Reena Gelborn and I met gradually. Little did I know when she first came to my attention in one cafe (the first of several), this compelling, enigmatic character and I would forge a working relationship.

The following interview took place in mid-April with the first buds of Spring ready to burst. We met at Edmonton’s Crum Coffee Bar, home of fabulous Parisienne croissants (flash-frozen and air shipped). Here is how things went:

Editor: Reena Gilborn, we’re meeting here at the Crum Coffee Bar which is odd in itself as on the multiple occasions when I’ve seen you, it’s been at other locations. Most recently – I think it was at Ace (Coffee Roasters) – we got to talking. Little did I know I was your most recent mark for one of your various online ventures, “Interlooper“. And little did you know, I was the executive editor at Bean Indigo. Why don’t you tell people your take on how that encounter went.

Reena crosses her legs at the ankles, adjusts the chunky amber pendant at her throat, and takes a slow sip from her gibraltar glass before setting it down with deliberate precision

Reena: That’s quite the opening gambit. The editor with the plot twist. I like it.

Ace wasn’t an accident, you know. I’d seen you there three times before we spoke—always with a book, as I recall; never a device other than your phone. People who read physical books in coffee shops are either showing off or genuinely disconnected from digital urgency. You struck me as the latter. Plus, you didn’t clock me. Rare quality in publishing nowadays.

I wasn’t marking you for Interlooper, though I appreciate the assumption that everyone is potential content. I was genuinely intrigued by someone who could spend two hours with Bolaño and maintain perfect coffee temperature throughout. Most people let it go cold after the third page.

I believe you ordered a classic cappuccino—no modifications, no special requests—which suggests someone who respects tradition but isn’t enslaved by it. When you spoke to the barista by name and asked about her graduate program, I knew you were likely a regular observer too, not just the observed.

Did I know you were from Bean Indigo? Not at all. But I recognized editor energy—that specific blend of curiosity and judgment. And, of course, I was familiar with the site. Just hadn’t connected the dots. People who professionally decide what other people should read carry themselves differently. They listen like they’re highlighting passages in their minds.

Editor: Zinger!

Reena: As for meeting here at Crum instead of my usual haunts—Leaning forward slightly, eyes direct.—I never conduct important business where I regularly work. Keeps my observation posts uncontaminated. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on that protective instinct in me.

But I’m curious—what made you think I was profiling you for Interlooper rather than simply enjoying a rare conversation with someone who understands that coffee shops are the last democratic third spaces in urban culture?

Editor: I guess I was projecting. It was only after that meet up that I connected the Interlooper dots. Whatever happened to that, by the way. The trail ran cold after about six or so months ago?

Reena’s expression shifts subtly, a flicker of something between amusement and caution crossing her face. She swirls the remaining coffee in her cup before answering

Reena: Interlooper. My digital love letter to urban anonymity.

You’re right—it went dark about six months ago. Not by choice, initially. I was in Istanbul for what was supposed to be a two-week exploration of Turkish coffee culture. Two weeks turned into six when I met a third-generation coffee roaster who offered to teach me traditional techniques if I helped modernize his family’s social media presence.

While I was embedded in that world of copper cezves and cardamom, my hosting service had a catastrophic server failure. Lost everything—two years of observations, commentary, subscriber data. No backup. Digital ephemera, gone like steam from an espresso.

At first I was devastated. Then liberating. Then… it seemed instructive.

She leans back, one hand absently touching her pendant

The internet has this preservation problem—everything feels permanent until suddenly it isn’t. Coffee is the opposite. It’s explicitly temporary, designed to be consumed in a moment, appreciated precisely because it can’t be saved. The experience resists documentation. You had to be there, cup in hand.

I decided not to rebuild Interlooper. It had become too precious, too curated. I was spending more time documenting moments than living in them. And the format—these short, anonymous profiles of strangers paired with their beverage choices—it started feeling… exploitative? Even with all identities obscured.

She fixes me with a direct look – a disarming tool in her kit.

What I’m interested in now is something with more substance. Less voyeuristic, more participatory. Something that acknowledges I’m part of the ecosystem I’m observing. My coffee-romance correlation system isn’t just clinical observation—it’s drawn from my own history of relationships that bloomed and withered across café tables.

