Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2025 Sprudge Twenty honorees, please visit sprudge.com/twenty.
Demi is kind, thoughtful, and is a shining light in a dark room. She delivers hospitality at the highest level at her shop Now And Then, and through she shares coffee’s history and communicates its true value to guests.
Nominated by Davy Ball
How many years total have you worked in the coffee industry?
I just hit 10 years officially in July. 🙂
What was your first coffee job?
Technically, my first coffee job was at Starbucks, like so many of us. But if I zoom out, coffee has been woven into my life since childhood. I’m Cuban, and so cafecito was the centerpiece of most conversations at home or with family. I was taught to make it young, and for a while it was “my job” to brew coffee for everyone. As a teenager, though, I pushed against that expectation, part rebellion, part resistance to the idea that, as “the woman of the house,” it was just another chore. For years I was actually pretty anti-coffee because of this. I’ve always loved the flavor but I hated the built in expectation.
Ironically, a couple weeks before my 19th birthday, I started working at Starbucks, one of my very first jobs. Around the same time, I began spending more hours in local cafes to study or just meet friends. That’s when I noticed coffee wasn’t just a drink; it was craft, and a moment for genuine connection. Watching baristas create real moments with their guests drew me in.
By the time I was 20, I had stepped into specialty coffee, working behind the bar at a small independent cafe in Tallahassee, FL. That cafe became my first true classroom: milk, maintenance, morning triage, and most importantly, learning that noticing and listening are as much barista skills as dialing in espresso. I fell in love with the cadence of service. Within the first year in specialty coffee, I was competing nationally, which is proof of how quickly coffee had taken hold of me.
Did you experience a life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?
Yes, I’ve had so many, but I’ll focus on just one moment that stands out for me. It happened in a quiet, almost forgettable moment, except it wasn’t forgettable at all. I was serving someone who had clearly carried the weight of their day into the cafe. Their body was tight, shoulders hunched, eyes down. I did something simple: I looked them in the eye, with no intention of just selling them something, used their name, and refreshed their water before they asked. I watched their entire nervous system shift. Their shoulders dropped, their breath deepened. In that instant, I understood, coffee wasn’t the whole story. Care was.
That moment rewired me. Hospitality stopped being a script and instead became tenderness in motion. Not about polished lines or perfect choreography, but about timing, and attunement. Coffee became the medium, but the true work was crafting micro-rituals of trust and relief in an overstimulating world.
From then on, I just couldn’t unsee it. Every detail—workflow, water, music, light, even the angle of the counter—became part of a grammar for nervous-system care. The question was no longer “How do I make this drink?” but “How do I arrange the moment so someone leaves steadier than they arrived?”
That was one of the first thresholds I crossed in coffee. It showed me that service is sacred, and that my role is less about performance and more about becoming a steadying presence people can lean into, even if only for the span of a single cup.
Is there a person or persons who served as your mentor early in your coffee career? How did they impact you?
I’m actually a Glitter Cat Barista alum, I was accepted into their first ever Brewers Cup cohort about a year and a half into specialty coffee. Glitter Cat didn’t just shift my career, it completely rerouted my life trajectory. That community gave me something I hadn’t even realized I was starving for: permission. Permission to show up unapologetically as myself, on stage, behind the bar, and in rooms that historically told me to shrink. They didn’t just hand me training; they met me with mirrors that reflected back versions of myself I’d always hoped were possible.
It wasn’t only about competition prep. It was about seeing people like me who had been told they were “too much” or “not enough” shine without apology. That gave me the courage to experiment with my voice, my presence, and my own style of hospitality. It taught me that conformity wasn’t the key to success. In fact, the opposite was true: the more I leaned into my edges, the more magnetic I became.
During the competition circuit itself, my mentors weren’t a single figure but more a constellation. Trainers who showed me that precision can be a love language. Judges who held me accountable while treating me like a budding flower. Organizers who modeled rigor wrapped in kindness. They sharpened my palate, challenged my process, and showed me what it looks like to uphold high standards without stripping away humanity.
Those lessons have never left me. Glitter Cat cracked me open, and that network of industry mentors built the scaffolding I climbed. To this day, when I step behind a bar or into a training space, I carry both truths with me: you can be both exacting and warm at once, and your presence is strongest when it’s wholly your own.
What is your current role in coffee?
I’m the co-founder of Now And Then in Nashville, where we’re building a brick-and-mortar that reimagines what a cafe can be—less commodity, more ceremony. Everything we do begins from a hospitality-first lens: coffee, not just as product, but as an experience that restores, grounds, and connects.
