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closeWith "buy local" a popular consumer mantra, a change seems to be occurring. There's renewed interest in commonwealth-produced cuisine and the arts.
When it comes to food, some products are obvious, such as our own Limestone Bibb lettuce, and of course, bourbon. Others, however, occupy more specific niches.
One such niche is coffee, and for that, the Bluegrass's own artisan is Mark Newberry, coffee roaster extraordinaire proprietor of the new CaffeMarco in downtown Paris. His product is fair trade, organic, handcrafted and utterly delicious. It is hard to believe that, with such high quality, he has been at this career for only a short time.
Now, Newberry sells his coffee by the cup — at CaffeMarco in Paris.
Mark Newberry said freshly roasted coffee, such as these beans, needs to sit for two days before the flavor settles.
Mark Newberry took a roundabout route to the coffee business. The Cincinnati native spent 35 years in California before moving to Central Kentucky.
You can almost smell this bucket of a dark-roast blend of Mexican and Sumatran coffee beans.
Newberry released a dark roast blend of Mexican and Sumatran beans from the roaster at CaffeMarco in Paris.
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Storage tips (not in the fridge)
If you have a local coffee roaster in your town, buy only enough to last a week or two. Coffee beans are roasted at a high temperature and go through a series of complex chemical changes, roaster Mark Newberry says. The bean puffs up as the interior caramelizes and the surface color darkens. The roasted coffee bean, for the first day or two, continues giving off carbon dioxide (that's what the little valve on foil and plastic coffee bags is for). During those first two days, the coffee's flavor isn't settled. From two days to about three weeks, the coffee is at the peak of flavor and lightness, and it is smooth, never bitter. Keeping coffee in an opaque, airtight container on the kitchen counter is ideal.
The problem with storing it in the refrigerator is that moisture affects the coffee. Ambient food odors also affect flavor.
Coffee beans can be stored for months in the freezer and will be fine as long as they are well-wrapped: double-bagged in plastic. They can even be ground and brewed frozen.
Wendy Miller
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Where to buy CaffeMarco
Online: www.caffemarco.com.
In the region:
■ CaffeMarco, 729 Main St., Paris. (859) 684-7555.
■ Capital Cellars, 227 W. Broadway, Frankfort. (502) 352-2600.
■ Doodles Restaurant, 262 N. Limestone, Lexington. (859) 317-8507.
■ Fresh Market, 3387 Tates Creek Rd., Lexington. (859) 266-0150.
■ Good Foods Market & Café, 455 Southland Dr., Lexington. (859) 278-1813.
■ Whole Foods Market, The Mall at Lexington Green, Lexington. (859) 971-8600.
■ Lock & Key Coffeehouse, 201 E. Main St., Georgetown. (502) 867-1972.
■ PeaceCraft, 307 Chestnut St., Berea. (859) 986-7441.
■ Lexington Farmers Market.
A Cincinnati native, Newberry spent 35 years in California, most of them in San Francisco, and a majority of those in publishing. In the early 1990s, that trajectory changed.
"I moved to a town in an agricultural valley two hours north of San Francisco," he says. "Since wine grapes were the cash crop in Mendocino — second only to pot — I applied my marketing skills from the publishing biz and started selling fine wines, eventually opening a wine brokerage that specialized in small family wineries in Mendocino, gaining placements for them in restaurants and at retailers."
But that was not to last. The area became urban because of an exodus from Los Angeles of folks seeking quieter and less expensive lifestyles. Newberry's trajectory changed again, this time landing him in Lexington,
"I always enjoyed the Keeneland meets and the lovely countryside in Central Kentucky, so the call to the Bluegrass was answered," he says.
There was no job to go to, but Newberry figured it would all work out. He did odd jobs for a while. One of the jobs was roasting coffee for a short time with a large commercial outfit.
Whenever he was asked what he missed most about the Bay Area, he found himself answering, "The bread and the coffee."
About that time, a friend introduced him to a coffee roaster in Cincinnati, who demonstrated that you could focus on quality and manage to stay in business. And just like that, Newberry understood his true avocation.
"I wanted to create flavorful coffee the way that he did and sell it strictly fresh to a limited area," he said. "That was the plan: staying small by selling to select accounts in the Lexington area only, roasting small batches, being in the stores each week so I could inventory the shelves and know what was going on — all the things the big guys cannot do.
"Plus, I am not a baker."
So he set up shop in Clark County five years ago, and CaffeMarco was born.
Since then, his delivery service and positive word of mouth have made him a household name among local java junkies. So has his regular presence since 2006 at the Saturday Lexington Farmers Market.
The reality
In the same way that distinctive wine depends on the grapes, good coffee starts with good beans. The flavors reflect the soil and climate of their origin. Selection is the most labor-intensive aspect of the business. Buying bulk can introduce mediocrity, so like any artisan, Newberry works closely with his purveyors, painstakingly sifting through sacks of beans from Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Kenya, Sumatra and, of course, Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.
Once the beans are chosen, handling is crucial. They can be roasted light, medium or dark.
"The light and medium roasts are more floral, have better acidity and allow you to actually taste the beans more," Newberry says, his wine background showing through. "That is why I generally do 100 percent single-origin coffee beans in light roasts, and create blends for the dark and medium roasts. A darker roast is richer and more mouth-filling but expresses roasted flavors rather than characteristics of origin."
Not only does Newberry combine the different roasts, he blends the beans, creating coffees of greater complexity. He also produces a decaf and, although not a fan of flavored coffees, he has created one for Good Foods Co-Op that has, as he describes it, "a reticent dose of vanilla."
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