The Jacksonville Review caught-up with James Collins, owner of Stim Coffee, opening July 1st at the corner of California and 5th Streets. The following comments were excerpted from our ‘stimulating’ conversation about coffee, life and a new business venture.
Why I’m Nuts About Coffee–Coffee has been a passion of mine since I moved to Portland in 2001. I had never paid much attention to coffee growing up, but when I moved onto Portland’s NW 23rd avenue, it hit me right in the face. People think I’m exaggerating, but I counted twelve espresso establishments on NW 23rd, including three Starbucks’ Cafes, on a street that is approximately one mile long. Coming from Hawaii by way of Houston, the misty Oregon weather quickly motivated me to sample the local coffee offerings. Starbucks was familiar so I stuck with them for a month or two, ordering big milk-based drinks with lots of syrup. Espresso had always seemed really bitter, so I just covered it up. Then a friend of mine pointed out a little espresso shop across from my apartment, the impossibly named Torrefatzione Italia. He told me that espresso shouldn’t be bitter if it’s made well.
On my first visit I saw a line of people standing at a raised bar sipping from intricately painted demitasse cups filled with nothing but golden espresso. “I’ll have a double,” I told the girl at the register. It was a revelation. The combination of the right beans, the right equipment, and the skill of the barista had produced something magical: espresso without any bitterness. It’s not easy to do. I’ve come to understand that espresso is an art form, and a performance of sorts. It requires intense preparation, training, passion for quality, creativity, and attention to detail. It’s not just about the bean, or the barista, or the machine. Great espresso comes from the intentional harmony of all these elements, delivered precisely at the right moment in time.
The Stim Coffee crew from l-r: Mark Dean, Beth McNichol, Kristine Walker, Sophie Stiles, Blaire Holtby, James Collins, James Gerritz, Brittany England.
Why Stumptown Beans?—I fell in love with Stumptown beans around 2003 when I bought my first pro-grade home espresso machine, a Pasquini Livia. The machine came with a year’s subscription of Illy beans automatically delivered each week to my home. After a couple of months I was getting more serious about quality and pretty bored with the Illy taste. Being a natural gear-head, I had made some electrical modifications to the machine to improve pressure stability, but it still wasn’t up-to-par, and I was looking for the next project to improve the quality of my espresso shots. Around that time, a friend of mine, who always seems to discover the best of everything before anyone, gifted me a bag of Stumptown’s Hairbender. They were just getting going, and barely known outside of Oregon, but I was blown away. I suddenly realized that you can buy all the fancy equipment, tampers, grinders, etc, and do all the modifications you want, but it all starts with the beans. As my obsession with brewing the best home espresso continued through the years, I bought a lot of different equipment, but I never found better beans.
Third Wave Coffee—Despite already having an astounding variety of caffeine outlets, new cafes and roasters in Portland seem to be sprouting like blades of spring grass. The reason is something called Third Wave Coffee. In the first coffee revolution, people threw out their factory-ground Folgers and headed out to their local coffee house, where the beans were ground fresh and the company was good. Then Starbucks came along and introduced the world to a second wave of espresso and espresso-based drinks. Cafes sprouted on every street corner in America, serving every imaginable variation on coffee. Pretty soon, people were laughing about how the guy in front just ordered a half caf, no whip, extra hot, white chocolate, vanilla mocha-chino. It all got a little out of hand as cafes competed for business by piling on the sweet stuff.
Third Wave Coffee is about getting back to basics. Instead of relying on the big Bunn drip machines, cafes are going back to the old school with pour-over equipment made by Chemex, Kalita, and Hario. Instead of serving triple raspberry mochas, third wave shops are gently nudging their patrons back to an appreciation of “regulation” Italian espresso drinks. There is just no good reason for a 20 ounce latte. People wonder if this is about coffee snobbery, or even people snobbery, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s about sharing an appreciation for the fundamental artistry in espresso with other people so that they too can learn to appreciate the complex flavors that have been hiding in their cup all along.
Why Jacksonville?—Let’s face it…Jacksonville already has plenty of coffee. The Pony Espresso and The Good Bean currently serve a town with a population of less than 3,000 people. So of course when I decided to lease a space for Stim Coffee, people wondered if I had gone crazy. “A third coffee house? Why?” People tried vigorously to talk me out of it. My answer: there is a third way. Stim is not going to be another coffee house. For one thing, the space is more of a corridor than a house. It’s small, sure, but like Yoda, it packs a punch. It’s all about energy here. The thing is, while I love a good comfy couch in a nice, warm coffee house, that’s not always what I want as a consumer. I want quality, speed, and artistry in my espresso. Sometimes I just want to get in and out quickly, with a superbly crafted beverage, humming some obscure indy tune that the staff had queued up on Spotify. Having lived on a street in Portland with 12 espresso shops, I’m betting that we’ll find our little niche.
About Stim Coffee—Remember when you first smelled freshly ground coffee as a kid? I’ll bet when you finally got to taste brewed coffee you were disappointed, right? I’m not sure if anyone will ever be able to make coffee taste as good as it smells, but with the right equipment and the right preparation, we can get pretty close. At Stim, we want to teach our customers to love coffee as much as we do. And once you love coffee like we do, you will want to learn to brew it well at home, because some days you don’t have time to stop in and see us. Call us crazy but we are happy to show you all of our secrets and help you brew professional-grade coffee at home, without a lot of expensive equipment. You’re still going to come in for espresso though, because it’s tough to beat a La Marzocco Strada MP. Our shop will stock a wide selection of pour-over equipment from Chemex, Kalita, Hario, Cona, and more. We will have several varieties of Stumptown beans for sale, as well as boutique teas from The Art of Tea. At Stim Coffee we provide a welcoming environment where you can get the support you need to experiment with different brew methods until you find what suits your unique taste. There’s something here for everyone!
Stim Coffee is located at 310 E California Street, Suite A. They can be reached at 541-622-2085 or stimcoffee@gmail.com. Visit them online at stimcoffee.com or Facebook.com/stimcoffee.
Hours are 6:00am to 1:00pm Every…Single…Day.
Posted on June 26, 2013