Hello and welcome to The Lou Review. This is your host Rosa and I’m here with Leo Fante, the owner and operator of Fante’s coffee. It is a gorgeous coffee shop here off of Grinstead. Tell us Leo, what Fante’s Coffee brings to the market that sets it apart as a coffee restaurant and roastery.
Leo:
Sure, yeah. Very happy to do that. Thank you very much. Fante’s Coffee is the culmination of 44 years of industry work. Being part of the Coffee Association nationwide, I saw opportunity in our market. Which you know, Louisville is a mature coffee market. We have a great coffee culture here. So there’s a lot of really good coffee shops in Louisville, but I noticed that in the Louisville area, there was no true European style coffee house.
Rosa:
What would you say is the main difference between a coffee shop and a coffee house then?
Leo:
Well, the real difference between a coffee shop and a coffee house is coffee shops are typically and retail settings, maybe along Bardstown Road, maybe along Frankfort Avenue. They’re typically in a store front along with other businesses. Many of them have drive-throughs but none are in 100 year old homes, which makes it a coffee house.
If you go to Europe a lot of the coffee houses in Europe are old homes, old historic buildings, and they are architecturally significant. They’re usually beautiful by design. They typically give you a very warm, inviting feel when you walk in just like if you were going into your grandma’s house. So you know, it’s a different mindset. It’s not paper cups and plastic lids through a little window all hurried up. You know, ‘Here’s your coffee. Thank you very much’ and off on your way. It’s more of a come in and sit on a comfortable soft seat. Relax a little bit, unwind from the world out there.
Bring a good book and on the weekend, kick your feet up and stay. Have a great conversation. It’s the whole Coffee House culture and the whole coffee house concept was built around being a community gathering spot so that people in the neighborhood could come and they could sit in this house. Really feel comfortable, maybe on a couch or next to the fireplace or on a front window that overlooks the park like we have. Enjoy a beautiful view and unhurried place that you know people can kind of come in and relax and share ideas and build community.
That was our mission, was to bring that true European style coffee house to Louisville, Kentucky. When you come in and we serve you here you know your coffee is served in a one pound three ounce preheated the 202 degree ceramic mug. They empty the mug after they preheat it and then they pour the hot coffee at 200 degrees and so it keeps the coffee hot. It’s served on a saucer with a lace doily and a Danish butter cookie because that’s just the way it’s done. And you know it gives you the vibe of an old school, lost kind of relaxing experience. It’s more than just going to a coffee house or coffee shop and drinking your coffee out of a paper cup and a plastic lid. If you served it that way in Europe, they’d laugh at you. “What are you doing?”
Rosa:
So I won’t ask what Starbucks does over there.
Leo
Well, it’s paper cups and plastic. (laughter)
Rosa:
You alluded to 44 years in the coffee industry. So how did you get into coffee, Leo?
Leo:
I started in coffee back in 1978. And when I got started, it was because of a friendship that I had developed with a classmate at Trinity High School; his name was Tony Conti.
Rosa:
Is he related to anyone named John? (laughter)
Leo:
Yeah he’s John’s son. I was in Tony’s wedding and I met his father, and his father asked me you know what I was doing? I was working at Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, which was a grocery chain here in town, and they’re no longer here but they served coffee as well. And so that’s what I did. I fell in love with coffee there.
At the end of every checkout aisle was a grinder and as the customers would come through the store, we would grind the eight o’clock coffee fresh. I always noticed how many customers would tell us: “We love coming to this grocery store because the way it smells!” Well the first smell the smell was fresh ground coffee and so you know it just set their grocery chain apart from other grocery chains and they sold a tremendous amount of coffee and tea.
Rosa:
Okay, I would love some insight into what was it like in 1978 in Louisville. When there wasn’t a coffee shop on every corner and there weren’t drive through’s.
Leo:
I worked for a pioneer in the coffee industry. John Conti, opened his first coffee shop in Oxmoor Center on the second floor mezzanine on December the first of 1975, if I’m correct. That’s going back a long time. But he opened that first store there before Starbucks was even a twinkle in anybody’s eye. He had espresso and lattes and fresh baked goods. He just was so ahead of the curve, it wasn’t even funny. He was a visionary. He saw where it could go.
He opened several retail coffee shops. Then he decided at one point he wanted to become a roaster. Myself and the people that worked there were really encouraging about doing that. We helped him dismantle several different coffee roasting facilities. I went up and actually took them apart with a friend of mine and brought some stuff back.
Rosa:
That’s not where this coffee cupping table [that we are sitting at] came from though?
