Roasting coffee attracts customers

By Hieu Pham, Iowa City Press-Citizen | August 30, 2006

Abera Tola, Oxfam America's Horn of Africa Director, and Tadesse Meskela, manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, stand near drying coffee destined for the fair trade market in the US and Europe. (Oxfam)

That's because customers get to watch as owner Mike McCain roasts the coffee on site, using imported beans for a high-quality taste.

"It's a whole visual experience," said McCain, a coffee aficionado who opened his coffee and gelato shop in July next to New York NY Fresh Deli on Iowa City's pedestrian mall.

McCain said roasting the coffee beans at the shop includes customers in a process integral to producing a savory cup of coffee.

"It's the roasting, which is the most dramatic process," said McCain, whose store motto is "Live, Learn and Enjoy." "If I'm roasting, people just flock to me because they've never experienced it."

Roasting his own coffee also gives McCain more control over the factory market, which is important because he wants to use his business to help impoverished organic plantation workers in Ethiopia, Congo and Guatemala.

"They can't afford chemicals to put on crops, so even though technically they're organic, they've avoided to go to fair trade organic regions (and) so they lose business and are dying," said McCain, who is planning a trip into those countries next summer to buy coffee beans.

Aside from coffee, the shop also sells gelato made from a gelato artist, Jordan Black. The flavors are all imported from Torino, Italy, and each day 18 flavors are available from a recipe catalogue of 75.

Plans for a local franchise also are in the works for McCain, who lives in North Liberty. McCain said he is working on opening another shop in Coralville and hopes to open two other locations in Iowa City.

He said the reception so far has been great.

"We are local, and the local people have really supported us, and we really appreciate it," McCain said.