Columbus Monthly / March 2013 / From the Grounds Up

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From the Grounds Up

Can a growing crop of artisan roasters transform Columbus into America’s next great coffee town?

Rich, bittersweet smoke wafts through Downtown each morning as Cafe Brioso owner Jeff Davis fires up his brass-plated roaster, checking dials and gauges as he meticulously transforms raw beans into signature offerings, 10 pounds at a time.

The quiet Davis, who cut his teeth at Stauf’s Coffee Roasters before opening this corner shop in 2001, moves to a small, nearby workspace to juggle entrepreneurial duties, filling out forms and printing labels for wholesale orders headed all over town. He’ll spend much of the day in the back corner of the shop, roasting small samples, tweaking roast time and temperature, and brewing each batch. It’s a tedious search for the combination that will bring out a coffee’s natural flavors and aromas.

“The vision was having a place specific to coffee,” says the 42-year-old Davis, who speaks with a slight drawl and favors baseball hats and Cleveland sports gear. “It’s a business model based on what’s best for the cup.”

Unlike ubiquitous national chains, Brioso shuns wholesale blends in favor of house-made roasts from distinct geographic origins, and baristas prefer espresso and cappuccino over concoctions with sugar and sprinkles. The staff spends time to craft cups at a pour-over brew station, calibrate espresso machines and educate first-time visitors about coffee ecology and flavor. Years ago, Davis traveled to Colombia to see firsthand how coffee is grown and processed.

Brioso’s staff is obsessed with coffee—and they want everyone else to love it, too. Over a steady din of clicks, whirrs and hums, baristas pull espresso shots, discuss news with customers they know by name and answer questions about the day’s roasts. Bike messengers kick up their feet next to businessmen in suits and ties.

“I know that the coffee’s not mass-produced, and most brews are single-origin,” says regular Aidan Seufert, stationed at a table with a laptop and mug of pour-over coffee. “Most of the people here give two cents about what they’re doing. There are more aspects than just how good the coffee tastes.”

Coffeehouses are part of life for an estimated 100 million American java drinkers. But the wave of boutique shops, like Brioso, that’s crashing through Columbus is something radically different—and it’s supplanting the dated cafe model based on boho-chic decor, live acoustic music and walls of flavored syrups. (So long, Central Perk.)

Alongside established city roasters, new small-scale operations are preparing beans in the Short North, resurrected urban pockets like Olde Towne East and even a Clintonville garage. These local artisans—willing to collaborate on ideas to raise the city’s profile—are attracting attention from national media, a strong local food scene and customers eager to step away from chains. Shops as far as Texas have inquired about selling small-batch Columbus roasts, and established company Boston Stoker last year opened a shop on Campus, the first outside the Dayton area, to plug into the city’s buzz.

Though local roasters face an uphill climb to make a splash on a competitive national scene, many believe Columbus is on its way to becoming America’s next great coffee town.

“I feel like Columbus might end up being a destination scene for coffee,” Davis says, watching a fresh batch cool in a nearby tray. “We’ve been saying this is going to happen for a long time. It makes me happy to see it happen, to be a part of it.”

 

Even decades ago, when a smaller Columbus languished under its Cowtown misnomer, the city had good coffee.

Locals flocked to favorite shops like late-night Campus study center Insomnia, the Short North’s arty Coffee Table and Cup o’ Joe in German Village, which opened in 1994 and later saw its Short North sister best a Starbucks across the street. The city’s had local roasters for more than 20 years—Stauf’s since 1988, Crimson Cup Coffee since 1991.

But what’s happening now is something totally different, says Mark Swanson, president of Cup o’ Joe and Stauf’s, which merged in 2000. It’s the kind of explosion that could put Columbus coffee on the national radar.  

“The changes have been outstanding,” Swanson says. “I mean, you can see the result in the many roasters and shops in town. There’s a lot more choice in Columbus.”

Artisan coffee now dots the city’s neighborhood patchwork. Older roasters like Brioso, Caffe Apropos in Harrison West, Bexley Coffee Shop on Cassady Avenue and Luck Bros’ Coffee House in Grandview have been joined by a host of others since 2009: One Line Coffee, Impero Coffee and Mission Coffee Co. in the Short North; Upper Cup Coffee Co. in Olde Towne East; Thunderkiss Coffee in Clintonville; and Backroom Coffee Roasters in Upper Arlington.

A growing number thrive alongside restaurants, boutiques and other small businesses in redeveloped pockets populated by creative-class professionals eager to support local products. The mixed-use concept that increasingly defines urban renewal in Columbus is exactly the type that fosters a vibrant coffee scene, says Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA): “Achieving a critical mass of these kinds of businesses serving a community that appreciates them is what creates a regional destination.”

That kind of saturation is a big reason why Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago and New York have become international coffee destinations where tourists sample espresso and tour roasteries. They were established travel spots with thriving urban cores that were transformed into coffee towns by trendsetting, grassroots roasters.

