We recently connected with Julie Patadia and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Julie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I usually measure success by how confident I feel about what I’m doing.

In ever changing industries like coffee and music I’m constantly feeling like i’m playing catch up. However, with coffee I measure success by how accessible i’m able to make what I do to the beginner / novice.

With music it’s a little different. My music journey has been a long one of imposter syndrome and doubt. So, for me success here is measured by how many of my personal goals i’m able to accomplish without giving myself hard deadlines.

Where both of these come together for me is when I’m able to do both things without being hard on myself and allowing myself the space to make mistakes and learn new things along the way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a coffee educator for a major coffee roaster in New York city and a hobby musician. I got into working in coffee right after the global quarantine, I was very unfulfilled at my corporate job and was desperately seeking to do something creative / craft forward. I started working as a barista so that I could make more music but, ended up falling in love with coffee. And here i am 6 years later trying to balance both.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Something I wish I took more of an advantage of when I was starting out is community. In any creative field building a community is the most valuable resource you can have. Finding people that care just as passionately about the same thing you do is super important in keeping the motivation alive. You don’t have to do everything alone!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My coffee career is definitely very mission driven. My biggest goal this year is to make the coffee competition space more accessible to baristas from all over, Not just the coffee bros from the big roasters that end up taking up all of the space when that’s not representative of your actual everyday barista. This year I really want to get on the national stage and represent Indian coffee.

As for my music career my goal is a little similar where I want to make music that feels inclusive and creates a safe space. It’s really important to me to have creative outlets that feel accessible to everyone.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @julieonbar

Image Credits

Ric Morchower
Merry Morris
Circle