Leo:
No, this coffee cupping table came from New Orleans, Louisiana out of a coffee roastery down there. It’s a 100 year old antique, marble top cupping table that pays homage to probably millions of cups of coffee that have been cut across this table.
In fact I have the original cupping spoon from a guy named Albert who taught me how to cup when I was in my 20s. He was in his probably 70s then, and he was a coffee cupper for the largest specialty coffee importer in the world, Westfeldt Brothers out of New Orleans and he cooked all the coffee for them and he’s the one that trained me. So I had his cupping spoon actually framed. When you walk in the door there’s a brick fireplace chimney mantle, and his cupping spoon is on there with a little letter.
Rosa:
Wow. A lot of a lot of what we do in this business is very personal.
Leo:
It’s a small family business. When we did our logo design, I sat down at my art table at my house and I drew it on a canvas. And I put a circle out and I knew I wanted to include our wedding rings, my wedding ring and then my wife’s wedding ring. Yeah. And then I thought what’s special about our family, because I want to be a family oriented place. There’s four coffee beans, the one on the top left is my grandfather, Leo Joseph. The one on the top right is my dad Leo William. The one on the bottom right is me, Leo Richard, and the one coming out of my wife’s wedding ring is my son Leo Joseph. He’s named after my grandfather and will be the future of our company at some point.
I wanted to include that in the logo and then Fante’s at the top. My grandfather who was a builder, Leo Joseph, always told me “grandson, if you ever get your own business, put your name on it, like signing a check. You’ll never let anybody down if your name is on the business. Well, made a lot of sense to me. And so it had to be Fante’s. Then of course what we do is coffee, and the tribute to our city of Louisville that we love. You know, we’re five generations.
We’re a fifth generation Louisville family. So they came through Ellis Island, my great grandfather and settled here but Montpellier, France is on the right [represented by a fleur de lis]. And on the left is the city of Louisville [with another fleur de lis]. So you know things as small as our logo. There’s a lot of thought, and a lot of passion, and a lot of local heritage that went into the development.
Rosa:
Both local and global. (laughter) Where did your international experience come from? When did you go to Europe and experience these coffee houses that really gave you the vision to bring that here?
Leo:
Well, the the experience that I garnered as a young man working for John Conti. I asked him in a meeting one day, I said “What’s that plaque on the wall?” and he said “it’s the National Coffee Service Operator of the Year award. And out of the 2000 or so coffee companies in America, I received not one but two. I’m the only person in the world that has two of those. I’ve served as president the National Coffee Association. To earn that you have to serve on the TriState, the Midwest, and the National board and you have to work every seat on all of those.”
And I looked him in the eyes as a 20 year old kid and I said, “I’m gonna get that award one day.”
And he looked at me kind of funny, and he said that “Do you realize what you just committed to?” And I kind of laughed and said, you know, “yeah, I think so. You just explained it to me.”
He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna fund your education for being so enthusiastic.” And so he got behind me, and he got me involved in the TriState Coffee Association. He got me on the board, and I served every seat on the TriState, and then I was asked to serve on the Midwest board and went along and served every seat on the Midwest board. And I was asked to serve on the National, served every seat on the National board.
By the time I became the incoming president [of the National board] because of acquisition and merger of large companies gobbling up small companies, the association numbers had dwindled. And we had to close the office in Reston, Virginia and move the staff into an association management company. I discovered a lot of this when I was the treasurer of the association, and told them, here’s the future, we’re going to have to do some really serious changes. And we had to find an association management company to take over the National Coffee Association and the education program.
So we rolled it up into a group out of Chicago, NAMA on Wacker St. And they were very cash flush. They wanted to do great coffee education. And so today they still do a lot of coffee education at NAMA and that kind of created the education arm for the country. So being involved in all that travel, and all of those boards and associations and just serving the coffee industry locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. That’s how I got my exposure to you know all the coffee houses.
We got a lot of certifications through the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCA) which is now the Specialty Coffee Association of the world. It’s a World Association, started by a guy in California named Ted Lingle, who I know really well. Now it has grown just unbelievably big, and they’re kind of the controlling Association for the coffee industry worldwide. And so that’s the way I got my education. I was funded by a local businessman that was very successful, and he invested in a young guy and gave me a passion. It’s become my life’s passion and, and consuming it. You know, when you love what you do, it’s never work. And so you get up in the morning and you come in and you’re excited about doing what you’re gonna do and you’re passionate about it, much like the song that Seal wrote, “Kiss from a Rose” there’s a lot in that your passion can become an addiction, and it’s addiction that you can’t deny. And so with me, that’s what coffee has become. It’s definitely an addiction that I can’t deny because I absolutely love it. I enjoy it.