Businesses like Stumptown in Portland, Counter Culture in North Carolina and Intelligentsia in Chicago built reputations on outstanding coffee and wholesaling top-quality products in nearby cafes. They partnered with local foodies and microbreweries, created training programs for roasters and baristas and educated consumers about specialty coffee through events and competitions. They built a demand that spawned coffeehouses on nearly every block. Now these cities draw coffee drinkers like Sonoma Valley attracts wine lovers.

Compared to those in other cities, the Columbus coffee scene is young and relatively obscure, which could leave it vulnerable to disorganization and zealotry, says Josh Dugue, who manages Counter Culture’s training program in Chicago.

“In new regional scenes, it can become really frenetic,” he explains. “People get overly excited and put too much stuff out there. It becomes event-heavy and barista-led, and the customer can get left in the lurch.”

Columbus faces a challenge, Dugue adds, but not necessarily a disadvantage. It has a chance to forge a distinct identity and good partnerships among roasters, baristas and consumers.

“You guys are in a place where you can put your own signature and your own stamp on this really huge industry,” he says. “The (Columbus) shops that I’ve interacted with, because there is this huge knowledge base, they’re coming out of the gates with really great coffee programs.”

Collectively, local artisan shops are eager to create and market their scene. They share knowledge at forums like Crimson Cup’s annual Independents Day—which offers insight to cafe owners on topics from menu design to adding a pour-over bar—then convene at events including the North Market Coffee Roast, happening this year on March 23. Baristas frequent each other’s shops, and a few roasters even work on each other’s equipment to learn new techniques or try a model before buying.

As the specialty-coffee industry increased in quality and availability during the past 20 years, Columbus has kept pace, says Swanson, whose company has added three cafes and increased wholesale distribution by 40 percent since 2003.

“I think, in general, the level of awareness is so much higher,” he explains. “The specialty coffee customer base is growing.”

Boutique cafes source beans from small farms in Africa, Asia and South America, then experiment with roasts, controlling every step from bag to brew. They showcase personality through favorite coffees and brew methods—Brioso’s known for its naturally berry-flavored Ethiopian roasts, Luck Bros’ for its citrusy Costa Ricans.

And customers often get to see the process up close. At Upper Cup, which opened in September 2011, Eritrean brothers Micael and Samson Habte roast a few feet from the counter and show customers how to compare Ethiopian, Brazilian and Costa Rican beans stored in colorful wooden barrels.

“If you combine all those things,” says Swanson, “you can see where coffee shops have opportunity.”

Experience Columbus has seen it, too.

As local roasters create an increasingly wider mug stain on the national map, the tourism bureau that plays a crucial role in marketing the city to visitors is promoting Columbus as the Midwest’s next java hotspot.

“When you take a step back, there isn’t a city in the Midwest that has staked a claim to good coffee,” public relations manager Scott Peacock says, adding that Chicago hasn’t made a big push to promote its coffee scene to average consumers. “We thought ‘We have to give this a shot.’ ”

Last year, his team sent press releases about Columbus coffee to about 100 food and travel writers, then shipped locally roasted beans to top clients. Within months, more than 200 stories were published online and in print by newspaper writers and bloggers as far away as Toronto and Milan, Italy. The group also invited bloggers to the North Market roast and a coffee tasting at One Line. When it launches later this year, the new Experience Columbus website will include maps and itineraries of local culinary day trips, including one for coffeehouses.

“Roasters all know each other, and they’re all helping each other,” Peacock adds. “It was cool that half were in someone’s garage and half were getting their own retail spaces. At the same time, they were all feeding off each other.”

 

On a cold November Thursday, One Line’s back room is packed to its bare cinderblock walls with self-described coffee geeks who look like they spilled from a punk-rock after-party. They’re dressed in tight jeans and leather jackets and favor thick-rimmed glasses and asymmetrical hair. They hold coffee cups, speaking with the intensity you’d expect from highly caffeinated people.

These roasters and baristas from Dayton, Mansfield and crosstown shops have convened for a barista jam—an informal gathering to trade tips, practice skills, hold competitions and talk for hours about the industry. (Imagine a bartending competition without high-profile sponsors, swanky outfits or big prize money.)

Up front, a few baristas compare beans through a multi-step tasting process known as coffee cupping, while others compete to brew the perfect pour-over. They work slowly, calibrating steps with a digital scale, thermometer and stopwatch.

But the marquee event is a bracket-style competition of latte art that buzzes with March Madness intensity. Baristas use special techniques to pour foamy milk into espresso shots and create trees, fern fronds, hearts or other designs on the top of the drink. Each is judged for symmetry, difficulty and sharpness.

“We decided to come up and support the scene,” says Adam Shaw from Deeper Roots Coffee in Cincinnati, as a few spectators clamor atop a vinyl couch for a better look. “It’s optimistic for a city in Ohio to have such a developed specialty coffee scene.”

