From Bean to Cup – The Coffee Maker Opens in New City

Two months ago, a new coffee shop popped up on Maple Street in New City. The Coffee Maker, whose name pays homage to the previous tenant The Shoe Maker, is serving up fresh, micro-roasted coffee Tuesday through Sunday, much to the delight of Orangetown residents. John Sofia – owner of the specialty coffee chop, roaster of the beans and a total coffee wizard, says the support from the community has been beyond his wildest dreams. 

Sofia, who grew up in Rockland, is well acquainted with the strong community ties in the area. Getting to be a part of the community as a business owner has given him a whole new appreciation for the members of his community, and is something he says he has enjoyed the most about running The Coffee Maker. “A business is not a business without a community…and the community has been so supportive” said Sofia. 

The first-name basis connection he has with many of his customers also allows Sofia to take things at his own pace and help to educate his customers about coffee beans and roasting. “I love when people come in and they have questions, because I love talking coffee”, shared Sofia. “We’re a type of place where we take our time…We’re efficient, but we also want to make sure everybody understands what they’re getting and they enjoy what they’re getting, too”.

Sofia gave the RCT a helpful overview of the differences in the types of beans he serves at The Coffee Maker. Hanging on the wall was a map of the world that highlights “The Coffee Belt”. This is where most of the coffee beans in the world are grown. At time of publication, The Coffee Maker has Colombian, Brazilian and Ethiopian beans. They are looking forward to continuing to add beans from Mexico, Asia, the South Pacific and more as they grow, but for now are focusing on their top three. 

Colombian coffee beans have notes of chocolate, a nutty flavor, and, depending on the region, may have notes of citrus fruits. According to Sofia, the Colombian coffee beans’ taste can range widely depending on the elevation the beans are grown at. He recommended drinking the Colombian beans at a light to medium roast, because “..when you roast a coffee light to medium, you taste the flavor notes of the coffee. When you go too dark, all you’re tasting is the roast of the coffee…All you’re tasting is more of that smoky flavor”. 

Ethiopian coffee beans, on the other hand, are known for their fruity, flowery and bright tasting notes, and produce a light bodied coffee. Sofia described the coffee as being “almost tea like”. Due to areas of Ethiopia having less regular access to water, the processing of the beans looks entirely different. The coffee farmers pick what is called coffee “cherries”, which is the fruit the coffee plant produces. The beans reside on the inside of these cherries and are surrounded by a substance called mucilage. Mucilage is made of sugar, pectins and cellulose, and while Brazilian and Colombian coffee farmers wash it off, the farmers in Ethiopia leave the mucilage on the beans and let the cherries soak up the sun. This infuses the beans with the sweetness of the mucilage, making the Ethiopian beans sweeter than the Brazilian and Colombian. 

Armed with the knowledge of how these different beans came to be and their flavor profiles, it remained a mystery what the austere Mill City Roaster machine did to transform the beans into a hot cuppa joe. Sofia was happy to inform the coffee curious RCT.

The humble beans start off as green as a wicked witch, and are picked up weekly by Sofia in burlap sacks, each one weighing approximately 150 pounds. The beans are placed into what is called a “hopper”, which holds the beans before they are dropped into the drum, which has since heated up to a precise temperature.

The beans have a cooler temperature, and as they interact with the heated drum it takes about two minutes to equalize the temperature. This temperature equalization is referred to as the turning point. As the beans lose moisture, a first “crack” is heard. One crack produces a lighter bodied roast, and a second crack produces a darker roast, as the bean has less moisture in it.

After this drying phase, the bean goes into a mid-phase, which is followed by the development phase. “That’s a phase where you have a lot of control over how you want your coffee to taste. If you want your coffee to taste very light bodied and more of the fruit… you’re going to take that out in a lighter roast. You go into that dark roast, you’re going to lose that, but you get more of a bolder flavor”, said Sofia.

Once the beans are in the development phase, Sofia stated that as little as 30 seconds can make the coffee taste completely different. After roasting, Sofia puts the beans to the test with “cupping”. Just like it sounds, Sofia cups the beans and tastes the coffee for himself to see if it has reached his desired profile. If not, he continues roasting until it reaches perfection. 

Sofia described the process of roasting as being highly tactile. “In the beginning, you’re going to smell just green. It’s going to smell like grass” said Sofia. After the bean goes from green to yellow, it starts to smell starchy, like pasta. The smell then becomes sweeter as the roasting goes on. On the side of the roaster is a slot aptly named a “trier” that allows Sofia to catch a few beans and smell them. “I’ll do [the roasting] pretty much in silence. There’s no music. The windows are shut. There’s no distractions, because you need to hear the beans”. Roasting time varies, but for Sofia it takes around 11.5 – 13.5 minutes to roast approximately 4 pounds of beans. Since opening, he estimates that he has roasted about 500 pounds of coffee beans. These small batches Sofia roasts in is where the term micro-roasting comes from, as he only roasts as much as he needs for one week. 

Sofia’s passion for coffee has been percolating since he was a teenager, and says he has “been drinking coffee as long as [he] can remember”, and that he “always had every type of coffee maker”. Atop his sparkling Mill City Roaster machine that Sofia now uses to roast the coffee sits what looks like an oversized tobacco pipe. Sofia shared that this device was actually a gift from his parents when he was a child and is a handheld coffee bean roaster. “You put the beans in, you put it over a stove, and you do a figure eight movement to keep the beans moving, like a drum would” shared Sofia “And at the end…you just tip it over into a bowl to let it cool”. 

On the side of Sofia’s high tech roaster, a black and white photograph of a grandmotherly woman keeps watch over the goings-on of the shop. Just across from her, a framed photograph of a young man in a fireman’s uniform poses with the broad grin of youth. The two are Sofia’s grandparents, and they remain an inspiration for Sofia. “[My grandfather] passed away very young. He was married to my grandmother down here, who lived to 105. Never remarried… She was a hard worker. Single mom, four kids – she made it work”. After her passing, Sofia’s mother surprised him by sharing that his grandmother had been putting money aside before her passing and had left some to him. Sofia remembered his grandmother’s encouragement, sharing “She always said ‘What do you want to do? Live your life. You have dreams. Make sure you go after them’”. That is exactly what Sofia did. Sofia looks to honor her legacy and hard work with The Coffee Maker, and keeps her confidence in him and his dreams close to his heart.