The intriguing announcement of this coffee tasting meeting in Cool Cleveland? seemed to promise an intellectual java-lovers palate orgy with a chorus of joe anonymous candidates pep rally cheers. It wasn't quite that exuberant, but CC understated the enthusiasm of speaker Carl Jones. If there is anybody that should get the moniker of Mr. Coffee in this berg, it should be him, not baseball great, Marilyn's ex-hubby, joltin' Joe D'Maggio. Carl guided the dozen denizens of cafe celebrants through a virtual history of coffee's trade and development, with exclamation points made over a sample cup of the topic region's coffee variety. From Yemen to Indonesia, across to Columbia and Costa Rica (the Tarrazu is my favorite and absolutely made my morning) back across the ocean to Kenya, we got tips to brew, judge, and appreciate this magic elixir.

As the founder of Cleveland's coffee house culture, Carl peppered the discussion/lecture with old war stories from his three decade career in the coffee industry. The coffee entrepreneur was able let us know how close Cleveland was to being the country's coffee roasting capital of the country, if only the risk-adverse, heavy industry minded capitalists recognized the potential. Carl told of a meeting back in the 70's he had with the only other 3 guys in the country that had more than one café. They saw the potential and agreed on initially developing in their own regions of the country. Everybody found the capital investment with one exception, Cleveland. You may recognize one of the companies that grew out of that meeting: Starbucks.

You may not have known that it was Cleveland that changed the way America made coffee. Mr. Coffee was a Cleveland company that totally moved the paradigm away from the old percolated or boiled coffeemaking that dominated kitchens for a hundred years. Unfortunately, we let that one move away and make another region wealthy, but it is yet another factoid to support Cleveland innovation and one that is pretty recent. With Saeco moving into the area, we have the rare opportunity of a second chance. Coffee and coffeehouses are always associated with innovation and revolution. Cleveland, Coffee, and Creativity; has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? From Cool Cleveland contributor Steve Goldberg steveg@ieee.org

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