Coffee houses continually pursue the perfect cup

"If I don't have my latte in the morning I just have a miserable day," said Julie Mattenson, a Silverton resident who commutes daily to Salem. "I just budget the money. I don't want to know how much I really spend in a year."

According to a 2003 report by the National Coffee Association, Mattenson isn't alone in her quest for caffeine. She joins more than 166 million Americans who consume the beverage daily.

Though many people fear they won't make it through the morning without their cup o' Joe, few know about the potent bean's obscure history.

Legend has it the beans were first discovered around 800 A.D. when a goat herder named Kaldi in ancient Ethiopia noticed the goats dancing on their hind legs after eating some red berries. Curious, he ate some of the berries and the goat herder was instantly revitalized and the rest is coffee house history.

Coffee beans are actually seeds from a cherry tree and grow in a narrow belt near the Earth's equator. While native to Ethiopia, many varieties of beans have flourished in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Columbia. Each brings different tastes based on grow times and environmental conditions.

The evergreen trees can grow up to 20 feet high although they are typically trimmed between 8 and 10 feet for easier picking. It takes approximately 2,000 cherries with two-seeds to make a pound.

Once the beans are extracted from the cherry they are dried, sorted and graded before being shipped to roasters around the globe.

What happens next is important to local coffee makers such as Fred Nagel from Gear Up in Silverton.

"Time is what kills a coffee bean," Nagel said. "It gets too much oxygen and kills the bean."

The longer beans waste away in a warehouse somewhere, the more the air robs them of their coveted flavor. For the best taste, Nagel said beans must be roasted within a few weeks of arriving in the warehouse

And even when the beans travel from tree to buyer quickly, there's still plenty of ways to spoil a pot of coffee.

"You can get inconsistency in the roasting," Nagel said. It's why he buys his beans from Kevin Gentzsch of Governor's Cup. Not only does Gentzsch buy the highest quality of beans, he also roasts them consistently well, Nagel added.

"Kevin loves to drum roast. You get this nice smoky flavor that is wonderful."

As the drum roaster at the front of Gentzsch's shop on Liberty Street slowly spins, the beans tumble and the smell of roast coffee permeates the air.

"Each crop I have to relearn how to roast," Gentzsch said. "They are all that different. Everywhere I go people have requests for dark roast. Not all these beans lend themselves to dark roast."

For Gentzsch, roasting is more art than science. Like a painter choosing a color from a palette, he must choose the roast and how much moisture a bean must retain to create the optimum taste.

Even with a good roast, however, it takes more than a great bean to create a loyal customer who will continue to return for another cup. It takes skill.

Nagel said the grind and tamp, how hard you push the coffee grinds into the press, is just as important as the bean and the roast.

"Too hard a tamp or too little can ruin a good cup of coffee," Nagel said as hot water pushed through the grinds and ended in a dark espresso with a caramel colored foam on top called carmosa. From this point on, anything can be added to create the coffee lover's delight.

Nagel said he isn't worried about how the economy may affect business. He said coffee budgets always end up higher on people's priority lists.

"People won't stop drinking coffee even when the economy hits the toilet," Nagel said. "When you can't afford the BMW payment, the cell phone is off and you can't afford an espresso. That will be the end of the world."

Fred Nagel, owner of Gear Up in Silverton, prepares a fresh shot of espresso for a customer. Preparing the perfect cup is all about the quality of the coffee bean, the tamp and grind, Nagel said.