Coffee beans run aground in Las Vegas shops

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 | 8:34 a.m.

Marc Matsuo is a man on a mission. He's a fourth-generation Hawaiian who came to Las Vegas five years back to open the Whole Bean, a wholesale and retail coffee-roasting business. The store is next door to Montesano's Restaurant, at 3441 W. Sahara Ave.

What is Matsuo's mission? It is to roast and sell the best coffee in the city.

Some say he does.

Matsuo roasts all the coffee he sells on the premises, in a large Probat roaster made in Germany, the brand of roaster, incidentally, that is favored by most large coffee roasting companies. All his beans come in green. (He's also about to get a new generation roaster called the San Franciscan any day now, which is an American product.)

It's an arduous task, but for Matsuo it is a labor of love. Generally speaking, he roasts his beans in 11-pound batches, at anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes a batch, depending, as he puts it, on the moisture content of the bean. It's his job to know about that.

The affable young man roasts and sells literally dozens of blends, single-origin coffees from around a dozen countries such as Tanzania, Guatemala and Indonesia. Matsuo also sells a variety of specialty coffees, sold by the pound or half-pound, in a broad price range. His shop is a no-frills establishment with a small counter and a side area piled to the ceiling with burlap bags.

The only things you can buy other than coffee are a few accessories such as filters and a few packaged cookies he keeps around for those who drop by for a fresh-brewed cup.

Matsuo charges $1.17 for a single (around 12 ounces) and $1.45 for a double (around 16 ounces). It's one of the best cups of coffee in town, especially Fridays, when he brews one of his exclusive Kona coffees from his home state of Hawaii.

Every day Matsuo features a decaf, house coffee and two flavored coffees, and he changes the brew variety daily.

His prices range from $9 per pound for Costa Rica, to $39 per pound for Jamaican Blue Mountain, the world's most expensive coffee, which he roasts to order. A number of the dozens of other coffees he sells have already been roasted and are stored in airtight containers.

"In bean form, coffee will keep a few months or more in the freezer, although a freezer tends to dry the beans out," Matsuo said. "Ground coffee begins to lose flavor from Day One. You should be able to store whole-bean coffee in the refrigerator for around two months.

"If you get the beans when they are green, they will keep up to three years. A refrigerator causes the beans to become overly moist, and sometimes waterlogged.

"The best thing to do is grind the beans right before you drink, for a fuller, more robust flavor."

Storing coffee, he says, is relatively simple: "Just use any airtight container."

Matsuo also says to do a simple smell test in order to determine the freshness. "When coffee is just out of the roaster, the oils leach out a bit, hence that characteristic coffee aroma. After a short period of time, if not properly stored, the oils turn rancid. Once that happens, the coffee is not going to taste good."

Just a few of the truly excellent and hard-to-find coffees Matsuo sells are Molokai Muleskinner, which has to be dark-roasted to reach its flavor potential, for $13 per pound, and the rich Kona Peaberry, $25 per pound, and the coffee that many connoisseurs compare favorably to the fabled Blue Mountain.

There are, of course, countless other places in town to buy coffee. One of the best values for coffees is at one of the Trader Joe's markets. The coffee is the whole bean and in an airtight can, various beans all sell for relatively inexpensive prices.

A 28-ounce can of Colombia Supremo is only $7.69, and a 13-ounce can of French Roast is a low $3.99. The richer Moka Java is $6.99 per pound, while the bargain-priced ground Colombian coffee from a company called Harmony Bay is $9.99 for a 3-pound barrel, a steal.

As in most supermarkets, there is a do-it-yourself grinder for those who do not have mills at home.

Everyone knows about Starbucks, so we won't dwell on this multinational giant, except to say that the company makes it a point to heavily roast its coffees, which give them their distinctively "burnt" flavor.

Naturally, a full range of beans, drinks and coffee accessories are available at any Starbucks location.

But it would be remiss to overlook Jitters, a chain founded locally by James Williams, whose son remains the principal roaster for the company.

All the coffees you will either buy or drink at Jitters were roasted off-site in a special facility in Las Vegas, and the style is lighter than Starbucks, which is undeniably a very good coffee.

The price range is roughly the same as the one at the Whole Bean. Prices start at $9.10 per pound for French Roast, Italian Roast and Costa Rica, and go up to $44.95 per pound for the luxurious Jamaican Blue Mountain, although a two-day advance notice is usually required, according to Jenny Kush, a local Jitters manager.

Jitters will, of course, grind beans at no extra charge, and the many flavors boggle the mind.

There are more than 25 flavored coffees, ones with such names as Pecan, Snickerdoodle and Chocolate Cherry Fudge, to go with an already wide variety of beans that are not flavored. Any of the flavored coffees are also available in decaf.

Next week we'll take a look at coffee mills, and how to grind yourself a great cup of coffee.