| Food - Damn this is Good Coffee |
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| Written by Tom Carrig | |
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A year later and I’m still not a coffee geek. I’ve become an educated coffee consumer. Maybe even an overeducated consumer. After cooking and sharing a nice dinner with friends, I love brewing up some serious coffee and regaling my captive audience with my java expertise. After noshing on my quality grub and quaffing my generous servings of wine, I figure that my guests can endure a lecture on coffee, especially when they are sipping on a freshly brewed cup that was ground from beans that retail for about $75 per pound! Yeah, that is not a misprint. Sometimes I question my sanity when I think about the price of those beans. I am not monetarily wealthy by any definition, but on those special occasions when I brew the good stuff, inhale the aromas and take a sip, I know that I am very sane. It also brings life to my coffee orations. I love to talk about coffee flavors with descriptors like “toasted hickory,” “baking bread,” “autumn in the woods” and “cigar-box aromas” as opposed to saying “good coffee,” or something obvious. So when I speak about the brewed liquid from roasted beans in such a manner, it is invaluable to put a cup of coffee in front of someone that is so good that they take a whiff and a sip and say “yeah, I get it.” Coffee that good comes from Ospina Coffee Company, the oldest coffee company in the world.  Ospina Coffee was founded in 1835 in South America by Don Mariano Ospina-Rodriguez, who also happened to be elected President of Colombia a few years later. So passionate was Don Mariano about coffee that he searched high and low for the best lands to grow coffee, which turned out to be high in the Andes, under the canopy of the tropical forest. At over 7,000 feet above sea level, the temperature cycle and sunlight exposure captures every nuance a coffee bean could love. As an agronomist, Ospina selected his coffee site using the “terroir” approach common in the wine world. The Ospina family has played an important role in the world of coffee and Colombian politics since 1835. Don Mariano’s son and grandson both continued to develop the family coffee business, and both were also elected Presidents of Colombia – talk about a dynasty! The National Federation of Coffee Growers, founded by grandson Mariano Ospina-Perez, successfully organized the nation’s coffee industry. (He also created the character of Juan Valdez as a marketing tool for Colombian coffee that we all remember from TV ads.) Perhaps the coolest thing about the Ospina Coffee Company is that it is now headquartered here in Charlotte. Mariano Ospina is a Charlotte resident and the 5th generation to lead the coffee empire founded in 1835. After being educated in the U.S. and raising his family here, he felt it was better to stay in Charlotte to develop his coffee business rather than return to Colombia to fulfill his political aspirations. I had the pleasure of learning the history of his family (and a lot about coffee) as we shared a few cups at an outside table at the Dean & DeLuca at Phillips Place. It was one of those warm, sunny summer days that showed up in late fall – the kind of day that makes you feel like you got away with something. The house blend we sipped set the tone for our chat – comforting, with hints of dark chocolate and caramel. It seems to me that it would be difficult to live up to such an amazing family history, yet Ospina does it effortlessly. After pursuing interests as varied as lobster fishing and commodities trading, he decided to return to his coffee roots without leaving Charlotte. He created the Ospina brand and backed it with a top-shelf product. In 2003, he marketed Ospina Estate coffee with beans picked between elevations of 6,100 and 6,800 feet. The coffee is so impressive that the ultra-chic Robb Report named it “Best of the Best”. Estate was followed by Ospina Presidential Coffee, Premier Grand Cru Private Reserve, named after the family heritage, which is made from beans hand-picked at elevations over 6,800 feet. After three years in Charlotte, Ospina Coffee Company has been winning awards worldwide and is experiencing steady growth. Ospina has entertained offers to mass-market the product, but prefers to work with discriminating partners such as Dean & DeLuca. Opsina-Perez’s most recent venture is developing the Bambuco line of premium coffees exclusively for Harris Teeter. And while the beans come from high in the Andes, this coffee has a very strong Charlotte flavor, since Ospina and Harris Teeter are both based in the Charlotte area. Custom roasting at Dilworth A local custom roaster of coffee beans can also be found in Charlotte, at Dilworth Coffee. Don and Alyene Keen, the founders of Dilworth Coffeehouse, did not grow up with coffee in their family trees. As a chemical engineer for a European company, Don was traveling across the pond in the early 1980’s on business when he decided to drop into a nice looking coffee shop. The quality of the coffee he ordered astonished him so much that his life would never be the same. As an engineer, he needed to know what differences in the coffee-making process could produce the sublime cup he experienced in Austria as well as the bland stuff he was used to in the U.S. from the same raw ingredient. He figured it all out and he and Alyene opened Dilworth Coffee House to provide Charlotte with gourmet coffee in a comfortable environment. Sandy May is in charge of Sales & Operations for Dilworth Coffee and has been with the company since 1993. He explained that as more and more Charlotte citizens discovered great coffee, Dilworth Coffee got more and more inquiries from specialty retailers, coffeehouses and restaurants to supply them with its products. Eventually, Don and Alyene were running a wholesale bean business out of their small store in addition to the café business. Today, Dilworth Coffeehouse has 12 retail stores throughout the area and a custom roasting facility in the South End. The cup of coffee that Sandy handed me for our walk around the facility was every bit as good as I expected. As the aroma made its way to my nose, I thought of a big Portobello mushroom over a fire of lump hardwood coal. I never realized how much technique was involved in roasting coffee until I watched these guys in action. Every variety of raw beans that they get is different and requires slight differences in roasting to bring out the best flavors. It is impressive to watch the roasters pull samples every so often and adjust the conditions based on what they see. And the ability to halt the process at exactly the right moment requires training and experience. Perhaps the ever increasing availability of great coffee is the biggest hurdle between me and total coffee geekdom. People like Mariano Ospina, Don & Alyene Keen, and Sandy May are putting out such delicious world-class products that it doesn’t make much sense for me to try and do it at home. Or does it? Hmmm…. ~ Tom Carrig |
