The Solid Grounds Coffee Company

by Carla Laureano

  He grinned at her, but he didn’t budge. When the timer finally beeped to indicate nine minutes was up, he handed her a spoon that had a deep, round bowl. “Time to taste now. Ladies first.”

  “No, I wouldn’t dream of it. This is your farm, your beans, your company. I insist.”

  Bryan dipped his spoon into the coffee and slurped his first taste. Ana waited expectantly, watching his face for any clues to his thoughts. “Now you.”

  “You’re not going to say what you think?”

  “I don’t want to influence you.” He took her spoon, dipped it into her cup, and held it out to her. She breathed in the scent of fresh coffee and then leaned forward to sip the coffee out of the spoon.

  Flavor exploded on her tongue. “It’s good!”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “No, I’m not, it’s just that . . .” She took the spoon from him and dipped it in herself to take another taste. “I taste something vaguely nutty and kind of . . . sweet. Chocolate-like. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

  “That’s a characteristic of Colombian beans,” Bryan said. “Personally, I think this could be roasted a little lighter. But the sample roaster roasts hotter, plus it’s all done by eye. I’ll have the probe data to work with on the drum roaster.”

  She went back for another taste, and then she had to cut herself off. Considering it was nearly midnight, any more than a few sips of coffee would have her up for the rest of the night. She caught Bryan watching her in quiet satisfaction and realized that he hadn’t been quite as concerned as he’d suggested. “You’re not surprised.”

  He shook his head slowly. “We had the coffee graded at the farm, so I knew the beans were good. There’s just always the possibility of improper packaging or damage in transit . . .” He let out a breath and for the first time gave her a full smile. “It’s a good harvest. We may not have much to work with, but it’s top quality.”

  He looked so pleased and relieved that Ana couldn’t help throwing her arms around his torso and giving him a hug. “Congratulations, Bryan. I’m so happy for you.”

  Slowly, his arms went around her, his fingers tightening against her back, and she caught her breath, realizing she was pressed up against him. As quickly as she could manage without looking conspicuous, she pulled back and straightened herself. “What now?”

  “We get the roaster installed tomorrow, and then I fine-tune my roasting process.”

  “On these beans?”

  He grimaced. “I chickened out as soon as they arrived and bought some inexpensive Colombian greens from a local supplier. The last thing I want to do is ruin all our good beans.”

  “That sounds sensible. How soon do you think we’ll have samples for me to give out?”

  “If all goes well? A week, maybe two.”

  “Then I need to get on top of the packaging. Logos will be in tomorrow. Are you okay with doing something simple, like a clear label that we can put on generic bags, until we get customized packaging?”

  “Absolutely. Whatever we need to do.”

  Ana hoisted her bag and gave a decisive nod. “I’ll be in touch, then. And . . . congratulations again, Bryan. I’m really happy that you’re happy.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate you coming over here. It would have killed me to wait.”

  “Honestly? Me too.”

  Ana stood there for a long moment for a reason she couldn’t name, then turned and left.

  No, that wasn’t correct. She fled.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE INSTALLER ARRIVED first thing on Thursday morning, a guy with a Southern drawl, a plaid shirt, and a beard that made him look like a member of ZZ Top. He was one of the recommended technicians for this brand of roaster, however, and the instant he walked into the room, he put Bryan at ease with his knowledge and his confidence.

  It seemed like it would have been an easy enough thing to install a twelve-kilogram roaster in a small warehouse, but as Bryan watched from the outskirts as the construction team arrived, he realized it was far more complex than he thought. The roaster got precisely positioned so that the stack would clear the steel rafters, then bolted down to the concrete floor. Then each part was checked, tightened, and reassembled as needed, the gas supply hooked up, and the vent and afterburner parts assembled. Then it was all the construction work, cutting a hole in the ceiling for the exhaust vent and weather-sealing the opening. Considering how much was involved, it went fairly quickly and smoothly.

  Then came the fun part: firing up the roaster and testing everything from the thermocouple that would tell him the drum temperature as he was roasting to the computer link that would upload and analyze all the data coming from the machine. A lot of the process was still done by eye, but establishing a profile for each bean and each shipment would help ensure consistency that was sometimes lacking from roasters who did everything completely by feel. Like climbing, roasting was equal parts touch and physics.

  Bryan found himself holding his breath as the first information began to filter onto the screen, plotting a temperature curve on the x and y axes. The technician fiddled with the manual adjustments on the roaster, changing gas and air flow until the flames burned a precise orange-tipped blue.

  “Nice machine,” he said finally. “You got a good deal.”

  Bryan let out a breath. Up until now, some part of him had wondered if his eighteen-thousand-dollar gamble would pay off.

  “I’m not going home until tomorrow,” the technician said. “Roast a sample batch or two tonight to make sure everything’s working properly and you understand all the adjustments. I’ll drop by in the morning and make sure you’re satisfied.”

  Bryan shook his hand and thanked him for his help, and then he was alone in his roastery with his new-to-him equipment and a bag of mid-quality beans. He pulled out his phone and texted Ana: Roaster installed and working properly. About to test-roast my first batch.

