19 Coffee Company’s David DiOrio
19 Coffee is located in a nondescript building underneath Interstate 70.
“This can’t be it,” I mutter as I climb out of my car and begin tiptoeing around the squat, tan warehouse nestled below Interstate 70.
No sign on the door. No clue if I’m in the right place.
But then, I smell it – coffee!
I knock, and David DiOrio welcomes me into 19 Coffee Company’s cozy operation, which roasts and distributes beans for restaurants, coffee shops and nonprofits located within an hour’s radius of Washington – including Chicco Baccello, The SpringHouse, Rising Creek Bakery, Good Mansion Wines, Later Alligator and Hitchhiker Brewing, which makes beer with the micro-roaster’s beans.
DiOrio responsibly sources a variety of beans, including Fair Trade, Organic Certified, Rainforest Alliance Certified and Shade Grown. “I’m convinced the generation below me eats and drinks a lot more like my grandparents’ generation did,” DiOrio says. “Suddenly, local matters. Things made by hand matter. Knowing the person who is the roaster, knowing the person who brews the beer. All those things matter, and it is wonderful.”
DiOrio’s three-person team includes himself, Alexis Dolde and Jack Thearle. It’s a hard-working crew with an obvious passion for their product. “Once in a while, we’ll be in a coffee shop delivering coffee and hear a customer compliment (one of our coffees). It’s the greatest feeling. It’s what we do. It’s what we pour everything into. It’s why we get up in the morning.”
Well, besides that delicious first sip of freshly brewed coffee.
Q. How did 19 Coffee Company get started?
A. A friend of a friend had a business similar to this. They were short a person. I went to work for them, literally from the ground-floor up, sweeping floors, bagging and delivering coffee. I learned to roast and to run the wholesale side of the company. After about 10 years, I thought, “I’m ready to do this on my own.” In May 2011, we opened here. The timing was not very good – 2011 was the recession. I was a little hesitant. My wife was really supportive and said, “This is going to be phenomenal. Let’s do this, and I will support you.” She’s a full-time mother (to our two daughters). She had more belief maybe even than I had.
Q. What originally attracted you to coffee roasting?
A. To be a roaster, making something with my hands, that was the part I was most excited about. Now, that’s probably what I do the least of. Every once in a while, I’ll step in to roast for a morning, and I’ll think, “This is why I did this in the first place. This is so fantastic.”
Q. What is the most rewarding part of the business?
A. There are more people that we have gotten to know than I could have ever imagined. More people who enjoy coming in to see us, more customers that have honestly become friends. And I don’t know how people find us. There’s no sign on the door. We’re tucked underneath 70. It is crazy. Our hours are not always 9-to-5 open doors, and yet, everybody has sort of found us and ends up being regulars. It’s a lot of hard work, it’s a lot of long hours, but that part’s a lot of fun.
Q. If coffee is roasted well, do I need to add anything to it?
A. No. We tell people all the time, you need to figure out how you like to make coffee. Do you have a brewer at home, like a Mr. Coffee? Do you want to do a French press? Do you want to do a pour over? How you brew matters. Figure out what type of coffee you like. Then, you start to combine them and really end up with something that you say, “I don’t need cream. I don’t need sugar. I don’t need anything. This is a completely different kind of coffee.” When people drink really good coffee, it’s like drinking really good beer or really good wine. All of a sudden you say, “Oh, I don’t want to drink what I was drinking before anymore.”
Q. What is your favorite kind of coffee?
A. We all like really light-roasted, what they call a natural process, sundried (bean). It gives coffee more fruit notes. You’ll get blueberry, raspberry, citrus fruits. We tend to like Central American and African coffees that are natural processed. Right now, at home, I have an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.
Q. What, in your opinion, is the ultimate brewing method?
A. Any kind of pour-over method. We do Chemex (brewing method) here every day. The filter will pull out so many of the oils, that what you’re left with is a really clean, bright, cup of coffee. Because we tend to like things that are real fruity, real citrusy, that method meshes best with what we’re trying to do. If you like a darker coffee, get a French press. You’re going to keep more of the oils in the coffee, and you will get a French roast in a French press that you really like. It will taste so wildly different than doing it out of a Chemex. It will taste like two different cups of coffee.
Q. It really is art and science.
A. There’s no question. We play around for our own curiosity (for example) with single-origin espressos. You’re going to get an extremely concentrated taste. It might lack what a lot of espresso blends have with crema, with depth, with body. But you’ll get a lot of brightness, a lot of interesting characteristics. Sometimes you get overwhelming citrus notes. We play around, especially with the natural roasts, and it might taste like a cup of raspberries.
Q. So, is there a coffee equivalent of a sommelier?
A. If you spend enough hours and enough time, you can get certified as an official roastmaster. We talk about this all the time with baristas. There are baristas who view it like a job: They just want to go in and make tips, and that’s what they do. There are others who view it like a craft and really care about the drinks they’re making. If the barista at your coffee shop is like that, that’s wonderful. You can ask questions, they can recommend coffees. They get to know what you like and can say, “If you like that, you’re gonna love this.” That’s the person to really get to know.
Q. Coffee is such a ritual, and it’s so disappointing to make a bad cup. How can we avoid that?
A. It is not hard to make a really good cup of coffee with a Chemex, a French press or an AeroPress. It takes no time at all, and you will get a cup of coffee that is absolutely a million times better than the traditional ways we make coffee. You can control the amount of coffee that goes in, steep time, temperature, the filter. You really have the ability to control the type of coffee you want to get out.