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rustic-colored paper, bound with redthread and tucked into the front pock-et of a thick folder containing exactlythese types of stories for several dozencoffees and their respective farms.A few blocks away is Stumptow n'spublic tasting annexthe first placeof its kind when it opened in 2005.There, an impeccably groomed andwhite-clad barista sets up a cuppingwith quick precision, seven coffeesin a row, ordered by "mouthfeel."He expounds on number two in thelineup, the Helsar Reserva fromCosta Rica, which is, to him, "theperfect cup of coffee, so smooth andbalanced you can't distinguish onenote over another."The room has the hint of a chem-istry lab, with big glass jars on woodshelving, brewing equipment and awide, pristine counter top. A video ofFinca el Injerto, one of Stumptown'sbest partner farms in Guatemala,loops on a flat-screen on the backwall. The merchandise is limited:beans for $12.50 per 12-oz. bag, artsyposters of coffee farmers.Roll your eyes at the glorified baristas, exotic coffee and preoccupationwith catchwo rds like co-op, organicand direct trade all you want, but theworld is undergoing a coffee renais-sance. And when it comes to process-ing and brewing methods, the qualityhas never been this high. Consumersare already enamored by the snobbish-ness of it all, if the 20 percent year-over-year growth of gourmet coffeesales is anything to go by.

AHISTORYo fCOFFEETh e FIRSTCOFFEEHOUSEOPENS INENGLAND,where a cup ofcoffee is soldfor a penny.Today, the aver-age price for anespresso-basedbeverage in theU.S. is $2.45.

Following the Bos-ton Tea Party, theCONTINENTALCONGRESS DE-CLARES COFFEETHE OFFICIALNATIONAL BEV-ERAGE. Ameri-cans are now theworld's leadingcoffee fanatics,consuming 400

The FIRSTWHOLESALECOFFEE ROAST-ING COMPANYin Ame rica is es-tablishedwhichleads to the firstnewspaper adver-tisement for cof-fee that appearsthe same yearin the New York

German coffeemerchant LudwigRoselius discov-ers that a ship-ment of coffeebeans that hadbeen soaked inwater lost mostof its caffeine,but retainedits flavor Thatrealization leads

th e FIRST DE -CAFFEINATEDCOFFEE, SankaCoffee. Twentyyears later heintroduces it tothe U.S., whereit's sti l l distr ib-uted today byKraft Foods.

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Stumptown is at the center of themovement, says Barista magazineeditor in chief Sarah Allen, who hasknown Sorenson since he was doingshifts as a barista. "None of this wouldhave happened if Duane hadn't alwaysdone things his own way," Allensays. "Stumptown's still independent,and not tied down to fair trade andorganic. It's just about paying as muchmoney as necessary for the best coffeein the world and trying new things."New things, perhaps, like BerserkerBock, a breakfast beer collaborationwith Brooklyn brewery Sixpoint CraftAles, or Bikes to Rwanda, a nonprofitthat sends cargo bikes to coffee farm-ers. Or last summer's pop-up caf inAmsterdam, for which Sorenson flewout a bunch of employees, rented abig house and proceeded to makethe Dutch coffee, Stumptown style.Stumptown even delved into packag-ing this spring, releasing cold brewcoffee in stubby glass bottles to lessenthe company's use of plastic. Everyproject was a hit.Sorenson's marketing and designinstincts are spot on, too, says coffeecritic Oliver Strand. He remembershow Sorenson spotted a glaring gap inNew York's food culturecoffeeandmanaged to become a "kind of hometeam" shortly after opening in 2009."At the time, there wasn't a roasteraround that was as encyclopedic and in-novative," Strand says, noting that withthe $450,000 buildout of the elegant,European-style coffee bar inside the

trendy New York Ace Hotel, Stump-town succeeded in turning coffee intosomething "urban, grown-up and so-phisticated." It also helped that insteadof a fiashy launch, the company optedfor a grass-roots approach: w ooden,artisanal signs, some drawn by baristas,posted at respected restaurants aroundthe city and designed to capture atten-tion w ith their distinctiveness.And once Sorenson has your atten-tion, he know s how to keep it. Even hisemployees (numbering around 180),often artists and musicians, tend tostay on for years, because Stumptownoffers health insurance, 401(k)s andsalaries good enough to buy houses andsend kids to collegein effect, elevat-ing the barista from a part-time gig to areal occupation.As for the man behind it all? "I'm do-ing awesome," Sorenson says, beaming.It's a gray, cold spring m orning at theChateau Marmont in Hollywood, Calif.,and Sorensontan from a weekendspent rocking out at the Coachella musicfestival in Indio, Calif.is sporting hisstandard plaid-patterned shirt, jeans.Red Wing boots, hipster glasses andtrademark surfer-casual attitude. Overa (sadly) Berserker Bock-less breakfast.Entrepreneur asked Sorenson how heplans to keep conquering the caffeinatedmasses. He reveals: a few m ore loca-tions, some rock 'n' roll and many morecups of that spectacular coffee.Stumptown just keeps on growing.Yeah, we have two new coffee bars in

SHOULD YOUB U Y AFRANCHISE?There are plenty of ways tofind caffeinated success via thefranchise route. Here's a breakdownof some of the leading coffeefranchisors f ro m Entrepreneur'sFranchise 500 and their associatedstartup costs. -TRACY STAPPThe Coffee Beanery (coffeebeanery.com)Total U.S. franchises: 9 0Cost range to launch: $62.4K to $545KGloria Jean's Coffees (gloriajeans.com)Total U.S. franchises: 81Cost range to launch: $278.6K to $673.7KBad Ass Coffee (badasscoffee.com)Total U.S. franchises: 41Cost range to launch: $227K to $326KBiggby Coffee (biggby.com)Total U.S. franchises: 108Cost range to launch: $22O.5K to $39O.1KDunn Bros Coffee (dunnbros.com)Total U.S. franchises: 86Cost range to launch: $128.2K to $466.1KScooter's Coffeehouse (scooterscoffee.com)Total U.S. franchises: 75Cost range to launch: $5O.5K to $457KManhattan and Brooklyn under con-struction, and we're seriously lookingfor a neighborhood in Chicago thatwould accept Stumptown.Why Chicago?I keep being drawn back because of how

Nestl introducesNescafe, theFIRST "DR INK-ABLE" INSTANTCOFFEE, an dhelps establishoffee's firstave. More than70 years later,Nestl remainsne of the leadingnational retailers

Achille Gaggiainvents the MOD-ERN ESPRESSOMACHINE. The2011 CoffeeStatistics Reportsays 30 millionAmericans drinkspecialty coffeebeverages suchas espresso a ndespresso-based

The FIRST INTER -NATIONAL CO F-FEE AGREEMENTis negotiated bythe United Na-tions. Today, cof-fee is the secondmost valuablecommodity in themodern globaleconomy, withannual sales of

Filterfresh in-vents the FIRSTSINGLE-CUPCOFFEE BREW-ING MACHINE.Last year a popu-lar single-servesystem calledSenseo produce dtotal sales of$536 m illion.

STARBUCKS isst il l going strongafter establishingcoffee's secondwave in the early'90s and carryingit to the third,rebounding f romthe economicdownturn w i thtotal net revenuesup 9.5 percent to

GOURMETCOFFEE charac-terizes the indus-try's third wave.The Coffee Statis-tics Report showsa 20 percentannual increase insales of specialtycoffee (nearly 8percent of th e $18billion U.S. coffee

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