P
H
OT
O
S
:
E
R
I
K
R
A
N
K
HE WHITE CERAMIC CUPS have
been set up around the table.
Water heated to 198 degrees—
a temperature intended to
coax out full flavor—has been poured
over the freshly ground coffee beans,
roasted just this morning in the adja-
cent room.
“Awesome, I’m getting grapefruit
from this,” says Coffee Afficionado CEO
Adam Bossie, inhaling deeply over a cup
of Aprocetu from Costa Rica. Assessing a coffee’s aroma is a big part of this
ritual called cupping.
He works his way around the table
to the Mandheling, from Sumatra. “I
almost get a little caramel.”
“Like brown sugar,” agrees Kyle
Wuethrich, the employee who devel-
ops the company’s roast profiles, which
determine how to roast each type of
coffee to bring out its best qualities.
Four minutes pass as the coffee
steeps; then they skim off the grounds
and begin tasting spoonfuls, slurping
noisily because “you want to incorpo-
rate as much air as possible,” Bossie
explains. He dips into the Aprocetu. “I
get peanut butter,” he says. “But not in
a bad way.”
People talk like this at Coffee Affi-
cionado, probably the most significant
New Jersey coffee importer, roaster
and wholesaler you’ve never heard
of. From this nondescript industrial
park in Morganville, Bossie and his
team—half a dozen young Monmouth
County coffee aficionados in jeans
and plaid shirts—now supply some of
the state’s most lauded restaurants.
(Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen in
Morristown; the Fromagerie in Rumson; the Bernards Inn in Bernardsville; Restaurant Latour at the Crystal
Springs resort), plus major chefs in
Manhattan (Laurent Tourondel, Michael White, David Burke).
Bossie, 33, spends at least three
months a year scouting growers in
Central and South America, trekking
from his home in Lincroft to mountainside farms to observe their operations
and buy select coffees. Cofounder Paul
Merces, 31, spends nearly 50 hours a
week at the roaster in the next room,
surrounded by burlap sacks of beans,
constantly checking his batches, mur-
Zounds! What Grounds!
They began with a homemade roaster. Now Adam Bossie and his buddies are
making Coffee Afficionado the cup that top chefs crave. By Paula Span
T
PEOPLE
N
EWJERSEY MONTHLY
