Here is a text version of the article that appeared last week in a local business journal. There are some inaccuracies but overall I'm pretty pleased with it. The big drawback was that they printed my web address wrong (I corrected it here). They'll be doing a correction in the next addition. Quite a few people have found me despite the error.
As printed in the March '07 Edition of the QUAD STATE BUSINESS JOURNAL
Roasting Black Dog Java In The Eastern Panhandle
by Maggie Wolff Peterson
Brian Bircher worries that this newspaper article will make him too popular.
Already, nearly without fanfare, the company he started less than a year ago has more than doubled in output. Limited edition items on his Web site received orders within two minutes of being added.
I dont sleep much, said Bircher. Its a good thing my business is coffee.
Birchers company, Black Dog Coffee, was founded out of his love for the brew.
I love roasting coffee, he said. Im passionate about it.
Like cigars, another of Birchers pursuits, good coffee reflects its country of origin and the care with which it was harvested, cured and prepared. Different beans suggest different roasts, to squeeze the best flavor out of it, Bircher said.
For his own use, Bircher created a coffee roaster from a flanged metal cylinder suspended in a gas grill. Like the big commercial roasters, he used a gas flame to roast the coffee. It took 20 minutes to produce one-half pound. At Christmastime, he sent freshly roasted coffee as a gift to some buddies he met on a cigar chat site.
They became some of my first customers, he said.
Bircher traded his half-pound roaster for one that produces four pounds at a time, and will be getting a six-pound canister that will let him roast 20 pounds an hour. His eventual goal is to produce four batches hourly, in a machine that produces 30 pounds per batch.
Then I can ramp up the advertising, he said.
Sitting at home, fiddling with his laptop computer, Bircher created the canine logo for Black Dog, which is named for his eight-year-old labrador-mix, Bear. Bircher researched the name as a Web site address, finding theres a lot of Black Dogs out there.
Perhaps most famous is the store on Marthas Vineyard from which former President Bill Clinton selected clothing he was photographed wearing. My logo is nothing like theirs, Bircher said.
When Bircher tried to get the Web site address, BlackDogCoffee.com, he discovered it was taken by a Los Angeles restaurant. Instead, he took BlackDogCoffee.net, and has coexisted in cyberspace with all the other Black Dogs, including a Chicago marketing firm, a knitting Web site, a record label and numerous sites dedicated to the Led Zeppelin song of that name.
Bircher works from home, an 1870 farmhouse in Summit Point, W.Va., for which the kitchen was an addition constructed in 1929 for $563. There, Bircher keeps no fewer than three French press coffeemakers, two espresso machines, a drip coffeemaker, an electric coffee grinder and two hand-cranked grinders, for when the power goes out, he said.
A true connoisseur, Bircher can describe the differences between coffees from Malawi, Bolivia, El Salvador, the Galapagos Islands and Mexico, all of which are stored in sacks in a front room of his home, that functions as his office. His favorite: Yemeni coffee, from the southernmost tip of the Arab peninsula.
If I had to drink one coffee for the rest of my life, it would be from Yemen, he said.
A lighter bean, with a wild complex flavor, it requires a lighter roast to bring out its character. Bircher said Americans have been trained to drink dark-roasted coffee that to him, tastes burnt. But the long roast allows mass producers to make a uniform blend that will stay stocked as long as a year before moving off supermarket shelves.
Dark roast covers up defects and it covers up staleness, he said.
What roasting really is, Bircher said, is a cooking process in which the natural sugars in coffee are caramelized. The coffee beans cook at 400 to 450 degrees, then must be cooled quickly. Theyll just set themselves on fire, if youre not careful, Bircher said.
Coffee importers send Bircher small paper envelopes containing half-pound samples of beans, which Bircher roasts, grinds and samples the way oenophiles taste wine. A sip, a swish and a spit. Its called cupping.
You make a lot of noise, aerating it over your tongue, Bircher said. I dont do that in public.
Generally offering eight varieties, Black Dog prices coffee at about $5.50 per half-pound. Bircher has also established a coffee club, which automatically sends members two new varieties every two weeks. Most of Birchers business is done by mail, but his coffee also is available at the Midas Touch natural foods store in Berryville, and in warm weather he can be found at farmers markets in Berryville and Charles Town.
Originally, Bircher sold only whole beans, expecting coffee lovers to want to grind their own. But now, he sells ground coffee, too.
Still, he says the only way to truly enjoy coffee is to grind it right before you use it. Then, infuse it with water at 195 to 205 degrees - not quite boiling, he said.
Boiling, takes the oxygen out of the water, Bircher said. It makes it flatter and scalds the coffee.
For his own consumption, Bircher brews coffee in a 23-karat gold mesh filter. Typical paper filters absorb the oils that make coffee flavorful. I havent used a paper filter in 15 years, he said.
Gold filters are some of the gear that Bircher sells on the Black Dog Web site, along with coffee presses and grinders. There are also tee shirts and sweatshirts, and limited edition mugs made by a potter in Berryville.
Bircher imagines that eventually hell outgrow his garage operation and move to commercial space, with a commercial-sized grinder and a coffee bar to serve customers. Hell be able to produce 100 pounds of coffee an hour.
For now, Bircher spends a half-day each weekend roasting and a couple of evenings each week roasting and filling orders. For a company my size, Ive had a huge spurt of growth, he said.
Expecting 150 pounds of beans to last two months, Bircher was surprised when it went in two weeks. And one day recently, after sending a mass e-mail to customers, Birchers average order rate increased from one or two daily to 20.