By the time Nick Berrardi from Cafe Brioso pours his winning cup, the night’s turnout indicates that Columbus has fostered a budding niche for artisan coffee. But it also unveils the rather small, close-knit core of the city’s momentum—a hip, socially-conscious fringe that thinks and drinks much differently than the average coffee consumer. An audience that knows the difference between a Rwanda and a Burundi. People who’ve transformed a commodity into a culture.

In any niche pushing specialty goods, a thin line exists between passion and alienation. Converts see artisan coffee as a way to support farm-to-table economics, sustainable farming and culinary craftsmanship. But for every coffee fan who appreciates the blueberry notes of a fair-trade Ethiopian Nekisse, there are 10 who just want to wake up at work.

The detail-oriented finesse that powers artisan coffee also threatens to scare people away from it.

“You want to come off as an expert, but you don’t want to come off as a snob,” says One Line owner Dave Forman. “We’re all really good tasters—it’s just a matter of putting words to what we’re smelling and tasting.”

Forman preferred highly sweetened, syrup-flavored cups when he opened a coffeehouse with his dad in 2003. He started roasting in 2009 and learned to appreciate specialty coffee gradually. He wants others to enjoy it without feeling put off.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “we drink coffee because we like it.”

To woo drinkers away from national chains, roasters and baristas believe their primary mission is to explain artisan flavor and experience in a way anyone can understand and appreciate. To become a national or regional coffee destination, says Andy Luck of Luck Bros’, Columbus needs to pass a tipping point at which everyday drinkers taste artisan coffee, love it and suggest it to friends.

Columbus isn’t there yet, he says.

“You can’t force it—the good product has to be there first,” says Luck, who’s excited about what’s happening in Columbus, but thinks the scene needs to grow in size and strength to rival other cities. “It’s like we’re in the ’80s, and some heavy songs are doing well, but no one has the guts to release a whole metal album.”

our inches of late January snow are no match for Thunderkiss Coffee’s lone delivery truck—a tricked-out Jeep Wrangler stored in the same garage where founder Jason Valentine prepares coffee in a 5-pound roaster purchased from a Texas gas station.

The back seat is loaded with white buckets and brown bags destined for five of Valentine’s accounts, a handful of local restaurants, bakeries and retailers that heard about his coffee through word of mouth. About two years ago, he got Thunderkiss into Japanese food stand Freshstreet, and chef Kenny Kim introduced it to Columbus Food Adventures founder Bethia Woolf, who suggested it to Kent Rigsby of Rigsby’s Kitchen.  Word rippled through town, Valentine says, a common occurrence in the thriving Columbus food scene.

A few of Valentine’s deliveries are simple hand-offs, but most come with barista tips and brainstorming of future ideas and events. Trudging up the sidewalk to Italian Village bakery Cookie Cravings, he reveals his most recent partnership: half-gallon growlers of cold-brew coffee, which keeps in the fridge for roughly a month.

“I know I want one in my fridge,” says bakery co-owner Lindsey Tewanger, as she, husband Matt and Valentine inspect a new branded glass growler. “All you hear now is growler, growler, growler.”

The city’s supportive business climate provides testing ground and feedback for new ideas and encourages collaboration. Support from bars, restaurants and markets has exposed microbreweries like Columbus Brewing Co., distilleries Watershed and Middle West, ice cream shop Jeni’s and growers such as Jorgensen Organic Farms to audiences in Central Ohio and beyond. Many roasters believe coffee is the next product on the local food scene’s powerful launch pad.

“It’s kind of a mutual benefit: It helps me grow my business, and it’s a way for me to help them improve their coffee service,” Valentine says. “As people change their tastes because of what they see in restaurants, obviously the retail environment starts improving.”

His mission often unfolds one cup at a time, as he reinvents and reintroduces a commodity so engrained in American culture that few give it a second thought. But as buy-local and slow-food movements continue to shape how Columbus eats and drinks, he says, his work gets easier.

“From coffee to cheese to breads, consumers are increasingly shopping for a connection to the producers of these goods,” says Rhinehart of the SCAA. “Anecdotally, we see the growth of handcrafted cups as emblematic of a continued desire on the part of consumers to connect more directly with the food and beverage products that they consume.”

One of Valentine’s final stops is an informal sales call to Basi Italia, a high-end bistro tucked into a tiny Victorian Village house. None of the staff who bunch together to smell Valentine’s recently roasted beans can remember how much the restaurant charges for a cup of coffee. Even with the beans still in the bag, fragrance of caramel sweetness and orange rind wafts through the kitchen, a beautiful scent that trumps their normal offering—an odorless pre-ground French roast from a bulk distributor. 

Before Valentine leaves, chef David MacLennan cleans out an old spice grinder, pulverizes some beans and puts on a fresh pot for his staff. Less than two weeks later, Basi begins to serve Thunderkiss Coffee.

“It’s a great addition to what we do with local food,” MacLennan says. “Coffee’s one area we’ve probably been behind in.”