Sunday, May 06, 2007
Food

Zen and the art of coffee roasting

The craftsmanship behind Batdorf & Bronson  

Roasting supervisor Aaron Shively at Batdorf & Bronson’s warehouse barista bar CREDIT: Spark St. Jude

Cupping 101 A tasting, or cupping, is meant to perceive the complexity of the beans in both a dry and wet state, which yield varying levels of nuance. Shively takes me through “Cupping 101,” where I have the pleasure of inhaling freshly ground beans from a French Roast, Ethiopia Harrar, Guatemala Antigua, Sumatra Mandheling and Organic Decaf Mexico. Shively instructs me to cup the glass and create a seal between my hands and face to allow direct access to the aroma. I take in the coffee through my nose and mouth and evaluate the aroma and taste of each grind. Shively then pours hot water over each roast and allows the liquid to cool and the grounds to rise to the top. With a cupping spoon (a deep round-bowl spoon) I slurp the coffee and let the liquid wash over my tongue. Shively points out the blueberry notes in the Ethiopia Harrar and talks about how its profile is dynamic—“It’s usually the shocker on the table.” It turns out to be my favorite. Later, I take the “What’s your coffee personality” quiz on Batdorf & Bronson’s Web site and am surprised to find that the results corroborate my preferences from the cupping: Ethiopia Harrar and Guatemala Antigua, which is bright and fruity with an earthy finish. My coffee personality? According to the roastery: “Unusual and unabashed describes your taste in flavors (and probably your clothes, too!). If other people think it's too strong or too stinky then you're sure to love it.” As the patron saint of Brussels sprouts, I have to concur. Profiling Look for the following attributes during a tasting: Tongue sensations: bitter, sour, salty and sweet Elements of the coffee: body (mouth feel), acidity and balance Is the flavor bright, fragrant, earthy, fruity, smoky or nutty? Can you detect notes of dark chocolate, maple, cedar, blackberry or cardamom? More Information Coffee cupping: www.coffeegeek.com. Batdorf and Bronson: 404-351-0071, www.dancinggoats.com.

By Julie Douglas

In “The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef,” Marco Pierre White, the first “rock-star chef” credited with plucking Britain out of culinary obscurity and elevating its restaurant scene to historic heights, details his quest to obtain the coveted three-Michelin star designation. The perfectionist chef catalogues his efforts, including distilling each dish to its “essence” and examining every jot and tittle of his restaurant.

Eventually White turns to a Michelin reviewer who advises, “If you start serving amuse-bouches and improve your coffee, you won’t be a million miles away.” The chef heeds his recommendation and shortly thereafter is awarded another star. So it follows that a detail like coffee quality can, in some cases, make or break the career of a chef—after all, it is the final impression to round out what should be a pleasing sensual experience.

Enter Batdorf & Bronson, the artisanal coffee-roasting company with production facilities in Olympia, Wash., and here in Atlanta. The company supplies some of the most lauded restaurants in the city, as well as to cafés and retailers like Whole Foods. It also has a tasting bar at Star Provisions, the emporium that manages to squeeze a Parisian block’s worth of specialty items into one space and is owned by culinary auteurs Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison. Although the South is not known for the kind of cup-of-Joe fanaticism exhibited by the Pacific Northwest, coffee is clearly on the rise in Atlanta, perhaps even usurping iced tea as the beverage of choice.

LATTE ART AND LUCKY DECATUR

Inside the Batdorf & Bronson warehouse—perfumed with the cocoa-like aroma of roasted beans—is a kitchen with a rotating tasting station. There’s also a coffee bar where staff can brew a cup or practice their barista skills, like latte art (using foam to create images). Margaret Thompson, in charge of training and education, creates a swirled heart that looks like it came straight from the Art Nouveau period, claiming she’s “the worst with the latte art.” She has a wide smile and an easy laugh as she ponders her skills. Aaron Shively, the roasting supervisor, pipes up: “She’s pretty rad with espresso, and the latte. You’re being modest.”

Martini and cognac stemware sit in a glass case. I wonder aloud if they’re used for late-night brewing. Shively laughs and says that the glassware is a part of the “third wave.” He explains, “The first wave was Starbucks and then the emergence of Starbucks on a global setting. The second wave was that specialty coffee roaster focused on quality over quantity [that] created relationships with farmers and exporters. The third wave is the emergence of ‘transparency’ from consumer all the way to farmer. With that comes a new level of artisanship from the barista.”

