Reclaimed Heart Pine Design: Perc Coffee
Almost three years ago, PERC Coffee Roasters moved their roasting operation into our facilities at the old Star Laundry building, on the block of 35th St. and East Broad.
PERC's facade on East Broad. Photo courtesy of PERC themselves.
PERC roasts fine and seasonally selected coffee beans from around the world, distributing them throughout the Southeast, with the help of an equally diverse team of coffee theorists and music enthusiasts. Their approach resembles closely an hybrid between alchemy, botany, and chemistry. Deriving their exotic roasts from beans grown at various elevations, they are then processed in diverse ways to develop different types of beans. These beans are then roasted, first in a "roast profile," or a gauged method of treating the beans ideally from these last two conditions. To get an idea of their laborious process here's what they've written next to one of their analytic and vibrant coffee-charts:
Each coffee gets to the “first crack” a little differently, so the first thing we do with a new coffee is develop a roast profile. In the first few batches, we work out the ideal: charge temperature, batch size, airflow settings, heat application, and development time to achieve the maximum flavor before it goes into production and out to our customers.
The scientific procedure, and attention to the origins in their roasting allows that the taste that ends up in the coffee brewed and poured into a cup retains the flavor and a trace of the environment of the bean's home soil. It's this effort on their part that reminds us at Southern Pine Company of our dedication to preserving the history and tradition of our wood, be it flooring, timbers, or in furniture. We attempt, like them, to preserve in the final creation, the flavor and look through understanding the story of what we've reclaimed and allowing that to abide. We were quite a lucky paring. Naturally, we were excited to have them next door and across the courtyard.
Perc's quite international array of beans, situated on our reclaimed heart pine table top, with an antique Victorian porch wood skirt. Photo from an interesting article at The Local Palate.
To help get them situated next door, we did some work building out the space to fit their roasterly needs, and keep the industrial, blue-collar working aesthetic they wanted to present. Thus we kept the exposed and faded brick walls in tact, and added an array of our antique custom tables.
During the renovations, photo from this article on the buildout.
The beautiful reclaimed factory table frame we cleaned up for their espresso bar. Photo courtesy here.
The result is a clean, airy, but industrial home base for their roasting. An added rolling door keeps the room drafty while their roaster is running, and the tables accent their roastery with austere and solid workspaces.
The complete renovations, with (from left to right) the large factory table / espresso bar, our long reclaimed heart pine tables with Victorian porch wood trim, long reclaimed wood tables, and our massive industrial L-beam table with salvaged stunning shattered glass tabletop.
Finshed, it's become quite a good home-base for their operation, with plenty of open space, spectacular lighting, and enough surfaces to supply even Whole Foods with enough coffee.
The old factory table supporting their espresso bar also features an original C.A. Herriman wood vise, dated October 27th, 1903. We managed to find an old advertisement with appended testimonials. It's quite a lovely piece of wood-history.
To accent their attention to the journey of their beans, we provided this café table, made of reclaimed heart pine boards we acquired through an extensive deconstruction of the One West Victory building, which used to be an old ice factory. The saw edge markings and old distress is still visible.
Another view of the same table. The skirt is made of painted porch wood, also reclaimed heart pine, from a house built in the Victorian era.
Photo courtesy of Eat It And Like It
If you're in Savannah on a Saturday, be sure to stop by for their weekly coffee cupping.