Day to day, I’m still very much on bar. I believe in staying close to the guest and close to the craft, because that’s where the real insights come from. Every pour-over, every conversation, every glance across the counter teaches me something about flow, timing, and energy. I treat service itself as a kind of ongoing research project: What cadence points create trust between us and the guest? What small choices make someone feel seen?
Alongside service, at the moment, I’m spending much of my time building systems that make that level of hospitality repeatable. I’m designing training frameworks, writing field guides, and shaping service flows so that excellence doesn’t rely on just a single “superstar” barista but instead is built into the room. My goal is for every team member to bring their own humanity forward within a shared, intentional space.
I’ve also been consulting with emerging cafes, helping them translate their visions into reality, including bar design, guest journey, equipment choices, training structures. I think, too often, cafes inherit broken models or copy/paste layouts that just don’t fit their story. My role is to ask the deeper questions: Who exactly is your guest?” What experience are you trying to create? How do your systems support or sabotage that? And then give them tools to answer in a way that’s both functional and profitable.
At its core, I believe my role at the moment is about bridging vision and execution. I’m both dreamer and builder: imagining how a cafe can feel at its highest potential, and then reverse-engineering the systems, training, and design choices that make that feeling tangible, cup after cup, guest after guest.
What facet of the coffee industry has changed the most during your career?
So much has shifted since I first entered the scene, but one of the clearest arcs has been around labor and equity. When I started, those conversations were just whispers in back rooms. Something you’d only hear in hushed tones among baristas after a shift. Now they’re central: pay transparency, safer workplaces, and pathways for people who don’t fit the old “default” profile of who gets to be a barista. It’s far from perfect, but the fact that the dialogue is louder, public, and persistent. That’s progress.
That same shift is echoing across the supply chain. Producers are demanding recognition as equal partners, not just raw material suppliers. More roasters these days name producers on menus, co-create value-added products, and admit that equity doesn’t begin at the cafe, it begins at origin. When I talk about labor sustainability, I mean both sides of the chain: whether a barista can actually build a life in coffee, and whether a farmer can pass down their farm or a picker gets paid fairly for their skill. Sustainability only matters if it’s holistic.
The industry is also finally reckoning with burnout and the cost of devotion. When I was younger in coffee, the unspoken expectation was that you gave everything—your nights, weekends, even your sense of self—to the work. Producers, too, were asked to carry all the risk with little stability. Today there’s a growing awareness that sustainability isn’t just about carbon footprints or C-market prices; it’s about bodies and spirits, on bar and on farms.
And maybe most strikingly, the narrative has opened. Social media, grassroots projects, and community-led competitions cracked open doors that gatekeepers once kept shut. Now you see more women, queer folks, BIPOC leaders, and producers themselves shaping what coffee culture looks and feels like. That visibility changes the sense of possibility for everyone.
For me, the biggest change I’ve noticed isn’t just a single thing; it’s the collective turn toward equity, sustainability, and inclusion, from farm to cafe. Uneven, imperfect, often frustratingly slow, but real. Every time someone in this industry, whether farmer, roaster, or barista, speaks up and demands better, the ground under all of us shifts a little more.
What still surprises you today about coffee, or gives you joy?
What still surprises me is how a single cup of coffee can rearrange the energy of a room. When the water is right, the grinder is clean, the extraction hits its stride, and the barista is fully present. Suddenly strangers soften, conversation flows, and the whole room’s edges round off. That moment just never gets old, no matter how many times I witness it.
There’s also a lot of joy for me in watching people dismantle their own assumptions. For example, I love when someone swears they “don’t like” a certain origin, say, a natural Ethiopian or a Kenyan, and then mid-sip their whole face changes. That small look of recognition, surprise, delight is like watching a latch lift inside of them. Coffee reminds me constantly that our preferences, our categories, and even our stories about what’s possible are never as fixed as we think.
I’m humbled, too, by the way coffee holds both intimacy and scale at once. It’s the daily ritual in someone’s kitchen at 6am, and it’s also the vast global chain of hands from seed to cup. To serve a guest and know their moment of calm is tied to a farmer’s labor halfway across the world, there’s something so humbling about that web of care that still takes my breath away.
It’s also so fun that coffee keeps evolving! Palates shift, producers experiment with processing, technology advances, and hospitality keeps being reimagined. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, a new fermentation profile or a different mineral balance in the brew water can make it feel like the very first time again.