It’s really part of who I am as a person.
It’s been in my heart and my soul for 44 years and you know, I learned something new every single day. So it’s not like it’s you get to this point and now you know everything. No, it’s not that way. It’s, you get to this point, you want to learn more and that’s the addiction part, you just become thirsty for knowledge and thirsty for understanding. Not only manufacturing techniques and ways to make better coffees, way to enhance the flavors way to find the sweet spot for every single coffee in the world.
That’s why I have to laugh when they talk about third wave coffee houses that young people get involved in and they believe that you can’t roast any coffee over, you know, medium roast. And it’s just such a fallacy, because so many coffees in the world don’t even start to develop to their full potential until they’re roasted dark!
As I was telling you earlier, like the Sumatran coffees; you would never get the chocolate flavors or that rich, thick, syrupy mouthfeel you get with medium roast or light roast. So there’s just a lot of things that I think when you drill down on coffee and you look at the history of coffee, and you pay homage to all the people that have come before us in the industry.
You don’t learn that overnight.
Rosa:
It’s an experience factor.
Leo:
Yeah, it takes lots of years, of just passion for your product, to learn and understand history and coffee and the way it goes. So every morning is something new and different. And you know, we really enjoy it but we’re working hard with the business every single day to expand the business outside of the four walls of the coffee house. The coffee house will always be at the center of what we do. It’s always the crown jewel of what we do, and we’re really proud of it. Now we’re private label roasting for over 25 different coffee houses.
Rosa:
So you’re supplying those that don’t have their own roastery but want to provide the environment of the coffee house?
Leo:
Yes and they want a real level of quality in the product that they serve. They want somebody that’s going to come and help them understand the coffee business. So we consult a little bit with them, and we help them along the way. If there’s questions we can answer, we help them with our knowledge base and so many years of doing it. And we provide them a really high end, really good coffee. It’s funny, our tagline for our coffee is “really good coffee”. We never claim to be the best. I think that’s so arrogant.
Rosa:
Or meaningless. Everyone says it’s the best. Yeah, really? (laughter)
Leo:
Exactly. Come on. How about just being real with people and tell them you work hard every single day to develop a really good product. And that’s really what we do. We work really hard every day to provide a really good product for people. And now we’re doing it, as I said, for all these different coffee houses that hang their shingle on having really good coffee.
Rosa:
So you and I talked before about cupping. Can you define that for people who aren’t sure what you’re talking about?
Leo:
Cupping in the coffee industry can do a couple of different things. But historically what coffee cupping was brought to light for was to rate and grade coffees. So if I sent a request for some green coffee, let’s just say I wanted some Sumatra Lake Toba coffee, I send that request in and they send me the green coffee from the coffee buyer. It comes with a lot number and then you sample roast that, and then you grind it and you put some in the bottom of the cup, and use 212 degree boiling water over the coffee and you pour slowly and allow the coffee to form a crust. Then once the crust rises you blend it up really good and allow the grounds to soak and saturate and bring in all the all of the water so that they swell and they expand. It’s called the bloom.
Then they rise again and they create another crust. And once that crust is created then you take a cupping spoon and you go with the back of the spoon into the cup and you push back, and you push back again, and then you pour forward and you bring forward a spoonful of coffee and you slurp. You know, it’s a very kind of not attractive sound, but you slurp and spray the coffee all over the palate. Then you grade each aspect of the coffee.
Rosa:
Do you use these flavor wheels here?
Leo:
Yes, well the coffee tasters flavor wheel is just a guide for people that don’t fully understand coffee cupping. It gives them a very visual guide to be able to see what we’re doing and when we rate it. And when we talk about it.
Rosa:
Did this exist when John Conti was teaching you?
Leo:
No (laughter)
Rosa:
Is it one of the educational products you worked on in the associations?
Leo:
Yes, yes. Ted Lingle, the executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America originally and all over the world, now. He got together with some people and they developed a lot of these tools that you can use. They created the golden cup standard, which is a way to measure total dissolved solids, suspension and aqueous solution. So, that is measuring the amount of oils that you extract out of the coffee into the water, and that gives you something that you can plot and graph on a chart to see if it falls within the optimal balance range. So if you use four ounces of coffee, to brew a 64 ounce pot of coffee and you brew it at 202 degrees, and you brewing it exactly three minute dwell time where it extracts and you follow a line down from four ounces and you see where it intersects at 1250. Knowing that you have 200 TDs total dissolved solids and just the water alone, so your meter reads 1450 You subtract the 200 because you take the water base solids out and that leaves you with 1250 And so you see where they intersect that’s right square in the center of the optimum balance window. And when you follow it down, it tells you that you’ve extracted 25% of the oils and it’s a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. And so it’s a science. And what we try to do is bring that science to life and to educate people about it, and to let them know. On the back of every single bag of coffee that we sell there’s an Agtron number. An Agtron is a light spectrometer and it measures the amount of degree of roast color from light to dark, and it measures it well beyond what you can tell with the human eye. It’s a very specific number that it gives you and those numbers correlate with the SCA colored tiles. Not the flavor wheel.
