Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/105573
THE JAVA HOUSE IOWA CITY TARA CRONBAUGH, OWNER CAFƒ S ROAD S CROS BY DAN LEIF photos by DARIN WILLIAMS uring the past 20 years, The Java House has become known as the place for good coffee in Iowa City. The brand boasts six locations, and from the day the first store opened in 1994, every brewed cup has been made using pour-over or another single-cup technique. In addition, each day the company offers more than a half-dozen different coffees to café customers. However, unlike most quality-oriented companies its size, The Java House doesn't roast its own coffee, choosing instead to source beans from a number of different roasters and sell them all under The Java House name. D TARA CRONBAUGH Q: You go through hundreds of pounds of coffee a day, so why not roast? A: I've always felt that I want to seek out different companies and find the best of the best from each roaster. At any given time I'm buying from seven or eight roasters. I never buy all my coffees from one. I'll go to a roaster and buy one or two of their best and then go to the next. While it makes some of them crazy, we are constantly tasting and cupping, and it gives us the best at all times. That's what makes us different from competitors. Q: Do any roasters get upset that you're serving their coffee but not advertising their brand to customers? A: If they don't like it, we won't buy from them. And really the bigger problem is that sometimes we can't get roasters to keep up with us. We worked with Blue Bottle briefly and loved them, but they could really only send us around 80 pounds of a single bean. That would last us about a day. Q: A: Three of your locations are traditional coffeehouses, while the other three are kiosks in area hospitals. What do you keep in mind when serving hospital clientele? We've been in the hospitals for a long time, and we've learned to adapt. There are times when you serve the family member of someone in the hospital and you just have to say, "This one's on us. Hang in there today." We also do unique promotions on the hospital side. We'll do Dollar Latte Day and we'll get tons of people showing up. We don't do it to make money; we do it to show our appreciation. continued on page 26 24 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com