Coffee roasters blend in well Specialty brews rely on local roasting sources

BY MARIA SONNENBERG
FOR FLORIDA TODAY

To keep her upscale coffee shop stocked with the 80 aromatic blends her customers crave, Yheimy Jarman, owner of Le Bon Café in downtown Melbourne, used to depend on coffee roasters in Michigan.

Now, she doesn’t need to call long distance to order specialty coffee blends like Melbourne Moonshine or Crane Creek Breakfast Blend, because coffee specialist Jose Santos, owner of Carmo Specialty Coffee, can mix Kahlua, rum, eggnog and other goodies right here in Melbourne.

“He knows his beans,” Jarman said. “He has been working with coffee for a long, long time.”

Jarman and Santos often brainstorm to determine what new coffee flavors might tickle a customer’s fancy. They are working on a blend to be named after Jarman’s son, James, who fancies vanilla and caramel in his cup of java.

“Jose is so close, we can change flavors quickly if something isn’t moving,” Jarman said.

Jarman has discovered the secret to coffeehouse success: Specialty coffees no longer are a fad, but, rather, a customer expectation.

“You’ve got a retail giant like Starbucks changing the mind-set of coffee drinkers,” said Conrad Stroman, president of Anidaso, a roaster and Internet coffee retailer based in Cocoa.

Stroman selected Brevard County as his administrative headquarters because the area had just the right blend of consumers.

“One reason that we are excited about this market is that the consumer demographics are definitely here,” he said.

The 50 available varieties of Anidaso coffee retail from $13 a pound, all the way up to $50 for a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain.

“That’s the champagne of coffee,” Stroman said.

The comparison with the bubbly is appropriate because specialty blends have bestowed a drink that primarily had been a morning kick-starter with the cachet of fine wine.

“Specialty coffee is very similar to wine,” Stroman said. “It can be paired with different foods to bring out the flavor.”

Specialty coffee — a term was first coined by coffee buyer Erna Knutsen in a 1974 issue of the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal to describe “perfect” coffee with a distinctive flavor and encompasses the complete coffee-making process, from planting to brewing — is a sizzling market.

Sometimes called “gourmet” or “premium,” specialty coffees must be the crème de la crème, exceptional beans grown in ideal conditions and then brewed to established standards.

Like grapes — and humans, for that matter — coffee is a product of its environment.

“There are so many factors impacting the beans,” Stroman said. “The flavor depends on the rain, soil, how high the coffee is grown and the amount of sunshine the beans get.”

Roasting to order

A good roaster can make a good thing even better by taking a quality bean and putting in his creative imprimatur, while at the same time satisfying his customer’s specifications.

“We roast to the customer’s orders,” Santos of Carmo Specialty Coffee said.

After the unroasted — or green — coffee beans go through the roasting process, Santos mixes amaretto, cinnamon or hazelnut, and a myriad of other available flavors with the beans.

After 12 to 24 hours of absorbing the flavors, the beans are ready for packaging.

Santos roasts highly individualized blends, not only for Le Bon Café, but for Downtown Produce and other retailers; restaurants like Yellow Dog Café; and even the Premiere Oaks Theater.

Thirty-five percent of the coffees he creates are flavored.

“The flavored coffees are very, very hot now,” he said.

“Most companies are going to flavored specialties,” Santos said.

The Specialty Coffee Association of America, with 3,000 members the world’s largest trade association, is energetically promoting specialty coffees in the restaurant trade.

At its 19th-annual conference and exhibition in mid-May, the Specialty Coffee Association of America will enlist food writers and experts to teach restaurateurs and chefs that, when it comes to coffee, the difference is in the details.

“Average coffee belongs to the same club as tap water and canned vegetables,” said chef Jimmy Sneed, one of the conference presenters.

Anidaso is trying to break into the upscale restaurant market with a “white-cloth table service” that uses a French press, considered the best way to brew good coffee.

“We’re trying to partner with restaurants that attract a high-end clientele,” Stroman said.

Business generator

For Jarman, who grew up in Venezuela at a time when coffee was very much a black-and-white kind of beverage, all the buzz about specialty coffees seemed puzzling at first.

“When I was growing up, coffee was either served black or con leche” — with milk, Jarman said.

That has all changed. She now realizes she couldn’t have lasted five years in business without the help of the specialty brews.

She is certain the wide variety of coffee she carries — coffees that inspire her customers to hang out and try something new — gives her an edge that has meant the difference between success and failure.

“You can’t survive in this business without it,” she said. “People think twice about buying expensive coffee, but when they see the variety, they become fascinated, like kids in a candy store.”

Jarman is not alone in her assessment of the business.

The explosion of cafes and gourmet coffee retailers like Le Bon Café makes specialty coffees one of the fastest-growing food-service markets in the world, with $12.27 billion in sales last year.

The industry employs more than 20 million people worldwide.

“The traditional way of selling coffee has changed,” said Stroman of Anidaso. “If you want to be successful in the business, you have to sell all those varieties.”

Unlike Carmo, which although offering retail sales, primarily sells wholesale roasted coffee and some green coffee beans from the Santos family Brazilian plantation, Anidaso focuses on Internet or direct-to-consumer sales, which total 60 percent of the company’s business.

“What makes us unique is that we roast to order, so the coffee you get is fresher than anything you will find in a store,” Stroman said.

The company wholesales to local outlets like Cape Canaveral’s Sunseed Co-Op, which purchases Anidaso’s organic line. It also has contracts with Toyota Tsusho and other corporate clients that wish to help their employees enjoy a buzz of fine caffeine.

“It’s the fuel that feeds the workers,” Stroman said.

Even the time-tested office coffee maker has been replaced with high-end equipment like Concordia Coffee Systems’ self-serve beverage system, which allows employees to create café-quality beverages in the workplace.

Concordia customers include DreamWorks, Harvard University, SeaWorld and the Smithsonian Institute.

Still, while many customers have embraced the unique flavors, many others continue to consider coffee primarily a utilitarian drink.

That is the mind-set that must be changed, Stroman said.

“It’s a challenging industry, because coffee has been around for a long time, and has been always marketed as a fuel for your morning,” Stroman said. “The need is still there to educate the public about specialty coffees. A good cup of coffee can alleviate the daily grind.”

Source: http://floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070430/BUSINESS/704300312/1003/business