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/131835
HOUNDSTOOTH COFFEE JEREMY KEITH HOUNDSTOOTH COFFEE CENTRAL PAIR continued from page 31 LONE STARS: (from left) Mike McKim represents Cuvee Coffee at the South by Southwest festival; Houndstooth Coffee draws a crowd at its third anniversary party; the interior at Houndstooth's newest shop features locally made furniture and a bar built from a single piece of reclaimed Texas pecan wood. machine. The space also features an interior design scheme awash in coffee culture. Half the floor is poured concrete—a symbolic nod to coffee-washing stations around the world—while the rest is graced with woods recalling coffee trees. A nother player leading the local specialty scene is Cuvee Coffee's Mike McKim, who moved Cuvee's roasting operations a few years ago from Houston to the Hill Country on Austin's outskirts. One motive behind the move was growth, he says, "but quality of life was the probably the biggest thing for us." Cuvee had two wholesale accounts in Austin before the move. One was Caffe Medici, a trendsetting shop that now has three retail locations. "Our business seemed to start growing in Austin," McKim recalls. "All the interest in our coffee seemed to be coming from Austin. It was other coffee shop owners saying, 'Hey, Caffe Medici's coffee is different than all the other shops in town, and the only thing I can think of is your coffee. So why is it different, and how can I make my coffee like that?'" Cuvee now roasts blends and single-origins for dozens of wholesale clients in its hometown as well as elsewhere in Texas and the United States. McKim's team this spring also opened its first retail venture inside the Salt & Time butcher shop, a new hotspot for meats—and now coffee—in East Austin. Six days a week two full-time baristas from Cuvee begin serving customers at 7 a.m., relying on a compact menu of espresso drinks alongside a featured drip coffee and a cold-brew option. That cold brew is a major consideration (and source of experimentation) for McKim and his team, which includes past South Central regional barista champions Lorenzo Perkins and Clancy Rose. They've developed a unique method of creating the extract: The brew process actually starts with hot water in an effort to bring out the fruity, floral notes traditional cold brewing can mute. After less than two minutes, a large amount of ice water is added and the coffee steeps for 12 hours before being strained and moved into kegs for efficient serving and distribution. It's a perfect symbol of Austin coffee culture: an innovative, quality-based product that's geared toward the city's unique (and often overheated) population. I t's also worth noting that some of the most intriguing, hand-crafted cups of coffee in Austin are actually served in restaurants. Neighborhood cafés like Cenote in East Austin serve breakfast and lunch while pulling fine espresso and brewing press-pot coffees. Barley Swine, a South Austin stop for locally sourced foods, offers single-cup pour-over and French press coffees with dessert. And Sway, also in South Austin, is a Thai restaurant offering table-side French press service with a house blend McKim's team developed to complement the cooking. "To me, coffee is as important a program as any other aspect of our restaurant's food and beverage offerings," says Jesse Herman, owner and chef of both Sway and Mexican cuisine hotspot La Condesa. Herman believes one foundation behind both restaurants' coffee programs is high-quality raw product. "I like the idea of applying terroir to coffee," Herman says. "At La Condesa, we were interested in using beans from the region—Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. I think it naturally complements the food." That sentiment may sound surprising, given the fact that many specialty-coffee pros have often watched restaurant coffee lag behind on the quality spectrum. But while Austin may have taken a while to join the specialty-coffee party, it seems to be covering all its bases upon arrival. And with local cafés and roasters now thriving, the next step could be more companies from other locales moving in to have a presence in this prime Texas market. Stumptown Coffee is currently served at the inshop espresso bar of Mellow Johnny's, a prominent downtown Austin bike store, but will the ever-expanding roaster look to show up more in town? And will Counter Culture and others add new accounts in a similar vain? Anything seems possible in Austin, but considering the city's record of local focus, it seems like a safe bet that Cuvee, Houndstooth and other hometown companies will remain in the front of the specialty-coffee pack. "Austinites are vigorous protectors of their local haunts," says Henry of Houndstooth, "and that loyalty to local businesses has allowed small companies and small shops to thrive in Austin." continued on page 34 32 COFFEE ALMANAC • June 2013