By any standard of measurement, its a successful business, he said.
As printed in the March '07 Edition of the QUAD STATE BUSINESS JOURNAL
Roasting Black Dog Java In The Eastern Panhandle
by Maggie Wolff Peterson
Brian Bircher worries that this newspaper article will make him too popular.
Already, nearly without fanfare, the company he started less than a year ago has more than doubled in output. Limited edition items on his Web site received orders within two minutes of being added.
I dont sleep much, said Bircher. Its a good thing my business is coffee.
Birchers company, Black Dog Coffee, was founded out of his love for the brew.
I love roasting coffee, he said. Im passionate about it.
Like cigars, another of Birchers pursuits, good coffee reflects its country of origin and the care with which it was harvested, cured and prepared. Different beans suggest different roasts, to squeeze the best flavor out of it, Bircher said.
For his own use, Bircher created a coffee roaster from a flanged metal cylinder suspended in a gas grill. Like the big commercial roasters, he used a gas flame to roast the coffee. It took 20 minutes to produce one-half pound. At Christmastime, he sent freshly roasted coffee as a gift to some buddies he met on a cigar chat site.
They became some of my first customers, he said.
Bircher traded his half-pound roaster for one that produces four pounds at a time, and will be getting a six-pound canister that will let him roast 20 pounds an hour. His eventual goal is to produce four batches hourly, in a machine that produces 30 pounds per batch.
Then I can ramp up the advertising, he said.
Sitting at home, fiddling with his laptop computer, Bircher created the canine logo for Black Dog, which is named for his eight-year-old labrador-mix, Bear. Bircher researched the name as a Web site address, finding theres a lot of Black Dogs out there.
Perhaps most famous is the store on Marthas Vineyard from which former President Bill Clinton selected clothing he was photographed wearing. My logo is nothing like theirs, Bircher said.
When Bircher tried to get the Web site address, BlackDogCoffee.com, he discovered it was taken by a Los Angeles restaurant. Instead, he took BlackDogCoffee.net, and has coexisted in cyberspace with all the other Black Dogs, including a Chicago marketing firm, a knitting Web site, a record label and numerous sites dedicated to the Led Zeppelin song of that name.
Bircher works from home, an 1870 farmhouse in Summit Point, W.Va., for which the kitchen was an addition constructed in 1929 for $563. There, Bircher keeps no fewer than three French press coffeemakers, two espresso machines, a drip coffeemaker, an electric coffee grinder and two hand-cranked grinders, for when the power goes out, he said.
A true connoisseur, Bircher can describe the differences between coffees from Malawi, Bolivia, El Salvador, the Galapagos Islands and Mexico, all of which are stored in sacks in a front room of his home, that functions as his office. His favorite: Yemeni coffee, from the southernmost tip of the Arab peninsula.
If I had to drink one coffee for the rest of my life, it would be from Yemen, he said.
A lighter bean, with a wild complex flavor, it requires a lighter roast to bring out its character. Bircher said Americans have been trained to drink dark-roasted coffee that to him, tastes burnt. But the long roast allows mass producers to make a uniform blend that will stay stocked as long as a year before moving off supermarket shelves.
Dark roast covers up defects and it covers up staleness, he said.
What roasting really is, Bircher said, is a cooking process in which the natural sugars in coffee are caramelized. The coffee beans cook at 400 to 450 degrees, then must be cooled quickly. Theyll just set themselves on fire, if youre not careful, Bircher said.
Coffee importers send Bircher small paper envelopes containing half-pound samples of beans, which Bircher roasts, grinds and samples the way oenophiles taste wine. A sip, a swish and a spit. Its called cupping.
You make a lot of noise, aerating it over your tongue, Bircher said. I dont do that in public.
Generally offering eight varieties, Black Dog prices coffee at about $5.50 per half-pound. Bircher has also established a coffee club, which automatically sends members two new varieties every two weeks. Most of Birchers business is done by mail, but his coffee also is available at the Midas Touch natural foods store in Berryville, and in warm weather he can be found at farmers markets in Berryville and Charles Town.
Originally, Bircher sold only whole beans, expecting coffee lovers to want to grind their own. But now, he sells ground coffee, too.
Still, he says the only way to truly enjoy coffee is to grind it right before you use it. Then, infuse it with water at 195 to 205 degrees - not quite boiling, he said.
Boiling, takes the oxygen out of the water, Bircher said. It makes it flatter and scalds the coffee.
For his own consumption, Bircher brews coffee in a 23-karat gold mesh filter. Typical paper filters absorb the oils that make coffee flavorful. I havent used a paper filter in 15 years, he said.
Gold filters are some of the gear that Bircher sells on the Black Dog Web site, along with coffee presses and grinders. There are also tee shirts and sweatshirts, and limited edition mugs made by a potter in Berryville.
Bircher imagines that eventually hell outgrow his garage operation and move to commercial space, with a commercial-sized grinder and a coffee bar to serve customers. Hell be able to produce 100 pounds of coffee an hour.
For now, Bircher spends a half-day each weekend roasting and a couple of evenings each week roasting and filling orders. For a company my size, Ive had a huge spurt of growth, he said.
Expecting 150 pounds of beans to last two months, Bircher was surprised when it went in two weeks. And one day recently, after sending a mass e-mail to customers, Birchers average order rate increased from one or two daily to 20.
By any standard of measurement, its a successful business, he said.