But I’m curious—what about Interlooper caught your editorial eye? Was it the format, the voice, or were you just another curious reader trying to figure out if I’d ever profiled you without your knowledge?

Editor: Well, for reasons I can’t entirely figure out, it was you who piqued my curiosity. Interlooper sort of came with the territory – though I must say, in getting to know the little I do of you, it had the ring of organic truth to it.

Reena smiles faintly, a flickering expression that softens her usual observational intensity. She flags down the barista wiping down tables with a subtle gesture and orders another gibraltar before returning her attention to me.

Reena: Ah, beware the ring of truth.

I’ve spent most of my adult life being more interested in others than they are in me. It’s a useful quality for a writer—this ability to fade into background music while absorbing everything. Interlooper was just formalizing what I’ve done since childhood: watching people, making connections they don’t see themselves.

But you’ve touched on something interesting. People rarely wonder about the observer. The coffee shop regular with the notebook becomes furniture after a while—present but unremarkable. I’ve cultivated that invisibility. It’s professionally useful but personally… complicated.

Her new coffee arrives, and she thanks the barista by name.

My father was a cultural anthropologist—spent decades documenting religious practices in transitional communities. My mother was a translator for diplomatic services. I grew up in temporary spaces—embassy housing, research outposts, international schools. I learned to read rooms before I could read books. Coffee shops became my constant when everything else changed.

Editor: (joking) So, they were spies.

Reena: I can neither confirm, nor deny. Edmonton is the longest I’ve stayed anywhere voluntarily. Seven years. The winter keeps me honest, I think. Makes hiding in cafés seem practical rather than peculiar.

She takes a sip, considering me over the rim of her cup.

I’m curious what exactly you’re looking for at Bean Indigo. Most coffee publications want extraction techniques and origin stories. I’m offering something messier—human connections filtred through coffee preferences. It’s not exactly standard industry content.

Editor: Yes, we can certainly agree, coffee culture easily slides into the realm of nerdy technophilia – a pitfall we’re trying to shake free of. I didn’t get into it because of filtre mesh micron ratings and bean mucilage characteristics – as important as they are to the diehards. I just love coffee. I love it as a solitary pleasure and I love how it brings people together. It’s kind of like being in the cinema. You’re in the company of a room full of strangers having personally intimate reactions. I see in you a kindred spirit.

Her posture relaxes slightly, and a genuine smile plays at the corners of her mouth. She leans forward, both hands wrapped around her cup as if drawing warmth from it

Reena: Finally. Someone who gets it.

Coffee culture has become so… performative. All these people with their refractometers and flavour wheels, treating each cup like it’s a dissertation defence. Don’t misunderstand—I appreciate the craft. But when specialty coffee becomes so specialized that it excludes the average pleasure-seeker, we’ve lost something essential.

She gestures subtly to the space around them.

Look at this room. Every table is its own universe. That’s the fascination. The student highlighting textbooks who’s been nursing the same drip coffee for two hours. The first date at the window pretending they normally drink their coffee black when you can tell they’re dying for cream. The regulars who never speak but share the same table daily, communicating only through nods and the occasional passed sugar packet.

These aren’t coffee consumers—they’re coffee participants.

She takes a thoughtful sip.

When I was living in Medellín – sorry for the pin drops. I get around – I frequented this tiny place where the owner refused to offer wifi. He said coffee shops should be “temples of presence.” At first I was annoyed—I needed to work. But after a week, I realized I was having conversations with strangers that would never have happened if we’d all been hiding behind screens. I wrote some of my best observations there, in a little notebook instead of a laptop.

I’ve lived for two months or more in fourteen cities across nine countries. And that’s just as an adult. Coffee was my constant companion and social facilitator. In Vienna, I learned that melancholia pairs perfectly with whipped cream. In Istanbul, fortune-telling from grounds taught me that endings contain beginnings. In Melbourne, I discovered that flirtation is enhanced by latte art. Each place has its own coffee love language.

She meets my gaze directly.

You mentioned cinema—that’s exactly right. We’re alone together in coffee shops. Sharing space but having distinct experiences. There’s something beautifully human about choosing to conduct our private lives in public spaces. It’s vulnerable. Contradictory. Ripe for documenting.

