Drip coffee gets sexy

I might cry.

This morning, completely without warning, my most beautiful favorite coffee company in the whole wide world opened their first permanent shop, less than a block from my office.

James Freeman runs his baby, Blue Bottle Coffee, with a refreshingly apparent passion that, unlike other food ventures powered solely by money and market opportunities, shows in the final product. And now, he’s opened a shop that lets us see a little more of the personality behind this previously reclusive little venture. No longer confined to temporary stands at the Ferry Building Marketplace or the oft-closed garage in Hayes Valley, they now have a sparkling new space in the new development in Mint Plaza here in San Francisco. And the world is a better place because of it.

I rushed over as soon as I heard the news this morning. I expected their fine coffee. What I didn’t expect was for my design and technology nerd interest to be piqued as well. But wow. The space looks as if Steve Jobs and Jony Ive decided to open a coffee shop. Apple references continually came to my mind, from the clean lines of the white ceramic to the black shirted and friendly staff. There’s a pleasant and subtle attention to detail throughout, from the slate-colored cabinetry to the shiny brass couplings on the incredible Japanese siphon brewer. Admittedly, this polished impression may partially be a result of the shop having opened just yesterday, so a few months of typical foodservice grime may soften it, but the effect today was completely unlike the typical pseudo-bohemian-mismatched-coffee-mug kitsch that so dominates the independent coffee shop world.

Espresso was created as a time saver, in the age of progress and rapid industrialization roughly a hundred years ago, to keep Italian factory workers from idling during their coffee breaks. Its allure to connoisseurs came from the artfulness required to tame the steamy hissing contraption required to bring it to life, and there is a decidedly geeky cool factor that comes with mastering the gadget.

But all the while, normal brewed coffee lingered in the shadows, with no sexy procedure attracting attention to it. Even the name sounds dull. Drip coffee. Yaawwwwwn. But the truth has remained that brewed coffee is a better way to experience a coffee’s depth and complexity. Hence the rows of single-cup paper filters lined up at coffee-conscious coffee counters, including Blue Bottle. But now, as Blue Bottle is showing us, technology is adding some glitz to boring old drip. Siphons! Whirlpools! Halogen lamps!

The New York Times article by Oliver Schwaner-Albright does a great job of summing up the state of the technology advances in brewed coffee, but spends most of its time on the Clover, which isn’t the machine being used at Blue Bottle. Theirs is a Ueshima siphon machine, and it is truly a steampunk-inspired marvel. With its wood, rope, steel and glass components, it looks decadently expensive and complicated, like a Rube Goldberg excuse to rack up the list price. But the proof is in the cup, and I’m pleased to say that mine was balanced and well-extracted.

The siphon machine at Blue Bottle will never appear at a Starbucks; it’s a quirky piece of laboratory equipment blended with an art exhibit, and wouldn’t make sense for any mass-market coffee purveyor. But for the happy horde that I joined this morning waiting patiently for a few drops of its elixir, simply watching it work is entertainment worthy of a visit.