BREW Five Points

Caffè Macchiato

7. Will BREW be an all day venue or will it focus on a particular part of the day?

I want BREW to be the first place you stop before work and then the first place you come after work, whether you want a coffee after work or to meet friends for a beer. Believe it or not, or goal is not to get you drunk. There are other places to go for that and they do a fine job of it. For that reason, we'll close a little earlier than everyone else. Plus, we want to go out and party after work too!


Community tables.

8. A lot of coffee places have moved away from classic espresso drinks to focus on blended drinks and coffees with syrups and whipped cream. What sort of coffee drinks will you carry?

We’re very rigid in our approach to serving classic espresso drinks. The original, old-school Italian espresso tradition was very strict as well. When Starbucks came along they added their own twist to espresso. Now there’s a new wave of American espressos that’s driven by advancements in technology. Even twenty years ago there weren’t machines that could easily control temperature or regulate pressure. Now, with the new espresso machines that are available there are all kinds of ways to extract different flavors from the beans. The old style espresso bars didn’t have access to all the varieties of coffee, particularly the South American ones and relied almost entirely on blends of the robusta bean, which had to be nearly burnt during roasting. Brewing back then was shorter and stronger and the espresso was almost always mixed with sugar. Now people are using lighter single origin roasts and experimenting with dosage, brew time and the myriad variables that go into making espresso. The result is a sweeter, more complex cup, with more fruit and floral notes to them.

So our approach will be classic, but in the emerging style that takes advantage of the newer technologies and available beans. There’s that and there’s the preparation itself. People are often confused about things like cappuccino, which they assume is made with a big dollop of foam, which it’s not - it’s more about the ratio of coffee to milk - and there’s more technology to steam your milk into a better texture.

We even take a harder line than Bold Bean does in some areas. If you want milk, we only use whole milk and not skim milk. You shouldn’t be drinking more than a few ounces of milk anyway. We’d even like to move people away from any milk towards just drinking espresso. We're not going to snub our noses at you or anything, but we want to help you learn to appreciate the coffee in its purest form. Many of us still drink lattes on occasion and have no problem making them for you but we do draw the line at flavored syrups. Coffee is delicious and doesn't need that stuff!

9. With all the espresso making technology out there, what’s the role of the barista at BREW?

Something I heard when I was boning up on my espresso making skills is that a barista can’t make a better coffee, they can only take away from it. Once the beans are roasted, it's up to the barista to extract the flavors hidden inside. A lot of people love the smell of roasted coffee but dislike the taste - that's what I'm talking about. It shouldn't be like that. A perfect cup tastes like the beans smell, but getting there is no small feat. It’s an art form and a science. You can’t just push a button and make a coffee the same way every time. Coffee is impacted by things like the outside temperature and pressure - so it requires a lot of attention to detail. You have to be passionate about it because you’re going to have to drink and taste a lot as you learn. It definitely helps to have a low sensitivity to caffeine.

10. How did you find your baristas?

It’s hard here in Jacksonville. I wouldn’t consider any of us to be really expert baristas (yet). There are a lot of people who want to be baristas with us but there’s a steep learning curve. We trained for a long time and we’re still learning. It takes months to be even decent at it. I really looked for people who had a passion for it and who wanted to learn. It’s a fun, cool job to have and, because of the learning curve, once you get some skills you’ll be able to get a job some place else if you were to move away or if a new shop were to open. It’s hard to know who will be really good at it. We focused on a person’s passion more than their current technical expertise.