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Opposite page: at top, the original Coffee Klatch location in Rancho Cucamonga, which Mike and Cindy Perry opened in 1993 with all of their savings. Below, young Heather Perry keeps lists of details and notes about her mom and dad's new café. This page, clockwise from top le : Holly Perry (pictured with dad, Mike) was only six when her parents opened Coffee Klatch; Mike and Cindy, pictured, originally thought their coffee shop would be a short-term project to see them through Mike's graduate studies; at the company's 20th anniversary celebration—which was dubbed Klatch Coffee-Con— on October 19, hundreds of friends and regulars stopped by for roasting demonstrations, fresh-brewed coffee, and reminiscing with the Perrys. end of the first year we featured six roasters, so I guess you could say we were the original mulitroaster coffeehouse. I was always looking for the best coffee even back then. Our original plan was to just pay the bills until I earned my degree and went into that field. Not surprisingly, I fell in love with the coffeehouse and developed a real passion for coffee. So upon earning my degree in biochemical engineering in 1996 and fielding offers commuting to LAX or moving to D.C. or other cities, I decided to stay in coffee, and we opened our second location in San Dimas. Cindy: In starting Klatch, it originally was just going to be something temporary as a means of income until Mike completed his degree, maybe four or five years. It was going to be one café, and I don't think roasting ever crossed our minds—at least not mine. I think quite honestly my dream was to make this successful enough to make a living until Mike's "big" job came calling and then I could be back home with my kids. Sarah: Mike, when and how did the roasting start? Mike: In 1997, I got a call from a friend who told me he bought a nearby coffeehouse that had a roaster, but he didn't know anything about roasting. He asked if I did, and could I help him. Well, if you have friends or family members who are engineers, you know they think they can do anything. So we made a deal where I used his machine to roast coffee for myself, and in exchange he got free labor to roast all his coffee. Soon after, I bought my own roaster and started roasting in our San Dimas coffeehouse. There weren't many real schools [for roasting] so I read the manual and called the machine manufacturer Diedrich Roasting to learn all I could. Even though we didn't buy the machine from Diedrich, Steven [Diedrich] was kind enough to invite me up to [the factory in] Sandpoint, Idaho, to learn what I could. While I love Steve and Diedrich machines, his teaching was more about the operation of the machine than how to actually roast. I also found the Probat importer and attended their training school. While they were helpful in sharing what they knew of the techniques from Alfred Peet and Probat, I was still lacking real training. While equipment manufacturers and distributors want to help, learning from them is more like learning to be a chef from an oven company. I wanted more. I decided to use my engineering training and take a scientific approach to roasting, so I began documenting every variable I could. Unfortunately the temperature gauge on our roaster at that time was more of an oven temp or hot- air temp, and didn't record the bean temperature. Steve at Diedrich again helped me out, this time in relocating the temperature probe to the bean temperature, so now I could get a real useable bean temperature and plot temp versus time with air and flame for a roast profile. I would cup every batch and make changes until I found a profile where the bean was at its peak flavor profile. It was this process of experimentation, documentation, cupping, and—when I was finally happy—duplication—that became the process I still use today. Of course today roasters have proper temperature probes, plotting software, and even automation. But a real roastmaster still needs to develop a roast profile, and the key to that is still cupping. Sarah: Heather and Holly, when did you realize you wanted to stay with the family company and make your careers there? Holly: I knew that once I graduated from high school I had to get www.baristamagazine.com 19