Share: 
THE BUSINESS OF EATING

The long journey from tree to your morning cuppa

January 9, 2016

The culture of coffee has percolated down from bean barons like Starbucks and Caribou to a legion of small shops and roasteries that craft their own style of the world’s beloved morning jolt. I’ve written before about Café-a-go-go in Rehoboth, where Jesus and Maria Ramirez whip up unusual brews laced with delicacies such as Mexican chocolate and ancho peppers. But some entrepreneurs are not happy unless they can order their beans raw and cook them on the premises. Lewes upstart Swell Joe is an example of this, using next-door neighbor Surf Bagel and other local shops and eateries to promote the taste they love.

By virtue of its location in the upscale Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, Victoria’s restaurant dishes up breakfast, lunch and dinner 365 days a year. So you can imagine that coffee is vital to their success; so much so that Jeff and Jen Zerby employ a full-time coffee nerd (his words, not mine) who selects, orders, roasts and blends gourmet coffees not only for Victoria’s, but also for The Point Coffee House & Bake Shoppe at the western end of Rehoboth Avenue and Coffee House, their partnership with Schell Brothers at the easternmost end of Rehoboth Avenue. That coffee nerd is Sean Hixon, and he knows his stuff. In fact, the coffee beans actually talk to him.

Sean comes to The Point by way of Stingray, where he was the pastry chef for the Cherry Tree Hospitality Group. He also worked with Lion Gardner at Blue Moon, but eventually became a baker at The Point. He quickly developed a fascination for the beautiful - but broken - coffee roaster left behind by former occupant Oby Lee. Sean enlisted the help of several electricians who eventually got the massive machine in working order. Oby had also left behind about 300 pounds of raw beans that had long since gone stale, so late at night and on his own time Sean taught himself the art and science of cooking beans. Fast-forward to the present, and Hixon is selecting and purchasing raw beans from all over the planet, roasting them under his own strict guidelines, and blending them into The Point’s signature brews. Diners at Victoria’s get to sip his handiwork as they contemplate the Boardwalk and the waves from the three-tiered restaurant.

The roasting begins as the business day ends. The process requires on-the-fly mathematics, accurate monitoring, and sufficient quiet to hear the subtle sounds that signal the doneness of the roast. (The beans get rather talkative at that point.) The enormous Probat coffee roaster dominates the front window of the shop, and it’s a lot more than decoration. It is Sean’s baby, and after the last employee has gone home, he ignites the burners to begin the preheating process.

Depending on the variety of bean and the ambient temperature, 450 degrees marks the moment that he climbs a ladder and empties a 25-pound burlap bag through the gleaming steel hopper and into the rotating drum. Hixon consults his graphs and equations to monitor, record, and adjust the rate of temperature increase, monitoring the change in color and aroma using a “tryer” that allows him to remove, observe and sniff a cupful of beans while the machine is operating. This process is repeated until he hears the barely audible “crack” as the shells break apart to expose the flavorful core within.

At that brief instant in time when the beans have reached their peak, Hixon unleashes a steaming tsunami of blistering hot beans onto a circular cooling tray. The beans are mechanically stirred as a vacuum pump cools the fragrant mass.

Sean’s car is actually a bicycle, and he takes that as personally as he does his coffee beans. Names for his exclusive blends include Wreckless Abandon (instructions on the bag: “Find some inspiration. Jump In. Figure it out later. Wear a helmet.”), Boardwalk Cruiser and Pedal Faster, just to name a few. Ask anybody who does it for a living, and you’ll understand that coffee roasting is just as much a passion as winemaking, beer brewing and distilling spirits.

In the words of former restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, “There is no right or wrong in matters of taste. It’s just an opinion … an extremely subjective one, given that no one has the faintest idea if what you taste when you bite into an apple is the same thing that I do.” Given that subjectivity, there will always be room for coffee, beer, wine and spirits nerds who make it their business to fashion their own favorite flavors for like-palated devotees to enjoy.


Bob Yesbek is a serial foodie and can be reached at byesbek@CapeGazette.com.

 

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter