This Oakland man is serious about serious coffee

Roastery owner wants the Bay Area to know it doesn't have to drink swill

Rona Marech, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, April 11, 2003

In his former career as a classical clarinetist, James Freeman used to travel to faraway gigs with a manual coffee grinder and a French press, sometimes taking out his home-brewing equipment on airplanes. He remembers his worst cup of coffee as if he sipped it yesterday: He said it tasted like wheelbarrow tires.

He can identify coffee beans by their smell, has read through the entire English-language coffee canon and is immovably picky about his espresso tamp.

Unsurprisingly, ordinary coffee kills his buzz, and most coffee in the Bay Area, he said, ranges from horrible to miserable.

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