Playing with Coffee
August 15, 2009
He began by reminding me of the idea he was throwing around a few weeks earlier. It would be pretty cool, I thought, but was doubtful if anyone was going to try. And right on cue as if I was watching a magician performing on stage, the copper coil appeared in his hands. The idea was to brew hot coffee through a tube submersed in super cooled water resulting in instant (relatively instant) iced coffee. While we were sufficiently distracted looking at the carefully bent copper tubing, David was setting up the rest of his equipment, the magician shifted into mad scientist mode. The copper coil fit neatly inside of the roughly two gallon pitcher and the end of the coil peaked out of a small hole cut out of the bottom of the pitcher. He plugged up the crack around the hole with a wad of putty and began filling the inside of the pitcher and the coil with ice. “The salt,” he explained turning the little Morton’s girl and her purple umbrella upside down, “will catalyze the cooling process.” After filling the remaining space inside the pitcher with water he began to prepare the coffee. The top of the copper tubing had a small plastic pour over cone fitted to it with an extra tube for releasing the pressure that might plug up the cone. The filter was prepared and put into place, the hot water came to near boiling, and the coffee was ground up, placed into the filter.
it slowly crawled round and round, inch by inch down the cold coil.
The whole contraption was delicately balancing on top of a squat pyrex measuring cup turned upside down with a six ounce Gibraltar glass awaiting the end product. The whole pageant, from the moment he brought up the subject, to when the copper coil was first unveiled, to this final step, looked effortlessly precise. As if there was no question in David’s mind about whether it would work or not, his steady hand poured the hot water over the fresh grounds in the filter. The small audience of three or four of us left over from the cupping that morning eagerly watched to see what would happen. There was a moment of apprehension as it took nearly twenty seconds for the first few dribbles of liquid to emerge at the end. My imagination was working to fill in the details of what the liquid looked like as it slowly crawled round and round, inch by inch down the cold coil. The first evidence of surprise showed in David’s face as he said, “Huh, place your finger in that, it is actually pretty cold.” Amazing! We were all ready to taste it. “Hmm, it’s a bit salty,” “Yeah soy sauce,” “It smells a bit alcoholic.” We tried a few other coffees until we found one that suited the process well. Welcome to the Counter Culture Coffee Training Center in Atlanta.
Hundreds of miles west of Atlanta, on the far edge of the continent, I visited another coffee laboratory. This experimental coffee bar was recently given life with much press and excitement. As I made my way down Abbot Kinney Boulevard I was surprised at how comfortable the heat was. I then realized that the ocean was less than a mile from where I was, providing a cool breeze in what would otherwise be an unbearable desert. My first impressions of this cafe were true to what I had imagined. There was a west coast informality about the space that made everyone unsure about where to stand or what direction to face to get some service. If you go directly to the bakery counter that faces the entrance, you will find the host or hostess running between the back room and front of house. They will be the only person not wearing a black apron or vest over their regular clothing. On that particular Wednesday, she was wearing an attractive green shirt that helped direct the visual space. She was too busy to greet each customer as they entered but it became clear that she would be the first stop along the way.
The amount of care and precision might be easy to dismiss, until you smell and taste that first sip.
I ordered a croissant and was directed to the next barista station to open up. I asked my barista what brewed coffees were available and what methods I could choose from. She showed me the menu of available “in season” roasts and told me that I could either have her brew it for me on the clover (an expensive and precise machine that brews a single cup at a time), or I could step to the back counter and have Chris prepare me something at the “slow bar”. The “slow bar” is designed to push the customers expectations away from the quick fix coffee to a much slower pace. It is introducing coffee to people in a whole new light, similar to Atlantas training center, they are providing more education than most may have expected even existed.
I ordered a Chemex filtered coffee from Chris. The Chemex process is a simple elegant way to extract coffee using a paper filter and specially made glass urn. He began by pouring a small amount of hot water over the filter to pre-soak it. He measured out the coffee on a scale, selected the correct grind setting and put the whole bean coffee through the grinder. The hot water temperature was check one last time before he began slowly pouring the water over the coffee grounds. The cone filter holding the ground coffee was sitting perfectly inside the glass Chemex urn and the urn was sitting squarely on a scale that Chris was using to pour the correct amount of water. The amount of care and precision might be easy to dismiss, until you smell and taste that first sip. It becomes clear that the amount of precision given to the extraction, has also been given to this product at every stage from the farm to the processing and finally its preparation. Welcome to Intelligentsia Coffee and their Venice Beach location.
I watched the four baristas at their four separate stations carefully pulling espresso shots and comfortably pouring beautiful latte art.
Chris and Melissa Owens operate the “slow bar” at this new Intelligentsia shop where they are sharing the finer points of coffee with southern California. The staff of about ten, having had little to no prior barista experience, were trained up by Melissa and Chris. This left the Owens’ with little time to explore their new neighborhood, however the training has been quite thorough. On just their third day open I watched the four baristas at their four separate stations carefully pulling espresso shots and comfortably pouring beautiful latte art. It is natural to assume that the west coast gets the best new fads first but this time around, before LA there was Atlanta.
In the beginning of 2006 Chris and Melissa moved to Atlanta having relocated from New York City, they came to share coffee with Atlanta. Melissa became the “Coffee Boss” at Octane in West Midtown, responsible for implementing a rigorous training program for their baristas. This led to the success of many of their staff in regional and national barista competitions in the past few years. Just a short walk down Marrieta Street at the King Plow Art Center, Chris was hired to work at the then new Counter Culture Regional Training Center in Atlanta. Here he trained people on proper extraction, milk and espresso techinques as well as making service calls and participating in weekly cuppings. An emerging awareness of responsibly cultivated, traded, and prepared coffee among baristas and coffee drinkers is causing a growing movement in Atlanta. Chris and Melissa have since left Atlanta, first spending some time at Ritual Coffee in San Francisco, now at Intelligentsia in Venice Beach. There has been, however, a lasting effect on how Atlantans make and drink their coffee.
Back in Atlanta the resources for excellent coffee are here and the excitement is here as well. There is of course more to learn and alot of room for growth especially as the coffee industry as a whole moves toward more specificity and transparency. The coffee drinking public, from Portland to New York City, is coming to demand a better quality cup of coffee, fortunately for Atlantans it is so close the can probably already smell it. Quality training programs for baristas are starting to catch on at other shops in town, and as always the Counter Culture Training Center religiously continues its coffee cuppings every friday morning. For those who can spare a little extra time on a friday, stick around after a cupping. You just might get carried away, playing with coffee. (a)
