Sitting in the passenger seat, gliding the surface of southwestern Montana out of Butte in our scrappy little Prius, the primary reflection that surfaces for me is the vastness and diversity of our global landscapes. On this road trip, we have coasted through Colorado valleys and switchbacked our way back up mountainsides. Pastel gradients of New Mexico’s setting sun have stunned me into wonder. We have twisted our way along wild and scenic rivers and rolling farmscapes in Idaho, gaped open-jaw at the immensity of Montana’s open sky. The California coastline’s angular canyon sides, highway guardrails a meager reminder of the very real possibility of careening hundreds of feet into the ocean with a simple misstep. Ancient cliff dwellings of Canyon de Shelly in the Navajo nation of northern Arizona. And that’s just the West, a mere 6000 mile sampling of it reached by paved roads.
Roadside landscape along Interstate 15 out of Butte, Montana
Along most of these byways, I have sought out specialty coffee, with various degrees of success. Of course I’m traveling with my own brewing setup (as addressed over in this other post), but sometimes I’m not in a spot where it’s practical or possible to heat water. And sometimes the most convenient thing is to seek out a local coffee shop where I can get a simple drip brew dispensed into my travel cup so that we can hit the road. Point in case: we have six hours on the road ahead of us to Salt Lake City today, so last night, in preparation for this morning in Butte, I engaged in my usual intrepid Googling to locate a cafe with third-wave vibes. After a few perusals of reviews featuring photos of fluffy white cappuccinos and menus touting sugary seasonal bevs, I found Oro Fino, serving Revel coffee (a roaster out of Billings, MT). I clicked to Revel’s website. I saw several photos of coffee cherries and post-harvest processing, as well as a few high scores from Coffee Review. Jackpot.
a cortado in my hand, circa October 2024
ON A SEARCH FOR CORTADO LAND
Oro Fino was tucked inside a larger mixed-use space that also hosted a fiber arts shop, a gallery, and a print making studio, all great indications of a thriving creative community. Once inside, I took a peek at the espresso machine (Nuova Simonelli), grinders (Mahlkonig), and the beans in the espresso hopper: a lovely medium brown, no visible oils. All good signs. (Didn't take any photos... hadn't had my coffee yet. Hence the 2024 photo above.)
The solo barista was a youngish guy, chatting good-naturedly with the guests ahead of me in line as he finished their order. When it was my turn, I asked about his drip coffee. He just had one option, a washed Brazil, medium roast, earthy and nutty. I was hoping for something a little fruitier, I said, though I was hesitant to be that lady, fussy and pretentious. It was my first cup of the day after all; I shouldn’t be that particular about my caffeine delivery system. But he was sympathetic, explaining about the taste preferences of their average customer, with which of course I am familiar. Most coffee drinkers prefer something with a decent amount of roast character, something that leans towards chocolate and nuts rather than flowers and fruit. I get it. I briefly considered a milky espresso drink but talked myself out of it. Brazil it was. And honestly it’s just fine, clean and balanced, just a hint of red fruit acidity as it cools. It’s doing the job. I’ll count myself lucky this morning.
One of our recent multi-day stops was Moscow (rhymes with Costco!), Idaho, where I completed an MFA degree fifteen years ago. In a college town, I expect a fairly wide range of coffee options, and these days those options tend to include a few higher-end specialty shops. Usually a roaster or two and plenty of latte art in the Google review photo section. I was surprised to find that while there are a good handful of coffee shops (including a renovated and rebranded location of a spot I used to frequent as a grad student), most of them are serving primarily dark roasts, and I was hard pressed to find a cortado on a menu. (The presence of a cortado—equal parts espresso and steamed milk—is one of the things I look for, a sign that the folks making menu decisions know a little something about specialty standards and industry trends and therefore are probably paying attention to some of the other things I care about too.) There is one roaster in Moscow called Half Mile that checks more of those boxes, with a co-owner who holds a Q grader license and also teaches SCA classes like I do; they host occasional public cuppings. They’re open on Wednesdays. Only Wednesdays.
