Tim Hori: Master Of One Thing
WARSAW — Some people consider themselves a “Jack of all trades.”
Meet the “Tim of one thing.”
Warsaw resident and businessman Tim Hori draws upon a profound precept of his Japanese heritage to guide his approach to life.
“It is the concept of becoming a master of one thing,” said Hori, who turned 43 last week.
“You see that a lot in Japanese culture. Some people choose their ‘one thing.’ With other people it is their job and they decide to become master of it. It is obviously driven by passion.
“I’ve always been the type where, when I start doing something, I’m all in. I go deep.”
Hori found a subject worthy of his full talents when he, without any background in the industry, bought Three Crowns Coffee in downtown Warsaw in January 2018.
He had been working in information technology sales and had the opportunity to take over the going concern from a former partner with whom he had operated St. Regis Club in the same location years earlier.
The social club hosted “events, speakers, live music and an international film festival,” Hori said. “We had a lot of fun doing it, but we were always just breaking even. I stopped doing it when my wife, Soraya, got pregnant with our second daughter and told me, ‘You have to get a real job.’”
Hori worked in IT sales for a few years before he was presented with the coffee shop opportunity. “I was looking something new,” he said.
He dove in up to his cranium — and found it a great fit. “I am grateful because there is so much complexity in coffee. There is more flavor complexity and a wider scope of tasting notes in coffee than in wine.”
He also realized “how good black coffee done the right way is so different from what 99 percent of Americans have experienced. Most have only experienced bad, burnt coffee. Most have never had a good light roast single origin coffee.”
Hori noted Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer, followed by Vietnam, but better flavor, he said, derives from crops in Ethiopia, Guatemala and Kenya.
“It’s on such a different level,” he said. “The natural flavors in one Ethiopian coffee may include caramel, apricot and black tea. New Guinea coffee has a green tea flavor so prominent your palate will get confused.”
Hori started roasting about six months ago, another all-consuming educational opportunity — “I thought I knew a lot about coffee until I started roasting” — and has conjured several unique flavor combinations.
His recently created Thai latte includes coconut, ginger, lime and cumin. The Vietnam latte features basil, lemon grass, fresh mint and condensed milk.
Hori was born in Chicago and moved to Warsaw at age 5 when his father took a job at Zimmer. He graduated from Warsaw Community High School in 1994 and spent 10 years as a missionary in China, Japan and the Philippines.
He married Soraya in 2004 and moved back to Warsaw in 2010. They have two daughters: Sophia, who just turned 12, and Sylvia, 4. Soraya works at DePuy.
As for hobbies, “we don’t have a lot,” he said. “We’ve become the typical family and between work and kids’ activities, that is most of it.”
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