At its heart, coffee keeps teaching me presence. The joy isn’t in the spectacle, it’s in the exact moment someone takes a sip, softens, and feels seen. That tiny human alchemy, the softening, the surprise, the sense of being held, that’s what keeps me here.
What’s something about the coffee industry you’d most like to see change?
There is no way to narrow this down to just one thing. Coffee needs a lot of layered change.
First, I want to see training being treated as a discipline, not an afterthought or something that only some places offer. Too often new baristas are thrown behind the bar and told to “figure it out”, with little support beyond “just push this button” and “follow this script”. Real training is its own craft: it’s culture-setting, it’s hospitality work, it’s how values get translated into action. I’d love to see funded, accessible programs that weave together sensory science, service presence, and also personal wellness. Imagine a pathway where “trainer” is a respected career, just like green buyer or roaster.
I also want stronger bridges between producers and bar teams. Right now those worlds are still too disjointed. Producers rarely see how their coffees are served, and baristas rarely understand the origin realities that shape what’s in their hoppers. More reciprocal exchanges and more shared storytelling would rebalance the power dynamic and bring dignity to every link of the chain.
We also need to loosen the industry’s grip on “correctness.” For too long we’ve treated preference as dogma, shutting people out with rigid definitions of “right” and “wrong” flavor. We should be less interested in gatekeeping and more invested in guiding people towards curiosity and joy. There isn’t a single correct coffee experience, there’s a spectrum of them. That diversity is what makes coffee vibrant and beautiful.
Accessibility is another gap that’s begging to be filled. Even more cafes designed around disability and neurodiversity would change lives. Staff trained on sensory overload, layouts that actually work for wheelchairs, menus that don’t overwhelm- that’s real hospitality. True accessibility is an act of care. Hospitality at its best should remove barriers, not reinforce them.
And finally, I want to normalize the idea of career baristas. There are career bartenders, servers, sommeliers, so why is “career barista” still treated like a contradiction or an outlandish thought? The reality is people already are building lifelong careers in this craft. What’s missing are the structures, fair pay, professional development, and respect that make it sustainable.
For me, change looks like this: a coffee industry where training is honored, producers are visible partners, guests are welcomed without gatekeeping, cafes remove barriers instead of building them, and barista is a career path we don’t have to justify. That’s the kind of ecosystem I want to help build.
What is your most cherished coffee memory?
One moment I’ll never forget happened early on behind our bar. A guest teared up as they told me the service made them feel “held without being managed.” That phrase cut straight through me. It put words to what I had always intuited, that coffee service can be somatic ease, not just a caffeine exchange. In that instant, I felt proof: if you set the conditions right- presence, pacing, warmth- people don’t just drink coffee, they feel restored. That guest gave me my north star in language I carry with me still.
On a different scale, competition has shaped me just as deeply. Within my first year in specialty, I entered The Barista League- my very first competition of any kind- and ended up winning my region and placing 2nd nationally. That experience showed me that my blend of precision, performance, and storytelling wasn’t “too much”; it belonged.
Later, after competing in it myself, stage-managing Brewers Cup year after year became its own ritual. It was grueling, demanding, detailed work, but it taught me that hospitality isn’t only guest-facing. It’s also about how you hold space for community, competitors, volunteers, judges, and peers. Some of my most cherished moments are backstage: steadying an anxious competitor with a quiet word, orchestrating chaos into flow, feeling the hum of collective focus and passion. I feel so honored that I got to have these experiences.
For me, these bookends, the intimacy of a single guest softening at my bar, and the vastness of stewarding a national competition, are what I cherish most. They remind me that my role in coffee has always been about thresholds: guiding people through intensity, whether in a busy service, a high-stakes competition, or a quiet moment of connection.
Do you make coffee at home? If so, tell us how you brew!
Yes, of course! On my days off from the bar, every morning begins with a pour-over on my Next Level Pulsar. I start with 20–22 grams of coffee, ground by hand fresh, brewed at 205°F with a 1:17 ratio, finishing around 3:30–4:00 minutes. I sometimes preheat my ceramic cup, and I always choose the vessel depending on the coffee itself. Shape, weight, and feel all shift the experience. Tiny details matter to me; they always have.
I’m grateful to say my mornings are usually slow. If the weather’s good, I’ll open every window and door so the fresh air and morning sunlight can move through my space, or I’ll take my cup outside and enjoy my coffee with my feet in the grass. My younger cat has made himself part of my morning practice too. He insists on the first sniff of the coffee grounds before I bloom them, and he often curls into my lap once I sit down. It’s these small consistencies that turn brewing into something more than just habit. It feels like ceremony.
