A look through my journey into coffee.
Written by Andrew Paduano
Growing up, I never gave coffee much thought. Then over the past few years, the world of coffee has slowly started to seep into my life. For one of my first jobs, I worked at a large, chain coffee shop. Though, naturally, the focus was not on coffee. While I did enjoy being a barista, I did not learn much about the craft. During my first year working for The Vindicator, my coworkers often talked about their favorite caffeine-infused concoctions. Two of them even wrote articles on coffee and after reading them, I was hooked.
Michael Eadie wrote an article on making coffee at home and Kayla Pocos interviewed Emilie Stack, the owner of Emilie’s Coffee House and Wine Bar in Avon Lake.
When visiting Emilie’s earlier this year, the place had such a good atmosphere that it motivated me to try out local coffee shops around Northeast Ohio with my parents. At first, I barely knew what I was ordering, but I still was happy to experience all the new places. There is something different about visiting a coffee shop, especially ones that pay attention to their atmosphere and service – in fact – I’m writing this while in a coffee shop right now! With everyone becoming increasingly distant from each other now, it cannot be overstated how much these third spaces can offer a sense of community. I have been glad to visit and hang out at so many places, and it gets you out of the house more.
I want to get more people aware of the plethora of different locally-owned coffee shops and the wide range of coffee that they offer. Specifically, specialty coffee shops.
Many large coffee chains do not emphasize their coffee itself, the beans. Instead, they prioritize different flavors and sugar. While this can make sense for the general public, it also hides much of the coffee experience. From the farm to the cup, specialty coffee aims to extract specific flavor notes from specific beans.
Tasting coffee that was made to extract specific flavor notes can be so much more complex than you’d expect. If you can nail down the taste of the coffee bean itself, and you have high quality syrups and milk, the overall experience of drinking coffee will be vastly better than any chain or basic coffee you’ve probably tried.
To dive deeper into the world of specialty coffee, I had a great interview with one of my favorite coffee shops in the Northeast Ohio area, Calico Jack Coffee, located in my hometown of Mentor, Ohio. Run by Charisse, Christopher and Austin Barbian, Calico Jack Coffee has the best atmosphere of any shop I’ve been to and opened me up to specialty coffee.
This version of the interview has been heavily edited for length and clarity.
Andrew: “Today I have the privilege of interviewing Calico Jack. So what has been the journey from the very beginning? Tell me about your story.”
Charisse: “Okay, so it started out, my husband is a three times cancer survivor. We were in downtown Cleveland to do immunotherapy and he had to walk and just keep himself going between 40 minutes of therapy and so forth. We hit the local coffee shops down there and it was a hobby that turned into something he really enjoyed.
And my nephew, Austin, was making a film of the immunotherapy. We all got involved in the coffee shops, such as Six Shooters, Rising Star – we talked to the owners of Heartwood – and Duck Rabbit, which was my husband's favorite.
He's an engineer by trade, so he improvised and did mechanical stuff to a Goodwill, air popcorn popper. It was for fun and then it started tasting so well that my family was like, ‘Oh, we want coffee, we want coffee!’ That started the whole, ‘let's make this a business.’ We sat down and started doing business names and grew from there.
We opened June 9 and it's been really, really good. I’m impressed. So far we've been very blessed. People just look us up and they get right off the freeway. We've had people from everywhere. Mentor is amazing, they are so supportive.
Our beans at the time were Brazil, and still are Brazil, Colombia and I think we got Guatemala once, but we don't sell that here. We had Tanzanite, Tanzania and we had Ethiopia. [Chriss] pulls it at different kinds as he's roasting and then we figure out what we like the most in the taste. But the Brazil and the Colombia seem to be consistent. So that's why we stuck with those.
Our black pearl was our OG, I call it. It's our original coffee and is still my favorite. It has notes of caramel, chocolate and walnut.”
Andrew: “For someone who's clueless about this stuff, what do you recommend they ask their barista?”
Charisse: “The main thing you want is where it's from. What the weather's like, how the farming is, how it's bagged and brought to us to roast.
What I would ask is what their espresso is. Is it a lighter, darker roast? If they're looking for coffees or pour overs – pour overs give the most notes – I would recommend going in and getting a pour over or Chemex. If there's something they don't like about coffee, they need to let the barista know. The best way to do it is not to add sugars and taste the coffee. Our big thing is to choose local, small companies because you know that they're reaching out to the small-batch farms.”
Andrew: “What is the most rewarding part of running a coffee shop?”
Charisse: “The customer and the crew.
I love our crew. It's like a family. Our customers are like family. They have the most interesting stories. I love the stories and serving people is the best part for me. My husband loves to roast, and he loves to teach and talk about it, which he's gonna start having classes for.”
Andrew: “What is the most challenging aspect of running a coffee shop?”
Charisse: “The bills. Laughs
There's no rhyme or reason to how busy or slow we're gonna be. We ran out of milk today. I had to clean out two Heinen’s to get our Hartzler milk because our delivery is coming tomorrow.”
Andrew: “Do you have anything else you like to tell the students of Cleveland State reading this article?”
Charisse: “I want everybody to be inspired to do their own thing. I want to encourage people to follow their dreams. It’s scary, and it is a lot of work, but if you have a dream, go after it.
If you want to get into business or into coffee in any way, don't hesitate to ask your local roasters – your local coffee shops. Those people are dedicated.
Also, if you don't like coffee, give it a try. And if you don't like the coffee, try the teas.”
I hope this interview inspires people to try out their different, local coffee shops and dive deeper into the notes of their coffee. I know I have tons more to explore myself. Think of the experience as an adventure. You’ll find many secrets along the way.
Below is wall Calico Jack has displaying some of his favorite coffee shops, many of which are specialty, so look them up and check them out!
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