In fact, there are regional barista competitions, and the Specialty Coffee Association of America hosts the national championship once a year. “You have to make an espresso, a cappuccino and you have to create your own specialty drink. So these [glasses] are here to encourage staff to get behind the bar and practice and come up with some really good drink,” Shively says. The roastery plans on featuring these staff-made concoctions, some of them cold beverages, in its new digs.

“We’ve been behind the scenes for so long in Atlanta, but we’re getting ready to open up a retail space,” Shively says. By late summer or early fall, the lucky residents of Decatur will have an exclusive Batdorf & Bronson presence on East Ponce de Leon, directly across from Watershed restaurant. According to co-owner Cherie Challain, “The retail store will be laid out like a wine store, where you browse pre-packed offerings or take them out of the bins.” The roastery will partner with Cosmic Duck to provide sweet and savory pastries in addition to other noshes. Challain is excited about the prospect, adding, “We have similar standards for our product.”

The retail store will concentrate on the coffee experience with highly trained baristas and specialty drinks and will be open later, offering music from time to time. Challain is also eager to roll out the roastery's Clover brewer, which will be installed in the store and can brew any single-origin coffee, one cup at a time, in zero to 45 seconds, making it easier for customers to experiment. This also gives baristas the chance to recommend food pairings with coffee.

When I ask Shively if he thinks that coffee is following the trajectory of handcrafted beers and receiving the same attention to detail that wine is, he shakes his head with an emphatic “yes.” He sites publications like Imbibe magazine, which focus on the “liquid culture” of wine, coffee and beer, as evidence of Americans returning to old-world processes and exhibiting an appreciation for history, ingredients and artistry.

THE 10-CUP RULE

The company has cultivated relationships with shade-grown, certified-organic and Fair Trade-certified farmers (a cooperative of smaller farms). Shade-tree farms such as Finca de Valle, headed by third-generation matriarch Cristina de Gonzales, do not rely on pesticides, herbicides or fungicides.

All coffee grows between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, at altitudes of 3,500 to 7,000 feet, usually in mountainous regions. Bartdorf & Branson’s roastmaster frequently travels to the point of origin and works with farmers, judges competitions and obtains samples. “He’ll sample-roast 10 cups. If all 10 cups aren’t consistent, then we don’t purchase it,” Shively remarks.

To ensure quality, roasters conduct “cuppings,” or tastings, to gauge body, acidity and balance. Some employees are ardent foodies and apply their palate to the roasting process; others are “beverage freaks.” All are equally passionate about achieving the ideal coffee profile. “We want to bring out the nuances and showcase its best attributes,” Shively explains. “Our approach to coffeemaking is half artisan and half science. We’re thinking about both things when we’re doing it.”

Shively takes me through the life of a bean, noting the sage-green color and the hard-as-stone composition. He tells me that in this state, it’s inedible and ungrindable. In its berry form, you can get some of the juice out—with some Costa Rican varieties tasting like watermelon. He says the key to high-end roasting is to “uncomplicate the process. Not trying to trick the coffee. Let it do what it wants to do.”

I watch as Shively and roaster Eric Taylor inspect the beans near a massive roasting machine that’s emanating heat. There is a sampler tucked into the roaster, which, when extracted, allows Taylor to check on the coloring and aroma. He shows me how the beans are becoming “exothermic,” expanding and beginning to release their sugars. This is the point when the carmelization process—getting the sugars and oils at just the right ratio—begins to solidify the profile. The beans are Sumatran, and as he waves the sampler under his nose, Shively notes that Taylor is “thinking: some earthiness, floralness, fruitiness in a tropical sense, like mango,” looking for those attributes to reveal themselves in the profile.

This process is important: Taylor equates it to a chef tasting his cuisine for correct seasoning. The roasters also sample each batch and, in doing so, have achieved an astonishing ability to pick up scents that the untrained nose would miss. This is what seems to be a paramount factor in Batdorf & Bronson’s success—the commitment to achieving a Zen-like roasting of the bean.

As the roasted beans pour into the hopper—festooned with a miniature Elvis on its axis—the beans get sorted in a circular motion. Taylor grins as Shively shouts over the din, “The fun part is being a roaster for Batdorf & Bronson, where we’re 50 percent roasters and 50 percent cuppers. We couldn’t get the product that we get if we didn’t diligently cup the way we do—we’re obsessive about it.”