Image courtesy of Hollywood Insider
WEDNESDAYS, ONLY WEDNESDAYS
One day a week! Luckily for me, it worked out for us to visit them before leaving town on a Wednesday morning. After thoroughly enjoying a poured-over cup of a Colombian co-ferment (the strawberry-laden cup referenced over here), I chatted with her about their business, asking if they had plans to open the cafe on additional days. She demurred, generalizing that “most people” in town weren’t interested in their approach and simply prefer the standard offerings of other cafes. Half Mile has one local wholesale account and otherwise sells bags of beans to a small cohort of loyal customers.
I didn’t argue with her, but only being open one day per week seems short-sighted to me. The shop was pretty busy during the hour or so I was there, and I observed one pair of ladies who came in with curious questions and ultimately decided on lattes. As they were leaving, after finishing their drinks, they raved to the owner. “Best latte I’ve ever had,” one of them said. “We’ll be back.” People don’t know what they don’t know, I thought. Until we give them an opportunity to try something new. Light- and medium-roasted coffee is delicious, often surprisingly so to folks who try it for the first time. When we keep our roasting a little lighter-handed, we let the original character of the fruit shine. Roast character can be delicious too, but it should be balanced and sweet, not ashy and bitter. Let’s not be afraid of a little acidity. Even in an espresso blend, where coffee’s nuances will most often be complemented by milk, acidity provides balance and complexity, a nod to the fruit from whence our beloved beverage originates.
Horse-drawn carriage, courtesy of Wikimedia
FASTER HORSES ARE OVERRATED
The point here is that many coffee drinkers are actually open to new experiences. We drink dark-roasted coffee mainly because that’s what has been presented to us for most of our lives; the assumption that coffee is dark and oily and bitter by design leads to that being the general expectation. We add cream because it makes it taste less burnt; we add sugar to counteract bitterness. But when coffee isn’t burnt or bitter to begin with, it doesn’t need those things.
When even a well-traveled, passionate entrepreneur who knows more about coffee than your average joe simply defaults to catering to that expectation, then we end up with a general monotony of offerings, especially in small towns far from metropolitan areas. For their sake, I hope that both Half Mile and Oro Fino nudge beyond their own assumptions about what people like and start to provide more opportunities for their community to have some new experiences with coffee. After all, like Henry Ford [might have] expressed, if we’d asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
Pile of very darkly roasted coffee beans, courtesy of Wikimedia
DO I CONTRADICT MYSELF? VERY WELL THEN, I CONTRADICT MYSELF
There are caveats to my thoughts above. I don’t mean to demonize dark roasted coffee by any means. If someone gives a light-roasted fruity coffee a try and decides they still prefer something toasty and nutty (or smoky and bitter), then that’s what they should drink. I only mean to say that I wish more folks had the chance to try coffee that actually tastes like the fruit it came from.
Also, framing these thoughts from the perspective of a coffee producer, it’s great that so many people like dark roasted coffee. The vast majority of coffee produced globally is not winning Cup of Excellence competitions or being brewed-to-order as pour overs at premium prices. Most of it is mid-range quality, with simple flavor notes like nuts, earth, and brown spices. Those coffees do their best work when we roast them a little darker, masking some of the more unpleasant dirty notes and caramelizing sugars to add toasty-cocoa character, the ideal platform for creamy dairy. Coffee farmers need a market for these coffees; the labor and challenges are too difficult to expect them all to expend their already-limited resources on trying to improve the quality of fruit produced by every single one of their plants. (I know some of my colleagues in the industry would disagree, but that’s a discussion for another post.)
There’s also an economic perspective. Those lower-quality, darker roasted coffees tend to be cheaper—for a roaster, they represent an opportunity to make a little more margin, since the base cost per pound for the green is lower. For many roasting companies, dark roasts are a big driver of income. The flip side is that of course the producer is earning less per pound on those coffees. So the industry friends I mentioned above who want to push for higher quality from farmers across the board would also say that when farmers can produce better quality coffee, they can earn higher prices. I just don’t believe that it’s realistic for all farmers to scale their quality universally. As for the reasons behind that statement, let’s save those for another blog.