Meet The Roaster: Bob Doyle Of Nicholas Coffee Company
Walking into Nicholas Coffee Company, located in the Market Square neighborhood of downtown Pittsburgh, feels like entering another era.
Founded in 1919, the company has been run by family ever since, passed down from generation to generation. It all started when a Greek immigrant — Nicholas Constantine Nicholas — settled in Pittsburgh, searching for the American dream. He brought a Mediterranean love for coffee to the table, and opened up Nicholas Coffee Co., in what is now the PPG Plaza. The business thrived, even during times of hardship; throughout the Great Depression, "people still drank their coffee," Jordan Nicholas, a fourth-generation Nicholas recounts. "People would come in and beg for the stale beans from the display cases." Jordan is now co-owner of the roastery and coffee shop, alongside his father. A devastating fire didn't deter their success, and in the '50s they moved to their current Market Square location.
Fast-forward to 2006, when Bob Doyle entered the Nicholas Coffee story. For nearly 20 years, he had spent long hours perfecting color for the commercial printing business. So how did Doyle, now 50, find himself roasting coffee? "My position was wiped out by the computer," Doyle says, which led him to an unemployment site, where he found Nicholas Coffee Company in need of a new roaster.
Doyle took on the job of roaster, as well as that of building manager, repairman (repairing their commercial brewers dispatched around the city), inventory keeper, and all-around one-man-show. He is in charge of more than 50 roasts and 75 flavors. For the most part, he works alone, except for a few who help him add flavor. "Don't want to have too many hands in the kitchen," he says. Though he's a skilled roaster, he's not one for blending, since he can't really taste what he's creating.
"I had some sinus issues a few years ago," he explains, so he relies on his keen eye for color, which he developed in the printing business, and roasts by sight. "I don't see shades, I see color — less red, more brown," he explains.
Doyle has moved and roasted tons of coffee, literally. Since Nov. 21, 2011, he has received 242 bags of coffee, weighing in at around 17 tons. Four weeks later, only 140 bags remained. Doyle sometimes deals with up to 30 tons of coffee in one month, practically solo.
When I arrived at the roastery (located in the back of the store), Doyle had already fired up the roaster and was ready to go. He took me downstairs to the basement, where hundreds of bags of unroasted coffee were stored, and explained the complex system of pulleys and levers that handle the coffee. He opened a bag of Central American beans, to roast as espresso, and poured them into a hopper. By way of vacuum, the coffee beans would be transported through pipes and into the roaster upstairs.
Upstairs, we roasted three different coffees; Doyle never completes less than four roasts a day, and sometimes may roast up to 10. "It all depends on sales," he tells me. He checks his inventory, finds out what they need "up front" at the shop, and roasts accordingly. "If they run out, I roast it. That's my job," he says, "to have the freshest coffee in town." The coffee never sits out for more than a week, so one is guaranteed freshly roasted coffee every time one purchases from Nicholas.
The large roaster and most other equipment is original, some from the early '20s, others from the '50s. Now, though, every roast is controlled by a "modern" computer — something that could also be considered a bit old, dating back to the '80s. The computer allows Doyle to set the maximum roast temperature and amount of water to place back into the beans — the process of roasting dries the beans completely, and water is used to add weight and cool the beans once the roasting is completed. The maximum temperature simply measures that of the beans, not the temperature of the actual roaster — which could reach upwards of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
"It's more of a safety net, the computer," Doyle says. We set a temperature of 440 degrees Fahrenheit for the espresso roast, and begin the process. Every few degrees, Doyle places a scooper into the hot oven and pulls out some beans. He compares them to his "standard" roasted beans, tins of roasting prototypes each labeled and placed next to the machine. "Nope, not yet," he says of the lightly golden beans. We were after that dark, glazed chocolatey shade of the prototype, so we threw them back in. "I roast it the exact same" as it was in 1919, Doyle said proudly.
We continued to roast until it was browned perfection, the room smelling of sweet, roasted espresso and fire. The beans moved through some more pipes and tunnels, out a chute, and into Doyle's designated bag. From there, Doyle took it straight to the front to be sold — coffee, fresh out of the roaster. In the store, Doyle pulled me a shot of the espresso. A blend of Central and South American beans (Colombian, Brasilian, and Costa Rican), it's called the "Northern Italian" blend. Made in the Vienna roast tradition, it creates a perfect, thick crema when pulled as espresso. Sweet and lacking any bitterness, it was a wonderful shot of espresso, straight from the hands of Bob Doyle, in the tradition of Mr. Nicholas Nicholas; luckily, Pittsburgh's oldest and most celebrated coffee roaster still has that perfect roasting touch.