Food + Drink: Java Revival

Change has come to your neighborhood coffee shop. Maybe you've heard the names: Kopplin's, Dogwood, Angry Catfish, Urban Bean, Bull Run, Blue Ox. Like craft beer and craft cocktails, coffee is experiencing an artisanal spring. With that comes a new sense of intimidation for those of us who just figured out what "venti" means.

Still, I find myself enamored of the process -- the sourcing of the beans, the roasting, the slo-mo ritual of the "pour-over." All of which culminates in the thing that matters most: a better taste. It's like discovering Surly after drinking Miller Lite all your life.

The movement of expertly sourced beans and professional baristas began brewing last decade in such coffee-centric cities as Seattle and New York. Here in the Twin Cities, many point to Kopplin's in St. Paul as ushering in our own revolution in 2006.

I like the atmosphere at Quixotic in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood. Micah Svejda, 30, remembers being in high school when the barista profession caught his eye.

"There was a lot of mystery to it that I didn't understand," he said. "I remember buying an espresso and it being this really complex and rich thing."

Svejda says the current wave of high-end coffee shops have one thing in common: an uncompromising devotion to quality. This manifests itself in three areas: beans, equipment and technique.

The buying and roasting of good beans is pretty complicated. St. Paul is home to Cafe Imports, one of the country's largest specialty importers. On a much smaller scale is Dogwood, Minneapolis' most acclaimed roaster (it also has a coffee shop in Uptown's Calhoun Square). Dogwood's operation is Minnesota-based, but its ambitions are large. This year, the company's Stephanie Ratanas has met with farmers in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Indonesia.

Roasting technique can make or break a bean. Dogwood works solely with lighter roasts. They are harder to perfect than dark roasts, Ratanas says, but produce a broader flavor spectrum.

The equipment used in these shops can get expensive, with some machines fetching more than $10,000. But the espresso menu is typically parsed down to the bare essentials: espresso, latte (with latte art!), maybe a mocha. No "condiments," so don't expect to order a caramel drizzle peppermint white chocolate mocha thingy.

When it comes to a simple cup of coffee, a handful of shops have ditched the high-end machinery for the much-hyped pour-over method. The cone-filter setup should be familiar to anyone who's made coffee at home, but the technique and Japanese-designed tools are not. The time-consuming details (pre-wetting the filter, blooming the grounds, swirling ever so precisely) is almost surgical.

"If you want to serve lots of coffee to a lot of people, there are quicker options," Svejda said. Is all this pomp and fuss worth it? Yes, it is. I'm a convert. But, apparently, it's the little things that still confound me.

When I ordered an espresso at Quixotic some months ago, the barista immediately whipped out a metallic soda siphon and handed me a small glass of fresh sparkling water. She then turned away to make my order. After a minute of deep contemplation, my critical thinking skills kicked in and -- aha! -- I figured it out. It was a palate cleanser, meant to prepare my tongue for the flavor explosion hidden in the tiny cup of hand-crafted espresso.