My $11,000 Hot Java Love Machine

Connoisseurs are willing to pay as much as $15 for a cup individually brewed on the Clover coffee maker

By CINDA CHAVICH
The Globe and Mail, Toronto
January 30, 2008

CALGARY — Phil Robertson sucks a mouthful of hot coffee from a deep spoon, slurping it back in one fast whoosh, then closes his eyes, concentrating on the nuances of flavour on his tongue.

The Clover

"Sweet on the front, almost citrus, you have that tingly feeling on the side, and a real fresh sensation," he says, spitting the Colombian Las Animas into a shiny silver pitcher and moving on to a freshly brewed cup of Ethiopian Worka.

In the world of serious coffee drinkers, this is part of the coffee "cupping" ritual - the way experts determine which green beans will be sold on the open international market for $1.40 a pound, and which ones may command a hundred times that amount.

From their Phil & Sebastian Coffee Company kiosk, tucked in the back corner of the Calgary Farmers' Market, Mr. Robertson and his partner Sebastian Sztabzyb are part of a growing tribe of confirmed coffee geeks, the kind who blog about burr grinders, dwell time and drinking "off the Clover." The kind who don't blink when a cup of joe hits $15 and you need an $11,000 machine to make it.

While huge companies such as McDonald's and Starbucks duke it out to steal the pedestrian coffee crowd from the local doughnut shop, these baristas and their acolytes are uncovering seriously scientific ways to coax the clearest flavours out of any given coffee bean.

Like the North American shift from big cabernets and oaked chardonnays to more elegant pinot noirs and rieslings, the coffee lover's palate is maturing.

Pointing to the guts of his state-of-the-art Synesso espresso machine, Mr. Robertson, formerly an electrical engineer, explains that the computer controls the temperature of each head.

"I can adjust the temperature to within 0.1 degree Fahrenheit - and we can use a PID [digital thermostat] algorithm to change the temperature profile and the pressure time curve," he says.

He frets about humidity and bean density, pressure and temperature, roasting and grind particle size, water purity and timing - and that's after considering the many other variables, from variety and terroir to processing and packaging, that can affect the green, unroasted coffee bean.

"Coffee is the most complex culinary item in the world," Mr. Robertson says. "Coffee has 1,200 chemical compounds - wine has about 600 - more potential flavour compounds than any other food."

Coffee shops like his and Mr. Sztabzyb's are part of the "third wave" of the coffee revolution that began with Peet's Coffee & Tea and Starbucks. (The second wave led to the overall improvement of coffee quality and introduced espresso machines to the general public.)

Like the first wave, this third wave is hitting the west coast of the country hardest, with several cafés and restaurants investing in the latest technology for brewing both Italian-style, espresso-based beverages and a new, French-press style of brewed coffee.

Of the novel brewing technologies, the one generating the most buzz among coffee lovers is the Clover, a blocky, computerized machine that essentially automates the traditional French-press method of making coffee one cup at a time. Developed in Seattle, and only recently seen in select coffee shops across Canada and the United States, the $11,000 (U.S.) Clover finally offers coffee lovers the same kind of fresh, individually made coffee that was once reserved for espresso-based drinks.

Phil & Sebastian brought the first Clover machine to Calgary, and now their simple coffee counter is a mob scene

every Friday, Saturday and Sunday - the only days the market is open.

For a perfect cup of brewed coffee "off the Clover," baristas start with high-grade, light or medium roast coffee, searching for the nuances of fruit and acidity that come from the best high-altitude beans. It's a completely different animal from the dark, smoky, charred roasts that made Starbucks famous.

"It's like balancing the scales," Mr. Robertson says, "which have been tipped to the dark roast and espresso side for quite some time."

Vancouver has spawned several noteworthy shops devoted to quality coffee - Elysian Coffee, JJ Bean and Caffe Artigiano - all known for their highly skilled baristas and state-of-the-art equipment. It was the trendy Caffe Artigiano chain that first introduced the $15 (Canadian) cup of rare Hacienda la Esmeralda Especial coffee to Canada, brewed on a Clover. That rare coffee - and the high prices - have since turned up in other cutting-edge cafés, including Matt Lee's Manic Coffee in Toronto.

So what in the world takes a common cup of coffee from two bucks to fifteen?

"It's mainly a function of demand and supply," says Vince Piccolo, who founded Caffe Artigiano in 2000 with his brothers Mike and Sammy, but recently sold the shops. Today, Mr. Piccolo is a direct trade buyer - buying green beans from farms and forging relationships with growers - with his company, 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters.

Mr. Piccolo was among several top roasters who paid a record $130 a pound for the top Esmeralda beans from Panama in an online auction, after it was named the best in the world in 2007, for the third year in a row, at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's annual coffee cupping competition.

These "Cup of Excellence" award-winning coffees are making waves in the coffee world and commanding top prices, as growers in Ethiopia, Brazil and Indonesia learn to plant better heirloom varietals, and to harvest, select, sort and process the beans with care.

If you haven't immersed yourself in the bean lover's lexicon, dig into your wine-tasting notes. The Esmeralda is described on the SCAA's auction website as "intensely fragrant and aromatic with exotic jasmine and orange blossom notes," "explosively floral," with "bright, sweet acidity."

Others have "creamy chocolate, dried cherry and caramel nuances" or "fruit, floral fragrances and light touches of cardamom spice."

But don't expect to learn everything about coffee overnight. Coffee is a complicated subject that connoisseurs such as Mr. Robertson say can take a lifetime to master. Buying and roasting, he says, is best left to the experts.

"What I like about coffee is that union between science and subjective tastes, thought and sensation," says Mr. Robertson, tinkering with the grind and water temperature settings before creating another cup in the Clover.

"[But] you don't really have to know anything - you're paying me to be the fussy one."