The art of coffee

When was the last time you sat down, at a café or restaurant or in your own home, and enjoyed a nice cup of coffee? If you’re anything like me, it hasn’t been more than, oh, a few hours or so. But beyond (sometimes) knowing where the coffee beans were grown, I never really thought about how the coffee came to be in my cup.

So, since I heard the guys at the Naked Lounge had recently opened their own roastery—Great State Coffee Co.—I asked if I could hang out with them on a recent Sunday morning to find out about the process.

The Great State Coffee Co. space, off Benatar Way in south Chico, is impressive. (Watch out for a grand opening this summer.) I met co-owner (and my former CN&R co-worker) Alec Binyon there and he escorted me to the back room, where the coffee magic happens.

“Every coffee is different and needs to be roasted differently to bring out the depth of that particular bean’s flavor,” he explained as roastmaster Kevin Nies prepared each of us a cup of Naked Lounge’s first house brew, which they began serving at the café earlier this month. It was delicious, and strong—it had me buzzing half an hour later.

As roastmaster, Nies took over the roaster as he, Binyon and co-owner Eric Fairchild prepared to create their fourth coffee, a blend. For each they go through a testing process called a “cupping.”

Nies poured the beans into the roaster, which is attached to a computer equipped with software that allows him to precisely track every step of the process (and, more importantly, re-create it). He pulled out a handful at different times to get a variety of flavors, from light roast to dark.

Then, for the cupping, with five samples in front of us, each of them ground and placed in small cups, we tested. First we smelled the grounds, then we poured hot water into them and smelled again a few times before finally tasting.

Creamy. Fruity. Acidic. Ashy. The differences in flavor among the five samples were astounding. Who knew that simply altering the length of time—by mere minutes—the beans are in the roaster could have such an effect? I certainly didn’t. Then, after choosing the best amount of time to roast a certain bean, Nies and company go through the same cupping exercise three more times, altering other variables. In all, it takes about 24 hours to perfect one recipe. The blend will take longer because they’ll do it for each of the three coffees and then again once they’re mixed together, but Binyon and Nies still expected it to be available at the Naked Lounge by press time.

For Binyon, it’s all about creating something. And now that I have a better understanding of the work and expertise involved in making a single coffee, my morning Joe is more than just a pick-me-up, it’s a product of creativity—you could even call it art.