The Caffeine Temple of Orange County
Whenever I’m in Irvine, California, I wake up earlier than my wife and in-laws to make coffee. My father-in-law roasts green coffee beans on a tricked-out Fresh Roast coffee roaster that he modified with temperature sensors that feed into a laptop. The roasting rig sits on a table in the back patio, exposed to the serene elements of Orange County, protected by the squirrels and crows he befriends with peanuts multiple times a day. I like to think the menagerie of satiated animals protects the rig from hostile elements.
The coffee roasting station on my in-laws’ back porch
For years, my father-in-law roasted primarily Ethiopian coffee beans, favoring the clean, acidic taste of the Yirgacheffe beans he could get at Bohdi Leaf Coffee Roasters in Orange. Recently, he’s been branching out into some fruiter New World coffees from Mexico, Colombia, and Panama that have funkier flavors.
The Fresh Roast doesn’t produce too much coffee for each roast— maybe enough for four cups— and each batch is stored in a black vacuum bag labeled by a date and an incomprehensible nomenclature that I still haven’t deciphered. At any time, there are between five and ten coffees at the coffee station. Some roasts are better than others, but I have no way of knowing until I begin pouring the 30 grams of coffee I grind on the scale and take in the scent, texture, and color of the beans before they go through the burr grinder. Once ground, the coffee becomes a portal to a distant terroir I have never seen with my own eyes, totally separate from the sterile green beans measured out before roasting.
The caffeine temple in Irvine, California.
Once the water is heated to 92 degrees Celsius, it’s time to place the ground beans in the unbleached filter to set the bloom. It’s just enough water to watch the beans expand upward to take one final breath, wafting through the house's first floor. In a couple of minutes, the beans that made their trip from some distant locale in the coffee belt will be thrown in the trash, only the liquid essence of the sun, soil, and chlorophyll remaining in a single cup.
Such a luxurious experience is not usually possible for a dollar or two these days. The days of cheap coffee are fading. Coffee is an expression of geopolitical cooperation and logistical miracles, a multisensory newsstand if you treat it with respect it deserves. With a bit of ritual and some time for a morning routine, it might be possible to see part of the world from a coffee station next to a kitchen in Orange County.
