Jim Maas: The New King of Coffee

By Chris Manson November 15, 2007 Issue

Jim Maas, head roaster for Maas Coffee Roasters, wants Fort Walton Beach to become famous for its coffee. Every coffee bean in his year-old downtown shop is less than 30 days old, covering a worldwide spectrum of “beans of origin.”

He talks about coffee the way the Paul Giamatti character from the movie Sideways discusses wine. “Coffee is more complicated than wine, because after three glasses of wine, you don’t care where it came from,” Maas says. “With coffee, it’s the complete opposite. It’s like wine tasting, seeing what part of the tongue gets activated by different qualities of the beans, the different soils, different countries, different flavors.” He reasserts that none of these qualities are apparent unless the beans are consumed within 30 days of roasting.

A quarter of a century ago, Maas learned how to roast coffee beans in Columbus, Ohio. He came here with the dream of roasting, but started doing faux painting instead—“making old things look new, new things look old,” he says. He started putting together Maas Coffee Roasters three years and faced his share of obstacles. For starters, there wasn’t enough room to house his huge roasting facility.

“I wanted it to be here,” he says, “but there’s not enough space. The biggest part is to have the roaster here, creating the theater of the roasting and the aroma.” Maas currently uses an off-premises roasting site, but he hopes to open a bigger store in the future or expand the current one.

“You’re gonna learn more about coffee by the time you get out of here tonight than anyone that works at Starbucks,” Maas says prior to his regular Thursday night “Bean Rap,” a crash course in all things coffee. “The more I educate people about coffee, the more they’re going to buy good coffee.”

The better beans, Maas says, are Arabica. The cheap beans are Robusta. Maas only uses the former. “In America, we almost all — up until recently — drank mostly South American Robusta coffee like Maxwell House — stale, old coffee. Before the First World War, we actually drank good coffee. We’d get the beans and roast them in our houses. Then the corporations took over, and we started drinking the worst coffee in the world.”

He notes that Starbucks coffee has more of a “burnt bean” taste to disguise its flavor. “They roast the beans a little too fast, causing a charred taste,” Maas says. “All their coffees are ‘blends,’ which means you can put anything in it.” And you can forget about the 30-day rule.
“Research is showing now that fresh coffee has 40 times the antioxidants as green tea. But once it’s over a month old, it’s rancid.”

Maas’ “Bean Rap” is an entertaining lecture that offers some fascinating facts about the evolution of coffee, from its discovery—an Arab farmer observed his goats feeding on the mysterious beans—to its acceptance among followers of popes and kings who sang the beverage’s praises.

Maas also discusses the different stages of roasting, from the Full City Roast—the preferred roast for coffee graders, as all of the innate bean characteristics remain apparent — to the Italian Roast, which is “almost black.”

Most of the coffees here are priced under $15 a pound, with the exception of the Jamaican Blue Mountain, which sells for $47.85 a pound. “If I don’t sell these beans in 30 days, I have to throw them out,” Maas says, testament to his dedication as a specialized coffee roaster. The “Bean Rap” attendees sample coffees from Sumatra, Guatemala, India, Zimbabwe, and Puerto Rico, the latter producing one of Maas’ favorite beans, the Yauco Selecto.

Maas Coffee Roasters is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. most nights, and later on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays when Joe “Fingers” Fuller and jazz guitarist Steven Perkins perform music out back. Sunday hours are 11 a.m. until 5 p.m.

The cafÈ also offers popular specialty concoctions like Mocha Cola, Long Island Iced Coffee, and Redneck Latte. The last is one of Maas’ bestsellers. It consists of white chocolate (white guy), French vanilla (“Rednecks need something to hate,” Maas notes), and cinnamon (red, get it?). Maas also carries pizza from Fat Clemenza’s, baked goods from “Toni the Muffin Lady,” and desserts from the Sailor’s Grill in Navarre. “Their key lime pie is killer,” Maas says.

Maas also sells a lot of his coffee on the wholesale market. For now, the Maas Coffee Roasters staff consists of a part-time employee, Maas, and marketing guru Marci Goodnough, who refers to herself on business cards as “Bean Babe.”

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