don’t entirely know how that happened). I knew I wanted to write about specificity after talking with Jackie, but I was soon distracted by a flood of questions: Why am I writing this right now, instead of tomorrow? Why did I give myself such a busy writing schedule, one defined by weekly pieces and biweekly podcast episodes?

Luckily, I can answer those questions easily now. I’ve talked in the past about how putting structures in place to write has helped me explore creatively. Even when I momentarily lose sight of that focus—especially on a night like tonight, where I’ll likely scroll through basketball highlights before I fall asleep (seriously, when did I become this person?)—it’s still there waiting for me, the throughline that returns me to my purpose.