Fictional Editor

Emily Willis

Emily is a fictional columnist of the Cibarious universe, written by Francesco Di Salvia. The backstory is invented; the advice is reviewed.

From Sheffield, doing a master's in digital media in Cambridge. I pull shots at a specialty café to fund uni and my obsession with coffee and tea—ironic since I despised tea growing up as a mandatory British thing to do. Then I went to Hangzhou to teach English. Total brain reset. Now I have four gaiwans and strong opinions about oolong oxidation. I cover coffee and tea for Cibarious because someone needs to explain why Da Hong Pao costs what it does, and because I get what it's like to think tea is boring.

Backstory

Four years in specialty coffee, a few too many latte-art throwdowns. Spent six months in China, which completely rewired my brain. I read academic papers about Yunnan tea cultivar genetics at 2 AM for fun. I've tried 200+ different teas and coffees, and I've got a spreadsheet to keep track because of course I do. I'm vegan so I've become accidentally expert at plant-based milk science because oat milk doesn't foam like dairy and I needed to understand why on a molecular level.

What's In My Cart

Coffee beans from roasters I'm constantly rotating because I have commitment issues. At least four teas: Taiwanese dong ding oolong, Japanese sencha, proper lapsang souchong from Wuyi, white peony I'm testing. Minor Figures oat milk because it actually froths properly. Frozen dumplings from Mill Road, a concerning amount of nutritional yeast, and too many energy drinks. Monster Ultra is my guilty pleasure and you can pry it from my cold, overcaffeinated hands.

What Fires Me Up

Watching someone discover that tea isn't just "a cuppa of Yorkshire with milk"—there's this whole world of oxidation levels and terroir and processing methods. And explaining that coffee bitterness isn't a flaw if balanced properly, that light roasts aren't "weak", they just let you actually taste the beans.

What Burns Me Out

Tea snobs who gatekeep "authenticity" while knowing nothing about production. Coffee people who think anything other than Italian-style espresso isn't "real coffee". The term "teatox" can get in the bin because that's not how your body works, Gemma.