In Rotation 16 | Art of the State 17 | Foodfinds 18 | Fi¬m 19
by Marvin Gonzalez
It’s
terribly tragic to consider, but in some of the finest, Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe, where chefs go through great pains to deliver one-of-a-kind, intricately prepared and arranged plates of food; where blood, sweat and tears symbolically pepper the meals that are consumed at exorbitant, out-of-this-world prices; where the artisanal meets fine art, and you almost hate to tear into something so passionately arranged, the coffee you consume comes in the form of a capsule that is placed in a austere machine, and brewed at the push of a button. A monkey could literally brew your coffee for you. Hub Coffee Roasters is at 32 Cheney St., 323-3482, www.hub coffeeroasters.com. Magpie Coffee Roasters is at 490 S. Center St., www.magpieroasters. com.
14
|
RN&R
Nespresso, which is a division of Nestle, is the largest producer of capsule espresso that conveniently for them can only be brewed with their machines. They have a variety of these espresso capsules that are supposedly tailor-made to individual tastes. And the idea is that you’ll consistently get the same cup of espresso with each brew. They are sealed from the same type of roast, with the same amount of espresso, and are sealed, apparently, at the coffee’s freshest. Now there is something to be said about consistency, but who really likes the same shit every day? Isn’t this reason relationships become |
JANUARY 31, 2013
stale? Isn’t it true that the only constant in life is that, as capricious human beings, we are consistently inconsistent? But it’s more than that. In a way, it’s that dread that in this increasingly mechanized world, where the majority of communication occurs in an electrical haze, we’ll forget what it means to have a human touch. Fortunately for us, locally anyway, there are still those out there concerned with bringing a cup of coffee to you that from the farming of the beans, to the roasting, to brewing there is a concern with quality control that involves the trial and error of human experimentation.
Magical fruit
There are many stages that lead to you sipping on a brewed cup of coffee. But, perhaps the least understood is the middle stage—the roasting. Many of us take for granted that coffee is a slightly greasy, black, beetle-looking seed we call a bean. Few of us realize how it got to that stage, however. For many local roasters, the roasting itself is where their human touch to coffee comes to the forefront. Joey Trujillo of The Hub Coffee Roasters describes it like cooking. “It’s just like cooking something in the kitchen,” he says. “There’s science behind it, but there’s also a lot of intuition.” The skills that are developed while roasting are enhanced daily, and ultimately lead to a better cup of coffee brewed at their cafes. For Mark Hirose of Magpie Coffee roasting small batches allows them to fine tune the product that they ultimately offer the public. “It’s a catch-22 that we have a one-pound roaster. But that does give us the ability to really control what the end product is. With roasting, there are a million different variables—from where you start the roast at, where
you end it, and everything in between.” Hirose’s roasting and business partner, Matt Sewell, like Trujillo, compares the process to a cook. Though the way that he describes the process sounds more like being in a laboratory. “All it is, is cooking,” says Sewell. “So, you are essentially caramelizing and carbonizing sugars. You are just converting long-chain compounds into shorter-chain simple sugars. Through that you are developing a flavor profile. You are developing sugars. You are developing acids; breaking down certain acids; increasing certain acids, and all of that contributes to the final flavor,” says Sewell. In a way roasting is a simple endeavor. It’s not hard to learn. Hirose, for instance, describes roasting as a novice using a popcorn popper and coffee beans that he bought from shady dudes in little ziplock baggies. “It was the romance of it,” he says, that got him into roasting in the first place. Like any great romance, it begins with a whirlwind but only survives if it matures into something more substantial. For these roasters, it’s not just about learning the motions, but developing a craft over time.
BIG HE ADERS GIZA 25pt 25k SMALL HEADERS GIZA 15pt 55k (60% OF BIG HE AD)
(Upper) Joey Trujillo, Mark Trujillo and Ian Hodges of Hub Coffee Roasters. (Lower) Matt Sewell and Mark Hirose of Magpie. (Opposite) Fresh grounds at Hub Coffee Roasters.
