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Photo by Dan Iverson
Carrie Ehlers takes a second for herself on a recent Tuesday morning morning at the Dunn Bros at 43rd & Upton. Ehlers runs the Linden Hills coffee shop and the Dunn Bros at 50th & Xerxes with her husband Brian
By Bridgett Erickson
A Dunn Bros roaster shares some tips for making the perfect cup Bob Vaseleski has one request of his fellow coffee drinkers: savor at least one cup a day out of a standard coffee mug.
“The coffee experience is 80 percent aroma driven,” said Vaseleski, who explains that when a lid covers the coffee, the customer misses out.
Vaseleski has spent too much time appreciating and creating coffee to let anyone miss out on the experience. He’s been the Master Roaster for Dunn Bros coffee for 12 years. Before getting that job, coffee was a serious hobby. His vacations included visits to coffee shops in different cities. He would search out quality local roasters the way other travelers look for museums. And now that search for quality coffee starts at the bean’s country of origin, and he is the quality local roaster.
Vaseleski selects many of the beans that Dunn Bros serves from Café Imports, a commodities broker off of Highway 280 in St. Paul. He examines the raw beans for any imperfections including mold or fermentation. Beans that pass muster are then taste-tested as a very lightly roasted coffee. If they are deemed appropriate for the Dunn Bros customer, the price is fair, and there are enough beans to supply the more than 100 Dunn Bros locations, then a contract is written to purchase the beans. Vaseleski waits a few months and then the
beans arrive.
Dunn Bros also works directly with quality farmers, a process called direct buy. This ensures that farmers receive a high enough price for their beans to continue to grow organic. Vaseleski says this arrangement is even better for the farmer than fair trade organic. There are many coffee regions and therefore growing seasons, so the company is always in the process of picking new beans.
Once the beans arrive, Vaseleski takes the green beans, an unusable product and develops a roasting profile. The roasting, which occurs at temperatures of about 440 degrees F, consists of three main steps.
The first step in roasting is drying out the bean. This process starts the evolution of the coffee bean color — it turns from green to yellow. Next, the chemical reactions begin to occur. The heat breaks down plant fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Finally, the bean starts to become that characteristic brown and the simple sugars start to caramelize. This last step is when flavor and aroma come together to make the perfect bean.
Vaseleski plays with each new bean’s profile. When he is satisfied, the profile and the beans are sent to the local stores for roasting. And the beans are ready to be ground and brewed within moments of the roasting process.
Some people would say that a bean reaches its potential three days after being roasted, said Vaseleski. So, Dunn Bros sells the beans right away. When a customer takes a pound home, they will hit the three day high-point and still have quality beans for the next two weeks.
And if you buy a cup of coffee in house, the beans are never more than three days old. How old are some of the other beans out there? Rumor has it that Folger’s is roasting 10-year-old beans. Other coffee shops may roast their own beans, but they are roasted in a warehouse. The beans can take at least two weeks to get to the retail location.
So, if you’re looking for fresh roasted or have a serious coffee hobby like Vaseleski, Dunn Bros is the place to go. If you’d like to learn more, check out the Dunn Bros in Linden Hills and on 50th & Xerxes for upcoming roasting seminars and coffee tastings.
Contributing writer Bridgett Erickson lives in Linden Hills.
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Art beat // Closing and opening
By Dylan Thomas
Art of This leaving current space, but won’t cease to existLYNDALE — A few weeks before they planned to shutter their Nicollet Avenue art space for good, John Marks and David Petersen of Art of This Gallery reflected on “Open Summer,” their ongoing, open door, last blast summer project. A free-for-all residency program that eventually enrolled 80-some artists, the slowly percolating “Open Summer” was building steam as it headed into its, and the gallery’s, grand finale at the end of August. And for all the potential pitfalls in telling some seven dozen people where the gallery key is hidden, about the worst thing that happened all summer was when someone spilled salsa in the refrigerator and never cleaned it up.
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On the mat // Green yogis in Linden Hills
By Sarah McKenzie
Devanadi Yoga, a new studio near Lake Harriet, is a trailblazer in the local yoga community. The small 525-square-foot studio, tucked behind the Bruley Center on West 43rd Street in Linden Hills, is the first yoga studio in the state to be certified by the Green Yoga Association for its environmentally friendly efforts. The studio’s green practices include using non-VOC paint, controlling the thermostat to keep the building energy efficient and encouraging students to walk, bus or bike to class. Tanya Boigenzahn Sowards, studio director/owner of Devanadi Yoga, said being green is “core value of the studio and it ties back to the yogic philosophy of doing no harm.” “Minneapolis frequently ranks as one of the top green
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Everyday gardener // Q&A
By Meleah Maynard
Struggling tomatoes, rain barrels and rootbound plantsEven though spring started in earnest in March this year, it still seems like summer is going by too fast. So, fast, in fact, my inbox has been a bit stuffed with questions. As always, I’ve replied directly to people who asked for help with various things. But here in the column I’m going to cover some of the questions that seem likely to be of interest to a lot of gardeners. By far, the questions I’m getting most are about tomatoes, so I’ll start there. Q: My tomato plants look good and have a lot of flowers, but I’m not getting a lot of fruit this year. What’s going on?A: It’s been too hot for tomatoes to set fruit
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Flavor // A smokin’ sensation on Nicollet
By Carla Waldemar
If you’re wondering what caused the traffic stand-still on South Nicollet the other evening, let’s just say I should have kept my window shut. When passing cars got a whiff of possibly the best aroma in the galaxy — I’m talking about barbecue, of course — they halted to demand, “Where’d you get that?” At C&G’s, of course. Greg Alford launched C&G’s Smoking Barbecue exactly a year ago; the anniversary balloons in the otherwise-Spartan, clean-as-a-whistle hole in the wall provided the only touch of whimsy in this serious business. Greg was born in Louisiana, which may explain his superior taste in food. He grew up in Detroit, one of 12 kids whose mamma set him to cooking when he was 5, he
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Wild city // Eating the yard
By Mary Jean Port
I love August. It is so lush. All summer, as I nurse the garden along, I anticipate these eating days. We now have too much of everything: tomatoes, green beans, heat, humidity, and also thunder, for those of us who have a dog frightened by it. I have been working our piece of ground for 14 years, and have good soil to show for it. Back when we first started, my husband was more of a lawn guy. He liked the idea of a garden, but drew a line in the grass with his toe. Don’t dig up anything beyond here, he said. So I dug my first of what are now 10 beds, and planted the pumpkin right on his line. The vines ran out of the garden and took over the whole backyard. My husband good-naturedly threw up his hands. We started with vegetables, and
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Kid rock
By Sam Lane
Twin Town Guitars hosts a camp that gives young musicians a chance to play and perform in a bandMore than 60 excited, camera-toting fans packed Cause Spirits and Soundbar on a warm August afternoon waiting for two headline bands to take the stage. The hotly anticipated musicians weren’t well known. They weren’t 20-somethings trying to strike a record deal. They weren’t middle-aged men trying to relive their youth. They were kids, ages 8–17, who spent prior weeks at Twin Town Guitars, 3400 Lyndale Ave. S., preparing for their first concert. In an economy where budget cuts deal constant blows to public school music programs, the owners of Twin Town have spent the last three summers providing a haven for aspiring
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