So yes, if Bean Indigo wants someone who sees coffee culture as human culture rather than just extraction science, I might be your person. But I should warn you—I don’t separate the observer from the observed. My experiences, my relationships, my failures—they’re all part of my research methodology. I’m not just watching the movie; I’m in it.

Editor: Not a problem. I want you to report back from the collective solitude, as it were. I see in you a penetrating conduit into the lives of ordinary people … knowing full well no one is ordinary.

She tilts her head slightly, a strand of dark hair falling across her face. She tucks it behind her ear with an unhurried gesture.

Reena: “Collective solitude.” That’s exactly it. The paradox that keeps me coming back to these places day after day.

She glances briefly around the café before returning her gaze to me.

I think what draws me to coffee culture is that it’s one of the few remaining spaces where strangers still encounter each other without screens mediating the experience. Even when we’re all on our laptops, there’s still this physical presence—this unspoken acknowledgment that we’ve chosen to be alone together rather than alone alone.

People reveal themselves differently in these spaces. The businessman who transforms from barking orders on a call to gently thanking the barista – or not. The woman whose rigid posture softens with each sip of her cappuccino. The couple sitting in silence, their entire relationship status evident in whether they’re looking at their phones, the steam rising from their cups, or each other.

She runs her finger along the rim of her now empty cup.

I was in a café in Kyoto once – sorry, here I go again – It was a tiny six-seat counter space where they served pour-overs with the precision of a tea ceremony. The man next to me was writing a letter—actual paper, fountain pen, the works. When he noticed me watching, he told me he was writing to his wife. She’d been dead for three years, but he still wrote to her every week over coffee. Said it was the only way he could still feel her presence.

That’s what I mean about coffee being a conduit for human connection. That man wouldn’t have told his story to a reporter with a microphone, but sharing a coffee counter created this momentary intimacy that allowed truth to surface.

I don’t consider myself a journalist. Journalists maintain distance. I’m more like… a participant-observer who’s not afraid to get emotionally entangled in the stories I document. If someone cries at the table next to me, I might offer a tissue. If they’re celebrating, I might raise my cup in silent toast. I’m as much a part of the ecosystem as anyone else.

She leans forward slightly.

So if Bean Indigo is ready for coffee writing that acknowledges the messy humanity behind our collective caffeine ritual—the loneliness, the desire, the silent connections—then I’m your writer. Just don’t expect me to pretend I’m some objective authority. I’m just another person seeking warmth and witness in public spaces, taking notes along the way.

Editor: I’m good with that. In fact, when it stops being that, we’ll agree here to pull the plug. We have your audience and I believe they are eager to hear from you. You could be in danger of becoming the pre-eminent agony aunt of caffeine.

Reena: (laughing, leaning back in her chair) Agony aunt of caffeine. I might have to steal that for my bio.

You know, I’ve been approached by publications before. Usually they want me to write about “top ten coffee spots” or “how to order like an insider.” Consumer guides. But what you’re suggesting—this is something with teeth. Something real.

She reaches into her worn leather messenger bag and pulls out a small, tan notebook.

I’ve been keeping these for years. One for each city I’ve lived in. Observations, conversations, the secret language of coffee shop dynamics. Some entries are just descriptions of people’s hands as they hold their cups—you can tell so much from that single gesture.

She slides the notebook across the table.

Page forty-seven. There’s a story about a woman who ordered different drinks depending on which lover she was meeting that day. Americano for the husband, flat white for the girlfriend, pour-over for the one she actually loved. Three separate coffee dates in the same café, different days. None of them knew about each other, but the baristas knew everything.

She gauges my reaction as I scan.

I pass the notebook back.

But I should warn you—I won’t be your domesticated observer. I’ll disappear sometimes. I’ll submit pieces from obscure mountain towns somewhere, or basement cafés somewhere in Europe. I’ll fall in love with inappropriate people and document how it changes my palate. I’ll attend coffee competitions and write about the desperate ambition in competitors’ eyes rather than their brewing techniques.

And sometimes, when the story demands it, I’ll be more participant than observer. That’s my process. If your readers are ready for that kind of honesty—the beautiful, messy truth of how we connect over coffee—then I think we might have something special here.

She extends her hand across the table.

So, are we creating something new together, or am I just another interesting character you’ve encountered in your editorial wanderings?

And so, that was Reena

We parted on a handshake and she was gone like a vapour. We await her first submission.

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