  Several moments later, her reply came back: So glad to hear that. Tell me how it turns out.

  He pushed down the feeling that bubbled up at her response. Surely it wasn’t disappointment. She was helping him on the business side; the roasting was his responsibility. Still, he’d begun to think of them as something of a team, even if he’d been stupid to think she’d want to witness this event. It meant a lot more to him than it did to her. It symbolized the start of a new business. A new life. Maybe one in which someone like Ana might be interested in someone like him.

  He turned on the roaster, brought up the software, and started the roaster heating. This was a double-walled design in which a smaller steel drum rotated inside a larger one, which was in turn heated by the burner. The air space between the two transferred heat to the inner drum by convection; in Bryan’s opinion, it was preferable to a direct-heat method because it cut down on the possibility of scorching the beans early in the roast, something like heating chocolate in a double boiler rather than in a pot on the stove. He’d made that mistake young, when he’d attempted to make hot chocolate by melting Hershey bars over high heat on his mom’s range.

  He started by weighing his beans. The roaster had a twelve-kilogram capacity, but it worked best at three-quarters full, so he weighed out nine kilos. Then he checked the beans’ humidity with a hygrometer and noted it in the space in the software that kept track of the profile for a particular bean. He was going to start at 450 degrees on this one, knowing that high-altitude Colombian beans liked a hotter temperature than Ethiopian or Kenyan.

  Once the roaster hit temperature, he carefully poured the beans into the hopper, the sound as they hit the hot drum like marbles on a tile floor. Almost instantly the grassy smell of green coffee beans hit his nostrils. He glanced back at the computer and watched the drum temperature plummet as the cooler beans were inserted, waiting for “the turn,” where the temperature would begin to rebound.

  It climbed almost immediately. And kept climbing. The pop of the first beans at six minutes was his first indication that
the roast wasn’t going the way he wanted it to, but he decided to let it go and find out what would happen. The software told him he was leveling off at his desired roasting temperature, but it was progressing far too fast. When he hit second crack at only nine minutes, he shut the roaster down and emptied the beans into the tray where agitator blades churned them until they cooled to room temperature. He scowled at them, dark and oily. He had been going for a medium brown with barely a sheen. As soon as they were cool enough to handle, he pulled a couple from the tray and popped one in his mouth. And immediately spit it in the trash.

  He’d still cup it, but it would be more for educational purposes than decision-making. This batch was a bust.

  Bryan pulled out his cell phone, about to text Ana an update, but shoved it back in his pocket just as quickly. She didn’t need to hear about his failures. He knew there would be some, but in order for her to do her job properly, she needed to have confidence in the product they were selling. What he had in front of him right now, he didn’t want to drink, let alone sell.

  He saved the profile so he could refer to it later, shut down his computer, and turned off the lights in the roasting room. It was just past eight o’clock, and he’d now been here for fourteen hours. This time he did send a text, but to Alex: Whatcha doing, bro?

  A couple of minutes passed, and Bryan locked up all the doors and shut down all the lights but the one in the reception area. His back pocket beeped.

  Dinner with Rachel. Why?

  No reason. Going home then. He wasn’t going to interrupt his friend’s time with his fiancée, especially since Rachel was so busy. But it only served to highlight the fact that he had absolutely nothing waiting for him at home. It wasn’t even a home. It was his parents’ house, where he was a welcome but slightly frustrating houseguest. No doubt they looked at him and wondered where they’d gone wrong.

  The gym then. He kept a bag in the back of his car so he could pop in when the impulse struck. He drove across town to the climbing gym, swiped his card at the front desk, and proceeded straight to the locker room. It brought him past one of the climbing walls, where two climbers, a woman and a man, were working their way up the multicolored holds set in the concrete wall. A wash of longing hit him with unexpected force. How long had it been now? Seven months? Eight? Already his calluses were beginning to soften. Were he to attempt an outdoor route, the rough rock would probably rub his fingers raw. Kiss of death for a professional climber. No, worse than that. A sign of shame. An indication that he’d given up, gone conventional.

  He sped up again, dumped his stuff in his locker, and changed into a T-shirt and shorts before heading to the weight room, where he could punish his body with free weights until he forgot what it felt like to be hanging in space by his fingertips, managing his adrenaline to conserve his energy, knowing exactly how long he had before his muscles gave out on him.

  That man—the thrill seeker who made bad decisions based on how they made him feel, who used women who didn’t matter to him so he could forget the one who did—was long gone. He didn’t want him back. Wouldn’t risk encountering him again on the slab and not being able to leave him behind.

  He was already back in the locker room, heading for the showers, before he realized the woman he was trying to push from his mind tonight wasn’t Vivian, but Ana.

  * * *

  She was not avoiding Bryan.

  No, the real reason Ana was staying away from the roastery this week had to do with her massive to-do list, not the fact that she’d had another . . . moment . . . with a man she was trying hard to keep at arm’s length.

  She started her day early as usual at the gym, pushing herself through a ninety-minute hot yoga class that left her feeling wrung out like a limp rag. A shower and a protein shake later, she turned to her list, which involved following up on some details on the wedding venue with Darcy. The farm’s phone just rang, however, and Ana left a message to call her back as soon as possible.

