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He knows beans about a fresh cup of coffee
With sure hand and critical eye, Ryan Mason opens a vacuum-sealed bag and pours coffee beans unto a digital scale. He grabs back a small handful . . . then just a few more. He starts to close the bag, but his eye is still on the scale. With fingertips, he plucks perhaps no more than three or four more beans from the batch before placing it in the grinder.
Mason isn't being stingy. In fact, he says he uses a bit more coffee than most of his many competitors. He's just that exacting about how a perfect cup of coffee should be made.
"We use more coffee, which means more flavor," Mason says. "But we pay attention to every detail, from how sharp the blades on your grinder are to how pure your water is.
"Since coffee's mostly water, it makes sense to have a really good filtration system."
Mason's Roast Coffee Co., 2132 E. Locust St., opened about two years ago, joining scores of other entrepreneurs in pursuit of the trade created by a national caffeine craze.
"Yeah, there's a lot of coffee shops," Mason says. "What sets us apart is the techniques that we use. There are only a few places in the country that go to quite these lengths, and it shows in the final cup."
Aside from precision and care in things like equipment and measuring, the techniques Mason is talking about extend to training. There is a human side to brewing perfect coffee drinks, after all.
"There is a growing and avid barista community out there," he says. "Barista is Italian for bartender. They compete at the World Barista Championship, brewing four cappuccinos, four espressos and four specialty drinks. We train off their scoring sheets.
"I don't care whether a new employee has experience or not. We're gonna rip 'em down and start over."
Preparation and presentation, however, do not trump either the original product or its processing. In other words, no cup of java will ever be better than the beans it began with.
"We have to remember that coffee is an agricultural product, subject to all kinds of changing conditions," Mason says. "Our roasters are getting the best 1 percent of the coffee in the world, which is sold only at auction and in some cases is approaching $49 a pound, green."
Right now, Mason's only lament is that he has to serve his gourmet coffee in paper "to-go" cups, because of difficulties in installing code-compliant dishwashing equipment. But he has worked out a permit plan and hopes to soon offer not only china and glassware but also coffee made by the "French press" system - "kind of a pure way to brew coffee," he says.
Mason started working in a coffee shop in Janesville when he was in high school, then went to work here at Alterra when he was in college.
"I came up here for school and never left," he says. "I've always had a passion for coffee. I don't know why."
Roast doubles as an art gallery, enlivening the atmosphere for patrons who have time to sit and think while they drink. The café décor and current show are by Trillium Ltd., a Bay View consortium of three artists who create "crafted surfaces" for interior design.
"It gives the café a fresh feel," says Mason - a man still, and always, bent on the magic of a fresh cup of coffee.
From the April 14, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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