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Blacksmith Coffee (July 19, 2012) |
At first, after entering Blacksmith Coffee Roastery in Lindsborg, a visitor might see the burlap bags flopped in stacks on the brick floor and then note a few wooden barrels nearby. The visitor might wonder why the place looks like some cargo ship just docked at the local port.
The print stamped on the burlap bags and the barrels makes for intriguing labels, with their capital letters reading Jamaican Blue Mountain and King of Tonga. On the wooden shelves across from the barrels, shiny new bags of fresh coffee are lined up.
Of course, it is 21st century Kansas, and just outside of town, the wheat fields, recently cut but still gold, go on for acres and acres. On the highway, driving intoxicated texters have conceded their safety to other drivers on the road also going 75 MPH—the pace is much more peaceful in the town known as “Little Sweden.”
Mark Galloway, who with his wife Nancy started Blacksmith Coffee in 2008, is explaining coffee and roasting coffee to his visitors, but mostly he is telling us about the origins of some of his exotic coffees in stock. The huge, fire-engine-red roaster gleams just behind him.
The building’s beginnings as a blacksmith shop are prominent; on the exterior, the freshly repainted sign says Holmberg and Johnson Blacksmith & Wagonshop. On the inside, there are iron hoops where you could tie your horse. The building is on the National Registry of Historic Places. The roof of solar panels, however, is easy to miss until Mark mentions it. And Nancy points out that 95 percent of the energy they use comes from solar power.
The building is part of what made a move from Colorado to Kansas to start a business attractive seven years ago. Nancy (who is also a schoolteacher) had grown up in McPherson; Mark liked the place instantly when he visited. “To me, it really felt like a Colorado town that got dropped in the wrong state. It’s just got kind of a funky, artsy, touristy, sort of vibe going on. This building was open and it seemed like a perfect fit. This business I probably couldn’t have done where we were at in Colorado just because of the cost of real estate.”
They carry various premium coffees and have specialized blends, including, since they are in Lindsborg, four Swedish blends, but clearly, the spotlight is on the “exotic and rare ultra-premium” coffees. “My interest has always been in the origin coffees,” Mark says. “Story coffees, as I like to call them. Each coffee to me is a reflection of that patch of ground, that piece of earth.”
If the biggest choice you have ever made involving coffee has been between a light and dark roast, or caffeinated or decaf, allow Mark to provide you with a crash course in the global coffee trade. By the time you leave the roastery shop, you may feel like you’ve been on a whirlwind, “if it’s 2 PM we must be in Yemen,” sort of global tour—or at the least, as if you’ve just read a National Geographic from cover to cover. You then will probably find it hard to leave the shop without a pound or so of one of the Blacksmith Roaster’s specialty coffees.
It’s enough to make a wine connoisseur jealous—even before you’ve heard any of the biographies of the coffees on board.
“We have coffee from St. Helena, arguably the most remote permanently inhabited island in the world. It’s in the South Atlantic. If you look on a map, it’s not close to anything. In fact, to get to St. Helena, you have two options. You can fly to Ascension Island, which is 600 miles away, and take a boat—the closest airport is 600 miles away!—across the ocean, or you can take a Royal Mail Ship. There are two Royal Mail ships left in the English fleet. That’s it!”
Perhaps you are by now thinking you’d like to try at least one cup of that coffee.
“It has the reputation of being one of the finest coffees in the world. It’s also absurdly expensive. But! It’s worth it, if you’re a coffee connoisseur,” Mark says, comparing the exotic coffees to fine wines. “They may be expensive, but the terroir, just like with wine, is unmatched. Who has ever heard of St. Helena? Let alone had anything from there? You know what I mean? It is probably, if not the best, at least one of the top three finest coffees in the world. Is it worth it? I don’t know!”
It’s still early—the visitor might be thinking “Oh, after the lottery, if ever.” But how about a coffee from Tonga, grown on a plantation owned by the king?
“These bags here, you can see on top? We just got those in. These are coffees never before in the United States. It’s coffee from Tonga, the King of Tonga in the South Pacific. The Kingdom of Tonga coffee is grown on the plantation owned by the king of Tonga. When he goes on foreign visits, he takes his coffee to give as a gift, an official gift. It’s really cool, never before in the United States.”
Perhaps you could be tempted by the blend from Nepal called Mt. Everest Supreme?
“It’s the northernmost coffee grown in the world. It’s grown about 100 kilometers from the summit of Mt. Everest. It’s a really amazing coffee. . . . And we are the exclusive importer of that coffee in the United States.”
If you are carrying the northernmost coffee grown in the world, it probably is a good idea to have the southernmost coffee grown in the world. He points to an Australian brand. “There’s a plantation in South Africa that’s slightly further south. But they don’t always have a crop. So, I don’t count that because it’s more of a hit-or-miss thing. They have produced coffees that have actually won at the Barista World Championships. “
No? The visitor may not be swayed, but—
Well, why not consider the kind that grows only in Hawaii by producers and in the wild in Yemen?
Or the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee from a certain estate, an estate that has been continuously operating since the 1700s? After all, usually it’s only exported to England and Japan. If Japan’s economy hadn’t suffered this year, resulting in Japan not buying so much, which led to the growers who knew of the Galloways offering it to Blacksmith Coffee, this coffee wouldn’t be here.
