Tips on how to make good coffee and run a successful coffee shop

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), May 29, 2004 by Kara Kridler

It's the best. I'm serious. I swear by it, said an anonymous customer at the Evergreen, a coffee shop on Cold Spring Lane in Baltimore. The customer - referring to her daily dose of the house blended coffee - said she doesn't miss a day at the coffee shop.

So, what exactly makes a cup of coffee good enough that customers swear by it, a cup made so perfectly that it keeps customers coming back day-after-day?

For Mike Sproge, owner of the Evergreen, it is a mixture of quality coffee beans, filtered water and a whole lot of consistency.

Sproge, 26, has been in the coffee business for about seven years and recently purchased his own coffee shop.

The morning is our busiest time, Sproge said. We sell anywhere from 200 to 300 cups of coffee from about 7:30 to 10.

The house blend sells the best, he said. It is a coffee constructed to be a medium roast, easy-to -drink cup of coffee.

Coffee beans

The first thing, which is the most critical in preparing coffee, is starting with coffee which is freshly roasted, said Stanley Constantine, president of the Baltimore Coffee & Tea Co. Inc. in Timonium. We roast daily and none of the coffee stays in the store for more than 24 hours.

Selling approximately 30,000 cups a month, Constantine said business is pretty consistent with the sale of 1,000 cups of coffee each day - of which 700 cups are sold before noon.

It is important to put the roasted coffee beans into a vacuum pack, Constantine said. The minute it is roasted it gives off carbon dioxide and when it hits the oxygen, it goes stale.

After the coffee is brewed, it is still important to keep it in an air-tight pot, said Dwaine Garber, owner of Magoo's Daily Perk in Baltimore.

Air pots, which are glass pots with thermal linings, have the ability to hold coffee for a long time, Garber said. Coffee is brewed in the air pot and once the pot is closed the coffee is not exposed to air.

The two major enemies of coffee once it is roasted and brewed are air and extra heat, Garber said. Coffee that sits on a hot plate will only stay fresh for about 18 minutes.

That's why coffee in convenience stores does not always taste great, he said. It sits on the hot plates too long.

The type of bean plays a big part in achieving that perfect cup, Constantine said. The coffee and tea company sells only the more expensive Arabica beans, which are high-grade beans grown in areas usually 3,000 feet above sea level.

The other type of coffee bean is the robusta bean. These beans are cheaper and have more caffeine, Constantine said. Most commercial coffees found in grocery stores have a good percentage of robusta beans because they are cheaper and stronger beans.

A good cup of coffee with Arabica beans costs about one cent per brewed ounce, Constantine said. So an eight-ounce cup is only eight cents. A good cup versus a bad cup is literally a difference of about two or three cents.

It's the cream and sugar that adds to the expense of serving a cup of coffee, he said.

Typically coffee is the last thing you have at a restaurant, he said. A good cup of coffee can make a bad meal seem good because it's the last thing you will remember. The same holds true for a bad cup of coffee.

How the coffee is stored is as important as buying quality coffee, according to the National Coffee Association of U.S.A. Inc.'s Web site.

It is essential to keep coffee away from excessive air, moisture, heat, and light to preserve its flavor as long as possible, the association says.

It really should be stored in a dark, cool place and definitely not frozen, said Daily Perk's Garber. Freezing separates the oils in the beans and the oils are where the flavor is located. If they separate, they essentially lose the flavor.

Start with cold water

To get a good cup, you have to start with cold water; that's essential and it must be properly filtered, said the Evergreen's Sproge.

A good filtering system gets rid of the bad tasting stuff like chlorine and possibly copper from the pipes and it leaves behind the natural salts and clean water.

The National Coffee Association recommends using filtered or bottled water to prepare coffee. If tap water must be used, it should run for a few seconds before filling the coffee pot.

Of course, the water can completely determine the taste of your coffee, Garber said. Coffee drinkers can tell the difference between a cup of coffee which was brewed using filtered water and one that was brewed using tap water.

Most coffee shops have a good filtering system, said Martin Mayorga, president of Mayorga Coffee Roasters in Rockville. We have a three step filtering process, which cleans all water before it comes out of the spigot.

Once the coffee is prepared, a good sturdy mug is the best to drink from, Sproge said. We picked ours to stand up to heavy traffic. And, it has a good feel to the hand - a nice curve to it.

While people don't typically bring ceramic mugs into the shop, he said travel mugs are popular. With a lot of people it's what fits in the car.

Casey Yang, owner of Coffee Land on Charles Street in Baltimore, said if a customer brings in his or her own mug, they receive a 25 cent discount off the cup of coffee.