Meister - New York City Coffee A Caffeinated History

Published by American Palate

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2017 by Erin Meister

All rights reserved

First published 2017

e-book edition 2017

ISBN 978.1.43966.235.9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934947

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.600.6

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and

The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Books dont write themselves, just like good coffee cant be brewed by total automation. There are many hands that touch the worlds best beans before they become your delicious morning cup, and many personalities contributed to make this book a reality.

Thanks first and foremost to Stevie Edwards and Amanda Irle at Arcadia Publishing/The History Press, who saw value in the topic and gave me free rein to tell the story I felt needed telling. Gratitude as well to the rest of the editorial, design and marketing teams for their tireless work in making this thing tangible and readable. Its been an honor and a privilege.

Enormous thanks to the coffee men and coffee women who gave their time, energy, passion and trust to me by granting interviews, answering questions, responding to too-long e-mails, sending photos and generally being as generous as coffee people are known for being. Especial (and alphabetical) gratitude to Sarah Allen, Stephen Bauer, Abba Bayer, Caroline Bell, Andrew and Oren Bloostein, Amanda Byron, Dennis Crawford, Peter Giuliano; David, Karen and Sterling Gordon; Nicole and Steven Kobrick, Stefanie Kasselakis Kyles, Peter Longo, Caroline MacDougall, Kenneth Nye, Jonathan Rubinstein, Darleen Scherer, Karl Schmidt, Scott Tauber and Saul Zabar. Thanks as well to noncoffee professionals who pitched in with expertise and advice, including Donna Gabaccia, Jon Pace, Kim Racon, Oliver Strand and Jane Ziegelman. Big shout out, as well, to the New York Public Library and Hennepin County Library, without whose vast networks of resources this book would be nonexistent.

I owe particular gratitude to Donald Schoenholt, who is an absolute mensch, and who has gone above and beyond in helping, supporting, boosting, challenging and providing information for this project. I say in the book that he should probably have been its author, and I mean it. Instead, he went out of his way to assist me as I stumbled along trying to do a good job. Im honored to have made such a seemingly unlikely friend, especially with someone as passionate about both coffee and Theodore Roosevelt as I am.

Appreciation must be shared for the folks who kept the day job fires burning while I focused on this. My work family at Caf Imports has given me great freedom and support during this entire adventure, and I cant express enough love and admiration for my colleagues there. Massive thanks to Jason A. Long, Andrew P. Miller and Noah Namowicz for being inspiring leaders and trusting me to take on this project.

A huge hug to all the coffee professionals who have inspired, guided, forgiven and cheered for me along the way, both during this work and in my career. Coffee people are the best people.

Brett Leveridge gets a separate line of love and recognition, because hes the literal greatest.

Apologies to anyone I have unintentionally neglected; lets blame it on the caffeine.

INTRODUCTION

Attempting to write the history of coffee in New York is almost like attempting to write the history of the city itself. The people, places and processes that touch the caffeinated story of Gotham so thoroughly embody what the area representsboth to outsiders and insidersthat looking into the citys coffee cups has proved to be a microcosmic way of understanding what makes New York the unique and momentous metropolis it is. Coffees history, like New Yorks, contains multitudes, many of which seem to contradict one another: ambition and luck, generosity and ruthlessness, success and failure, us and them.

One of the aspects that this regional history will emphasize is that while coffee is not technically a local product, there is more of New York in just about every cup of coffee and every bag of beans in the United States than most American consumers realize. If your coffee wasnt bought or sold here, it may very well have passed through the New York ports or warehouses; even if it didnt touch land or water in the greater Gotham area, perhaps it was traded on the commercial market that originated here, roasted using technology designed by a local or packaged in a bag or can whose design was dreamed up by the countrys most innovative retailersmany of whom were good Brooklyn boys, either by birth or choice.

By exploring four of the major touchstones in a coffee beans postfarm life cycleits green state, its roasting, the cafs its served in and its ultimate brewed consumptionthis book aims to illuminate not only what coffee means to New York (and vice versa) but also the greater effect this combination of place and product has had, and will continue to have, on the caffeinated world at large.

Of course, there are limitations to this work, as with any. To write the history of coffee in New York would be nearly impossible; this is instead a historyone of a million possible variations, built from long hours of reading, candid interviews, good and bad advice, a Bronx cheer or two and years of firsthand experience as a New Yorker in the coffee business. It will be at least a little out of date even the moment its published, because New York and the coffee in it are always changing; every effort was made to keep up, up to the last. There will also be plenty with which a reader may disagree. New Yorkers love to argue, after all.

While New Yorks coffee history begins with the earliest settlers, this tale focuses primarily on the nineteenth century forward, with a few brief trips back to colonial times. It also avoids a long, in-depth look at the coffee plants horticultural life story. There are many worthy texts covering coffees origins, varieties, cultivation, processing and so forth; further reading can be found in the bibliography. Instead, this book aims to be a popular history focusing on the asphalt terroir that the Five Boroughs lend to coffee and the coffee industry. This history includes some of the quintessential local personalities who have shaped coffee in all its formsgreen, roasted, served and guzzled. These characters may seem larger-than-life to everyone else, but New Yorkers will immediately recognize them as kin, despiteor perhaps because oftheir flaws and/or failures. It also touches on some of the places that have meant the most, from the Coffee District to the Villages, both East and West.

Like any good kaffeeklatsch, this book will likely inspire a host of discussions, surprises, criticisms and good old-fashioned kvetching. I welcome all of the above and look forward to the chance to hash it out the best way I know how: over a cup of coffee.