A few guys, all from Encinitas and San Dieguito High School, started a surf shop called Surfy Surfy (an amazing shop if you are looking for a new surfboard) in Leucadia, CA. They decided to open a coffee shop next door and brought in a friend of mine named Dan Scheibe to Roast the coffee and be a partner. The shop is called Cafe Ipe, but known as Coffee Coffe to most. I have known Dan since junior high, but we just got back in touch after bumping into each other on the uncrowded streets of Downtown Encinitas.

Before they transferred all of their equipment to the coffee shop, Dan and his wife, Miriah, had a huge roaster in their garage and started their company, Revolution Roasters. When we bumped into each other we got to talking and they told me all about it and I thought it sounded like a really interesting thing to shoot. I have a bunch of friends that brew beer in their garage, but coffee…

One of the things that I like best about being a photographer is the fact that I get to meet so many interesting people with crazy jobs that I know nothing about. When else would I get to hang out with a woman that gets hired by huge companies to use her psychic abilities to advise them on gigantic deals or hang out with the pilot from Space Ship One. That’s another story that I will have to put up here, but back to the roasting…

Anyway, Dan’s coffe is amazing and the shop is about two blocks away from my wife’s studio, so we frequent it a little too often. I love coffee, but really had no idea about roasting and after seeing the machine, I knew it would make for some great photos. Dan roasts on the weekends, he is a biochemist or some kind of scientist during the week, so we set up a shoot for last weekend. The shots came out great and watching the process was eye opening! The smells that emanate from that machine even makes a non coffee drinker salivate. So who knows what color coffee really is? The coffee bean starts out green and through a process of different roasting temperatures and being spun around a lot, you end up with the brown bean that we have all come to love. It all has to be timed perfectly and Dan charts it all with pen and paper, not an ipad?

It’s really hard to fit in personal stuff between jobs, so I get really excited when I can actually make it happen. It’s always fun to go somewhere with no time restraints or guidelines and just shoot interesting pictures. Thanks to Dan and Cafe Ipe for letting me come in.