SambearCast with Gary Motley

Welcome to a long-delayed SambearCast! I had the distinct pleasure to sit and talk with Gary Motley, an accomplished and puissant Jazz Pianist who has played on stage with Brubeck, produced an album tribute to Oscar Petersen called "Renaissance" and happens to also teach at Emory University. He impressed me with the way he can pack knowledge into a paragraph with no effort whatsoever, and I really enjoyed the hour I spent talking to him.

This interview was for an article at Leon Dale's website, so I invite you to go over there, see wonderful photographs of his work and read my article, then if you have time go deep and listen to the podcast. It's a "you are there" sort of experience; sit with Gary and I at a coffee shop across from Emory and have some fun listening to what we chatter on about.

 

 SambearCast - Sam interviews Gary Motley [50:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A beautiful, delicious Method: Method Coffee

Edited to add: This coffee shop no longer exists, a victim perhaps of the recession. Still, enclosed please find my love letter to the coffee shop that used to live there. I have not been to Octane Coffee, which has replaced Method, yet. But I'll try to report on that one when I do.

Method Coffee. What can I say about this place that has not been said? Well, one thing I know is this: the place is clean. The place exudes this simplicity, this cleanliness that makes one feel calmer already. It is, really, coffee for OCD people. I don't mean that in a bad way. The way that attention is paid to small details, it's wonderful. The way that everything has been measured to within certain parameters, it's perfect.

Along the back of the counter are these curiously shaped brewing flasks. Someone took a cone and stuck it point-first into a fairly normal-looking coffee carafe. When you examine it you notice that it is all one piece of glass, continuous. They use oxygen bleached filter cones. They have small glass pitchers that are just exactly the right size, so that the volume of water they hold is exactly the right amount of water for the brewing process. They have small airtight glass containers into which they have measured exactly the right amount of beans per cup of coffee.

One container, one cup's worth of beans. They grind it right there, they put the grounds into the cone, the cone into the brew flask. They then pour hot water, flash-heated by an element to the precise necessary temperature, into the flask's cone. They do it in a circular motion, slowly pouring the hot water so that the cone's contents are equally saturated. The water drains through the filter and the grounds into the brew flask.

They have coffee mugs that are exactly the size necessary to handle one cup of perfect coffee. Prior to pouring the hot coffee, the barista pours hot water from the same source into the mug, and lets it sit, so the mug will be hot enough to accept the coffee. Then the coffee is decanted into the mug, and you have an amazing cup of coffee there.

How amazing? Is it really any different from a drip coffee maker? Yes. Yes, it is. Definitely. This method creates a flavorful cup of coffee that tastes pure. Normally I get a burn in the back of my throat from coffee a little while after ingesting it, I didn't get that this time. There is the "coffee" flavor, yes, but the tastes are complex enough so that if you swirl it around on your tongue you will get hints of all kinds of other flavors. It's like holding a prism up to a light and realizing the full spectrum of possible color.

Yes, the coffee is expensive. Yes, it is worth it.

I can imagine that some people might be intimidated by going in to a place that is so passionate about coffee, but please don't be. If you don't want to coffee geek, you don't have to. In fact, I had no idea what to order, and I just said, "I'd like something that's smooth and doesn't have much acidic taste." I was mentally adding, "Unlike Starbucks'," and maybe he picked up on that. And the barista knew what to do, where to guide me, and he gave a good choice.

Katie had a cup of La Parisienne dark sipping chocolate and seemed very, very happy with it. Just watching her as she excavated every last chocolate molecule from the small sipping-chocolate cup was a delight. She makes me smile when she's so happy. She also took the lovely picture you see here!

Now, to mention the surroudings, etc. They exist in the same location as Caribou Coffee used to be in Emory Village, right next door to Everybody's Pizza. The staff are pleasant and helpful, and like I said, the place was clean. I would love to see what they do with tea.

The price is not cheap, but it is worth it. Lots of value here for your money, in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.