There’s a set of colored tiles if you see the little piece of paper that hangs on the right there. It shows you the Agtron numbers and then the SCA color tile that number falls within and so on the back of our bags. When we say it’s a full city roast, which is the first of the dark roast, you know characteristics. It actually assigns the number so we know where in the full city range our coffees fall, and we’re that precise. So we take it to a whole different level with the science of coffee and the way that it’s not only roasted, and the roast curves that we use and you know the special way that we roast.
We don’t roast by wire. Just about everybody else in our area roasts by wire. In other words, they have their roaster connected to a laptop, and the laptop has a program that controls the gas and the amount of oxygen that’s introduced into the roasting process. So the laptops are actually doing the roasting.
It’s my content that if you need a laptop to roast your coffee, you’re not much of an artisan roaster. In other words, if you’ve got to rely on an electronic device to do your roasting for you, you’re not much of an artisan craft roaster. Craft roasting artists are about the experience. It’s about being intimate with the machine; understanding the machine, hearing the machine, hearing the coffee and how it’s interacting with the heat, watching the gas pressure. Doing everything a computer would do, doing it visually and manually and becoming very in tune with the roaster being part of the roaster. Basically you become part of the process, and we teach all of our roasters how to artisan craft roast and they don’t need computers.
Computers are great, in today’s age I think we depend on them way too much. And I think a lot of the artisan craftsmanship in several different industries has been diminished greatly by computers. So we’re doing it the old school, old fashioned way and teaching our roasters how to truly artisan craft roast and they’re very, very good at it. We back it up with science. Yes, definitely with that Agtron lights back.
Rosa:
But we don’t actually want the robots to make the copy for us, even if they could, because we’ve perfected the science.
Leo:
Exactly.
Rosa:
Now what you have described has spanned some really big picture thinking and some really large scope implications for the world. But then you describe this intimate connection you have to the actual roasting, and in the cupping process. You have to be so mentally in the present moment, the way you’ve described. This makes it sound almost like a mindfulness exercise and it makes me think that it would be really good for your mental health.
Leo:
For mine it is! I just thoroughly enjoy the process. I thoroughly enjoy the just a whole the whole process from bringing in the best coffees from the world’s best growing regions. We have a coffee right now that we’re doing, an amazing coffee from San Ignacio, Peru that’s from a little farm owned by a woman that grew up on a coffee farm. Her dad was a farmer. She grew up and went to college, then she decided she wanted to come back and be a coffee farmer. And so she started a woman’s Co-Op down there in Peru. She and her husband and their family work on the farm. She plants the tree, she goes out she nurtures the trees for five years to get them to produce a first commercial crop. Eventually they produce a commercial crop, and the interesting part about that is, it will produce about, you know, 3500 Cherries a year annually, and that produces about 7,000 seeds, coffee seeds, and those 7,000 Coffee seeds equate to about one pound of coffee per trade per year.
It takes a lot of love and care and Edita Quinde lovingly cares for her farm. She takes care of her trees. She harvests her product, she grades her product, they clean the product. They bag the product and they send it to us and so it’s a woman produced coffee from seed to cup. Because what we do here when we roast here to keep the whole thing honest. We take one of our young ladies who works here in the coffee house, and she goes over and works with our master roaster under their supervision and they tell her what to do and she roasts the coffee. And so it’s actually planted, grown, harvested and roasted by women. And if the woman brews it at the house, it even makes it to the cup.
That’s the mindfulness that you know we use when we do the purchasing of the coffee.
Rosa:
And intentionality.
Leo:
It is. It’s very intentional. And we seek out those kinds of things to bring forward at the coffee house. so we have a limited time coffee every single quarter.
But others, like the Andrews Snorton one we were talking about, that’ll be an in-perpetuity coffee. Andrew is a friend of mine that I met randomly. I got a call from him one day and he said, “Mr. Fante, I’m an author out of the Atlanta, Georgia area, I’m a big baseball fan. I’ve got family in Louisville. I’m going to be coming to Louisville. I’ve got a brand new book out. I’d love to do a book signing at your cafe.”