Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/673312
profit and it keeps some costs high and it doesn't allow for the extra resources and potential that Viguera referred to as a company grows. But for some roasters and coffee professionals who know the joy of dealing directly with their coffee-drink- ing customers, there is no other option. The advent of the intentional micro roaster parallels where some of the best and most innovative chefs are going. Those chefs and roasters are more focused on the immediate experience of particular diners or coffee drinkers. Again, it is not the brand but the model, in this case, a roaster, perhaps a guy with long experience at a large company who decided he'd rath- er scale down to a more focused spotlight. It reminds me of the origin of the word "espresso"—what it first meant, according to an Italian friend of mine with long experience in the coffee busi- ness, both in North America and Italy. "It doesn't mean fast, it means expressly for the customer in front of the barista at that exact moment, not brewed an hour ago, or even five minutes ago...it means expressly for you," he said. By that defini- tion, the intentional micro roaster could call all his roasts "Espresso Roasts." Last year, I was invited to join a few friends for dinner at a young chef's apart- ment in downtown Los Angeles to enjoy a carefully crafted but (literally) home- cooked Filipino meal. I had no idea who the guy was except that I was told he was a skilled cook and that the menu would feature a range of authentic, well-made Filipino dishes. It was as if your mother was Filipino, she could really cook, and pulled out all the stops for a special holi- day meal for some special guests. This year, that same chef–Charles Olalia–opened a small rice bar (called "Rice Bar") with only seven seats. He didn't do this because he couldn't open a bigger place; he was the executive chef at one of LA's best high-end restaurants. Previously, he cooked at some of the most highly regarded restaurants in the world. Chef Olalia could have raised all the money he needed, I am guessing, and maybe later he will. But right now he's cooking for seven people at a time (in addition to take-out customers). "I wanted to interact directly with my customers. Where I've worked in the past it wasn't comfortable to do that, the places were just too big and we were all too busy. Here I can talk to you about your meal, or we can just talk, that is the part of the business that I love—serving people food they love and interacting with them one on one," he said. "Maybe part of it is my own maturation process, my now being able to reach out and engage with people. But a big part of it is the scale of this place." Another parallel that is striking: Rice Bar offers heirloom rice varieties in almost all of their dishes; in other words Olalia is sourcing rice in a way similar to the protocols established by the specialty coffee industry today. The New Micro Roaster Category The most important aspect in regard to the new micro roaster is that they are small because they want to be, not because they have to be, or because they don't have the resources to be bigger right away. Nor are they in transition to become huge. They are micro for the same reason a chef might decide to cook for seven and not seven hundred. There's a new and separate cat- egory, then, the intentional micro roaster. In this group we can include many new roasters and even a few that predate most of the specialty roasters in North America. In the small set of long established intentional micro roasters, Henry Kalebjian's House of Coffee, out toward the ocean in the Inner Sunset neighbor- hood in San Francisco, is certainly an example. Henry has been roasting there since 1965 and his son Hrag is now help- ing out and trying to project their repu- tation and expertise a bit into the local wholesale market and on the web. Henry used to have more stores but he found over the years he is comfortable with his one right now and his neighborhood full of loyal customers. He and Hrag buy great coffee and try to offer consistent types for their longstanding customers. They both love the business, the tradition and the institution their business has become. Henry never succumbed to the lure of world domination and it doesn't seem that Hrag will either—they both enjoy the close contact with their custom- ers that their compact size allows. The intentional micro roaster, then, chooses a smaller scale for the same reason a famous artist might want to create something that, by definition, will not last and cannot be sold. Accomplished musicians sometimes play their instru- ments on a subway platform to see what it feels like and to give something of themselves. And they want to see if peo- ple care and even pay attention when faced with something wonderful and exceptional and totally unexpected. Maybe they want to hear the applause from just a few feet away. To some of the most talented practitioners among us, that's what matters the most—knowing their audience, whether that person is a listener, a watcher, a diner, or a coffee drinker, is happy and satisfied. For 35+ years Timothy J. Castle has sold green coffee and has been writing about coffee in general for the consumer and trade press. He wrote The Perfect Cup (1991) and co-au- thored The Great Coffee Book (1999). He may be reached at: tim@coffeecurmudgeon.com. 32 Tea & Coffee Trade Journal | www.teaandcoffee.net micro roasters COVER STORY Selina Viguera, coffee bar manager in the Los Angeles area for Blue Bottle Coffee. Photo courtesy of timothy J. Castle