When I’m hosting, I’ll bust out the old Moccamaster for a batch brew. I still treat it with the same care: matching ceramics to the group, sometimes hand-picking a cup that feels right for each person, other times pulling a cohesive set. I want each guest to feel considered, like the cup in their hands belongs to them.
For me, coffee at home has never just been about the brew. It’s about how the details, water, vessel, light, sound, all come together to create a moment that feels grounded, cared for, and fully lived in. The same care I bring to the bar just shows up quieter at home. It’s less about performance and more about shaping a space where people, myself included, can exhale.
What is your favorite song/music to brew coffee to?
It really depends on the day, my mood, the weather, and the kind of energy I want to invite in. Some mornings call for silence. Some call for something that feels like sunlight. But my favorite place to begin nowadays is with ambient music, something spacious that holds the room without crowding it.
Lately, I’ve been especially drawn to Nala Sinephro’s record Endlessness. There’s something about the way her sounds unfold—expansive, fluid, unhurried—that mirrors how I like to brew. It turns rinsing a filter or pouring the first bloom into part of a larger rhythm, one that feels tidal and alive.
If it’s later in the day, or I’m behind the bar with a team, I like to shift into something chill with a steady, grounding rhythm. The goal isn’t hype, it’s flow. Music that keeps us moving in sync, buoyant but unforced, so the room feels held by a current instead of pushed by it. For me, the right music is just another layer of hospitality: it sets the pace, softens the edges, and helps coffee unfold as ritual.
What is your idea of coffee happiness?
Coffee happiness, for me, is when every layer of the moment is in perfect harmony. It’s not just the cup, it’s the sunlight through the window, the hum of a space alive but not rushed, the water balanced just right, the grinders clean and steady. It’s flow state. It’s when my body is calm because the system is holding, the team is in sync, and I can trust the system we’ve built together.
It’s also in the smallest human details: my cat curling up in my lap while I sip a pour-over at home, or a guest’s deep sigh of relief the second a cup touches their hands. Those moments remind me that coffee carries more than flavor. It carries presence, attention, and care.
Coffee happiness is when the ordinary becomes ceremonial, when a simple act bends time just enough for everyone in the space, including me, to breathe a little deeper.
If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Ram Dass. I’d love to pour him a slow, careful cup and just sit in the presence of someone who lived the bridge between discipline and surrender. The way he could distill the infinite into something human and tender has deeply shaped how I see hospitality, ritual, and even love itself. Sharing coffee with him would feel like a reminder that everything we build, even a cafe, can be a doorway back to who we really are.
Dolores Cannon would definitely be a close second. She spent her life gathering stories of souls across time, and her work reframed the idea of purpose for so many people. Over coffee, I’d want to ask not just about what she discovered, but how she carried the weight of knowing so much. With either of them, the cup wouldn’t just be about flavor notes, it would be about frequency, about the vibration of being seen, expanded, and returned to center.
What’s one piece of advice you would give someone getting their start in the coffee industry today?
Slow down, notice everything, and keep a journal for notes. Yes, learn the recipes, the ratios, the extractions. But don’t mistake speed for mastery. Pay attention to the way water moves through a bed of coffee, the way a grinder sounds when it’s dialed in, the way a guest’s posture shifts when you remember their name. That kind of noticing is the real foundation of craft.
Don’t chase being impressive. Chase being present. The craziest pours, the fanciest gear, the trivia about obscure origins won’t matter if you can’t hold the room in front of you. What will carry you further than any latte art design is your ability to show up steady, calm, and grounded, cup after cup, guest after guest.
And remember: you’re part of an ecosystem. Producers, roasters, baristas, and guests, each link matters. Respect every one of them, and respect yourself too. Build systems early. Learn to clean as you move, to rest when you can, and to set small rituals you’ll get to repeat thousands of times. Protect your nervous system, it’s as important to the bar as the machine you’re pulling shots on.
Finally, don’t shrink yourself into someone else’s idea of a coffee professional. Bring your quirks, your edges, your own pace. This industry doesn’t need copies, it needs your presence. Because at the end of the day, coffee is not just about caffeine. It’s about steadiness, care, connection, and the small ceremonies that let people breathe a little deeper. That’s the real work.
The Sprudge Twenty feature series is proudly presented by Pacific Barista Series.
