Carl Dodge, roastmaster at M.E. Swing Co., stands watch by an enormous Probat coffee roaster. A mechanical arm rakes through 100 pounds of beans; each batch takes about 15 minutes. Elsewhere in the South Pickett Street facility, workers bag coffee by hand. Burlap sacks of beans lay in neat stacks.
Mark Warmuth, president of the company, approaches Dodge. They throw around phrases like “first crack,” “degassing,” “color profile.” These are men who know coffee.
M.E. Swing Co. was founded almost a century ago in downtown Washington, D.C. In 1989, fire code and annoyed neighbors forced the company to move its roasting operations outside the city. “Believe it or not, not everybody likes the smell of roasted coffee,” Warmuth said. The company set up their roasting shop in Alexandria, where they’ve remained to this day.
One thing that sets specialty coffee retailers like Swing apart is cupping, a standardized procedure that experts use to quantify aspects of a coffee’s taste and aroma. The Specialty Coffee Association of America provides a “flavor wheel” that tells you how to describe what you’re drinking, which you’ll need, because there are more words to describe coffee than there are for wine. Your coffee can be fruity, spicy or delicate, but it can also taste “horsey,” “sweaty,” or like “wet cardboard.”
Warmuth deadpans, “There’s a dark side to the coffee business, as well.”