[Photo: Brian Benefield]
[This is the latest installment of “Cobb Cuisine, Culture and Community” by Brian Benefield]
It has been unusually cold for the South recently, and there is no more satisfying feeling than wrapping your hands around a piping hot cup of coffee in a big, warm mug. A place that we are very fond of is Cool Beans Coffee Roasters on Marietta Square. The owner, Kevin Langhill, is obsessed with good coffee and has it imported worldwide to sell in the shop and online.
He didn’t always know what good coffee was when he was in the construction industry drinking QT coffee, but then he discovered the good stuff at a locally owned cafe in Key West, FL. He was hooked and began having it delivered to his home. That was in 1992, and there was no such place in Atlanta. There were a few coffee shops back then, but no good locally roasted coffee. So, Kevin decided to open a coffee shop and did a business plan as a project in college for a management class he was taking. The project won 1st place, and he received the best grade in the class.
During his coffee shop project, Kevin went to every coffee shop in Atlanta for a cappuccino to do a competitive analysis. Surprisingly, he discovered a hidden gem only a mile from the college he attended, Cormier Coffee Roasting Company. It was a small, contemporary shop with a fire engine red roaster, and this shop had the absolute best espresso and coffee that Kevin had ever tasted. It even topped the Key West coffee, and it just so happened that Cormier was for sale, so he bought the shop in 2001 and renamed it Cool Beans.
They have a French-made roaster nicknamed Big Red Smack Dab in the middle of the shop, and if you are ever walking through Marietta Square and smell coffee roasting, then pop in to watch this fascinating process. They roast their beans to the lighter side of the dark roast spectrum, which provides a smooth and complex taste to their coffee. …
Read the full article here
