Chatham Duo Practice The Fine Art Of Coffee Roasting

by Debra Lawless

            A small sign in the middle window of an overhead door offers the only clue as to the indefinable smell wafting in the evening air in the industrial park on Enterprise Drive in Chatham.

            The Art of Roasting, says the sign.

            On a recent Saturday evening, a knock on the door marked "3" hails Jeff Harris. For the next four hours, Harris will monitor the 20-pound batches of coffee he's roasting in the 55-gallon, gas-powered black and gold coffee roaster that resembles the engine of a train.

Jeff Harris and Justin Scott in front of the Probat coffee roaster that turns out their gourmet Art of Roasting coffee. DEBRA LAWLESS PHOTO

            Harris, 40, and his brother-in-law Justin Scott, 32, are both teachers who drink a lot of coffee. Good coffee. Bad coffee. Indifferent coffee. On a family trip to Disneyland in California a couple of years ago the pair visited a coffee shop whose proprietors roasted coffee on the spot, thus sparking an idea.

            In 2005 Harris and Scott began exploring opening a business roasting and selling fine coffee. And after an infusion of start-up capital from their father/father-in-law --- the Probat roaster from Germany cost $20,000 --- the family business was launched.

            This evening the roaster roars, forcing conversation in the warehouse to a shout. Hundred-pound burlap bags of raw coffee beans, which resemble green peanuts, are waiting on pallets. Harris, who has poured 25 pounds of raw beans from Papua, New Guinea, into the roaster's hopper, will closely follow their progress for the next nine-to-17 minutes. Occasionally he pulls out a small drawer in the Probat and scrutinizes and sniffs the roasting beans. Roast them too long and they'll turn to charcoal; take them out too soon and they'll produce a bitter brew.

            Scott arrives with a pizza and Cokes, which the pair will share on the "boardroom table," Harris's parents' old kitchen table.

            Coffee connoisseurs talk about a coffee's aroma, body, acidity and flavor. Scott says the coffee he and Harris roast is superior to other coffees, including that oh-so-famous brand from Seattle. In what way? Compare Evian water to tap water. Guinness Stout to Budweiser. A $50 wine to a $2 wine.

            "Unfortunately we're kind of fanatical about it," Scott says. The company's motto is "life's too short to drink bad coffee."

            Harris stands by the roaster tracking the temperature every 30 seconds and noting it on a clipboard. The beans roast to 460 degrees. At 390 degrees they experience "the first crack." "Hear the cracking?" Harris asks. "It sounds like popping corn."

            Soon, "it's in the middle of the second crack,” Harris says, “it's kind of a higher-pitched ping."

            Harris releases the beans in a whoosh of steam from the drum into a stainless steel cooler. Now the beans are puffed up and chocolate brown, looking like what we grind at home.

            "It's a kind of magic, really, to see these nasty little green things turn into wonderful-smelling coffee," Scott says.

            This will be the business's second summer. Last July the Chatham Village Market began stocking the roasted beans in the distinctive bag that says "The Art of Roasting" above a color-coded band. Each bag also sports a Cape Cod symbol such as a shark, a sailboat, a bird or a starfish. That's so someone can dispatch someone else to the store and simply say, "Buy the blue bag with the starfish," Scott says. The Chatham Village Cafe on Main Street sells the coffee by the cup.

            The Art of Roasting also has a website through which the coffee is sold and it is working on a Coffee of the Month club. Coffees at the website sell for $11 to $14 a pound or $6 to $7 for a half pound.  Varieties include Guatemala Antigua, Kenya AA, Mexican Chiapas, Sumatra Mandheling, Regular and Decaf Papua New Guinea, El Salvador, Panama Boquete, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Java Government Estate and the Art of Roasting Samplers.

            When the beans are cool, Harris pours them into an airtight box. Soon the beans will be weighed, bagged and labeled. From this roasting factory to the Chatham Village Market, where the beans are sold in one and one-half pound bags, is less than a mile.

            Because any coffee's flavor is fleeting and short-lived, Scott recommends using the beans within a month. Don't refrigerate them, and don't grind them in advance, he says.

            The brothers-in-law (Scott, who grew up in Georgia and is married to Harris's sister Nancy) trade off weekends at the roaster. Scott teaches history at the Sturgis Charter School in Hyannis and lives in Chatham. Harris, who graduated from Chatham High School in 1985, teaches computer programming at Lexington High School and lives in downtown Boston. In the summer they will roast 20, 20-pound batches in a day to keep up with the increase in volume. The question for the business now revolves around expansion.

            "How far do we want to go?" Harris sums up. Some of the shareholders, board members, and employees --- that is Harris's parents Bob and Marcia, Scott and his wife Nancy --- say "we need to be in more places." But Harris votes for slower growth.

            Does the pair foresee giving up their teaching jobs?

            "Not anytime soon," Scott says. "It's definitely a weekend and summertime thing."

5/15/07