Coffee Done Right

WALLA WALLA - Despite the most wishful fantasies about growing coffee in greenhouses somewhere in the hills around Waitsburg, it's obvious that sourcing one's coffee shop product here fresh isn't a possibility.

The plants just won't grow well above or below the nice, warm, tropical band around the equator, just like grapes require certain conditions that seem to be ideal just seven miles from town in, say, Spring Valley.

And traveling the world to buy individual batches of green beans, then roasting them on Main Street to get exactly what we want, is too expensive and too timeconsuming.

So, the next best thing is to find a local roaster who knows what he's doing. I've learned there's probably no one better or more reputable in the Walla Walla area than Thomas Reese of Walla Walla Roastery.

When we started the search for a coffee roaster and wholesaler, everyone from coffee enthusiasts to fine restaurants recommended him, and for good reason.

Reese is knowledgeable, subscribes to the anti-Starbucks roasting philosophy (i.e.: don't burn your beans) and he has local roots.

Waitsburgers who were around for the 1960s flood may remember his grandfather, Albert Land, who was mayor here at the time. Reese himself was born in Walla Walla but didn't stay long after high school.

He got caught up in the skateboard craze of his day and became a "sponsored" competitor, traveling up and down the West Coast. The sport is so engrained in him that his age (Reese is 49) hasn't slowed his zeal for catching air, though his body may no longer be as cooperative.

It's not unusual to see Reese arrive at his business, the small roasting plant and coffee shop he runs with his younger sister Mary near Walla Walla Airport, with Band-Aids and bruises from a weekend face plant.

In the 1990s, Reese found himself in the furthest northern state that exists on the West Coast, landing work and a new passion at a coffee shop in Homer, Alaska, where he got his first introduction to the trade.

When he returned to Walla Walla around the turn of the millennium, to a town that was in the midst of a big culinary, cultural shift because of the wine industry, he found that decent gourmet coffee was still hard to find.

In the summer of 2001, Reese roasted his first commercial batch at his house in Walla Walla and began supplying retailers, beginning with Harvest Foods and the Merchants Cafe that used to be on Main Street.

"We wanted to push for a different paradigm," he said about his gospel for lighterroasted coffee from selected countries of origin that few retailers had even heard of at the time - Sulawesi, Yirgacheffe, Huehuetanango and so on. The goal was to generate the best ingredients for classic Italian espresso drinks.

All that - Reese's passion for single-origin beans and his care in roasting them for European-style coffee beverages - was the reason we chose his product for our coffee shop.

Ask him to make you a real Italian cappuccino, for instance, and what you will get is the most delicious, small espresso drink with a modest amount of milk that brings out the sweetest, spiciest notes from a special mocha-java-espresso blend.

Of course, our shop will offer all the espresso drinks Americans are used to, including iced ones. But you will also find these European beverages on the menu so you can try the difference if you don't already prefer it.

Another reason why Walla Walla Roastery is a good fit for us is Reese's interest in doing what's best for the environment and the coffee farmers, which ironically doesn't necessarily mean subscribing to the fair trade movement, whose price cap on beans doesn't allow growers in the system to get more for their product when prices rise above it.

Neither does it always mean insisting on organic certification, a status that can be expensive and leave a lot of smaller growers out of the loop despite their long-standing tradition of cultivating their beans naturally.

He looks for shade-grown beans where he can, supporting the movement that encourages the growth of life-sustaining tree canopies above the coffee plants, and has a pet Third-World project in Southeast Asia.

Walla Walla Roastery carries two blends that include beans from Cambodia - the Ratanakiri Blend, referring to a province in that country, and Corky's Blend, referring to the Boston University anthropology professor, Merry White, who started a project to build schools in the rural, mountainous region of Cambodia. Two dollars from each pound of those blends is donated to the organization overseeing the work, American Assistance for Cambodia.

It's been an intriguing journey to learn all this and more about our wholesaler. We look forward to bringing his hard-sought varieties to Main Street this summer.