The bean stops with him

Jim Reynolds' job is to make sure Peet's pursues the perfect cup; for him 'the coffee lives,' says chain's founder
By Jessica Guynn
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

EMERYVILLE - With near religious concentration ridging his frothy brow, Jim Reynolds pours 6 ounces of hot water over 10 grams of freshly roasted grounds in the two dozen glass cups lining an 18-foot table in the Peet's Coffee & Tea headquarters.

He waits a few minutes, then uses a soup spoon to pierce the thick brown crust that has formed on the surface of the coffee and takes a whiff.

After stirring, Reynolds lets the coffee steep for another few minutes before skimming the excess grounds. Again, he waits, letting the coffee cool to a few degrees above room temperature.

Then, with a monastic deftness that comes only with decades of practice, he lifts the spoon and slurps with the force of a vacuum cleaner, swirling a small amount of coffee before spitting it into a spittoon, not once spilling a drop on his Mark Twain mustache.

Reynolds appraises the appearance (a quarter pound of each type of bean sits in plastic blue trays on the cupping table), aroma (maybe flowers or chocolate), flavor (sometimes blackberry or cloves), body (how the coffee feels on the tongue) and acidity ("a liveliness detected on the back and sides of tongue"). And then moves onto the next cup.

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