Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/804825
37 www.baristamagazine.com projects. For the past 18 years, Café Plaza has been operating as a jazz bar well-known for its Spanish tortillas and tapas, and Czech beers. Luis has been roasting for seven years, but only under the brand of San Agustín for the last two years on the advice of one of his regulars and a marketing expert, who is the one responsible for the genius branding. Luis proceeded to give me a tour of his roasting room in the back of the bar, showing me four different sizes of roasters thought- fully arranged for roasting samples (1/2 kg), microlots (2 kg), regular orders (5 kg), and blends or large orders (20 kg). He prepared a V60 drip of a new Ethiopian roast he was experimenting on, and served it eloquently in wine glasses. This was when Luis mentioned a particular café that he supplies coffee to in my destination city of A Coruña, called Dispar. I knew this was my next must-see, and I was again surprised it never came up in my online research—another win for coffee connections and chance encounters. I N A C O R U Ñ A W I T H J E A N Z U L U A J A Fortunately, barista Jean of Dispar was a little more connected on the social platforms, and therefore had long anticipated my arrival. Born of Colombian parents in New York City, and having lived half his life in Madrid, he eventually found himself in A Coruña, where he plunged in with his long-time passion for coffee, and opened a shop of his own in the city center. In Spanish, dispar translates most directly to "unequal" or "dissimilar," but in Jean's defi nition, it means counterfl ow and relates to not getting too caught up in the trends of the coffee industry. At the time I popped by, the café had been open for just over six months. Moreover, it had only been one-and-a-half months since Luis from San Agustín paid him a very special visit, on his own research trip. A quick chat and a few roast samples later, Jean and Luis began their direct collabora- tion, which started with exclusively Colombi- an coffees. Over the course of Jean's and my conver- sation, "counterfl ow" unfolded. "I want to offer only coffee," he told me. "No cookies, no foods, no tea. This has to fl ow through your veins. I don't want to sell coffee, I want to sell a culture." Jean wants to focus on doing coffee really, really well, and felt that this approach, for him, was the way it needed to be. Next steps will likely include offering fi lter coffee as well–potentially something more automat- ed but still very visually engaging. I also found Jean's approach to leche— milk—drinks very interesting in terms of their presentation. Keeping true to the concept of Dispar, and keeping the focus on coffee itself, lattes were served with the espresso com- pletely pre-mixed with the milk, giving the fi nal pour a very minimal fi nish, as you might Borja Gascón perfecting AeroPress recipes for a competition the following day in the San Jorge roasting headquarters.