  That meant turning her attention to the page-long list of tasks for Solid Grounds. She hadn’t been happy with the first batch of logos she got from her graphic designer, so she sent them back with a critique for a second round of designs. Until that got nailed down, she couldn’t do anything about packaging, signage, or marketing materials.

  She could, however, finish writing all the copy for the website. Her designer was already working on the shell of the site, ready to plug in the graphics and the content as soon as she could provide it, which basically meant she was behind on the whole process. Their selling point was the story: how a professional climber had come to be involved with a nonprofit co-op, then bought a coffee farm in Colombia. She just had to cast it in a way that was not only engaging and exciting, but also easily repeatable. It was one thing to sell people on the coffee and the concept; it was another to let them use it as a value-added offering for their own brand. Denver was a socially conscious city that already prioritized local businesses over chains; to be able to offer coffee with a wider vision but home-based roots was an opportunity that they wouldn’t let pass by.

  She was so absorbed in crafting the messaging for Solid Grounds that she didn’t notice the sun going down through her wide apartment windows until she looked up into full night. No wonder her stomach was beginning to feel hollow. She hadn’t stopped for lunch and it was already edging past her usual dinnertime.

  She quickly scanned what she had written and felt a glow of satisfaction at the accomplishment. It may have taken her all day, but she’d finally come up with something that was interesting and mildly inspirational without being hyperbolic. She already knew that Bryan would give her pushback on how she had portrayed him, but that was one battle she was not going to lose. He’d put her in charge of messaging, so he was going to have to defer to her judgment.

  It wasn’t so different from what she did for her other clients, she realized. She worked on their images by giving them humanitarian activities, things that would show they really weren’t the heartless, immoral capitalists that everyone assumed they were. The only difference was, Bryan’s activities were a legitimate outgrowth of change that had taken place long before she got a hold on him.

  It was nice for once to tell a story that actually existed rather than having to craft one from scratch and then bully the client into climbing on board.

  She saved the file, attached it to an email, and sent it to Bryan with the cover note, Your new website copy. Let me know what you think. And no, I’m not taking you out of this, so don’t ask.

  She smiled as she pressed Send, then sat in her quiet apartment, wondering what to do next. Dinner, she supposed.

  A half hour later, sitting in front of a steamed sweet potato and a hastily sautéed chicken breast, she wondered if she should have gone out. Even when she didn’t have company, sometimes it was enough to be in public, surrounded by people. It cut the lonely feeling that came from living in this city and working the long hours that most Denverites worked. The vaunted Colorado work-life balance basically just meant they spent their free time climbing, biking, or kayaking rather than binge-watching Netflix. It didn’t necessarily translate to more connection or less work.

  She clicked on her television for the noise and tuned it to a network channel before switching it off just as quickly. Music competitions held no interest for her, not anymore. She knew all too well everything that went on behind the scenes in that industry. Instead, she took out her phone and texted Melody and Rachel: I’m bored.

  Melody texted back immediately: Ana?

  Yes?

  I was checking to make sure it’s actually you. I’ve never heard you say you’re bored.

  So that means you’re free?

  A sad-face emoji came through from Melody followed by the message: Sorry. With Justin tonight.

  Rachel’s reply followed close behind. And I’m with Alex. Funny, Bryan texted something similar about an hour ago.

  Ana paused. Somehow she hadn’t thought about Bryan doing
the same thing she was, working late and eating alone. Well, it was too late to do anything about the eating alone part, but . . . No, what was she thinking? She was trying to stay away from him.

  But why? Because she was attracted to him? That was silly. She’d been attracted to other men over the years without acting on it. And she liked him, legitimately liked him, as a friend.

  Melody: You should call him and see what he’s doing. A long pause and then a second message came through. I promise, this isn’t me trying to set you up.

  Ana looked at her phone for a moment, trying to decide what to do. She could always text him and see if he was free for coffee. Or maybe not coffee considering their new line of work. At this hour, drinks would sound like she was looking for a hookup. Bowling was . . . not her thing. Which left absolutely no innocent reason to be texting him.

  She almost said as much to Melody but found she didn’t have the energy to go into the whys. Instead she went to her bedroom, climbed into her pajamas, and settled under her summer-weight comforter with the devotional she hadn’t cracked in a week, if not longer. At least she could get some Jesus and fill in those blank squares in her planner that had been staring at her accusingly. And for an hour or so, at least, she could convince herself that she had no need of human contact.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE GOOD NEWS was that Bryan had the spare beans for his trial. The bad news was that he needed them.

  There was something he wasn’t getting about the process of roasting, and he wasn’t sure what the variable was. He was familiar with the machine. He was using the same profile he’d used for similar Colombian beans in Oregon. He attempted to follow the curve exactly, messing with time and temperature and airflow. He slowed down the roast, which only resulted in overdeveloped beans. He sped up the roast, which resulted in beans that had a grassy flavor and underextracted because they hadn’t lost an adequate amount of their mass in the roasting process. Before long, he had kilos of failed roasts, beans that could only be used to fertilize gardens. He certainly didn’t dislike anyone enough to make them drink it.