Quality comes in small, delicious package

By Annie Wei

Luxury doesn’t just mean fancy; quality is important as well. Beijing Today found two eateries that put their hearts and souls in making the best of simple foods: a cup of coffee or a simple shaobing – a baked, layered flatbread sometimes with sesame on top.

Finding the devil in the details is what distinguishes the following two places from most others in the city. Everything – from ingredients to preparation – is scrutinized, resulting in a product that can accurately be called luxurious.

Fisheye Cafe aims to provide best coffee in town

Fish Sun, a Chinese entrepreneur, likes drinking coffee, so much so that he recently took a six-month trip to San Francisco and Seattle – hubs of coffee culture in the US – to find the best. But the trip wasn’t just for self-indulgence – he wanted to find the best beans to bring home for Fisheye Café, his blue and white, 70-square-meter coffee shop scheduled to open in August in Sanlitun Village.

In San Francisco, Sun met Eileen Hassi, the owner of Ritual Coffee Roasters. During that time, Sun was drinking a dozen cups a day – and enjoying it to the last drop – but it was Hassi’s coffee that impressed him the most.

While independent cafes are growing popular in the US, Ritual Coffee Roasters stands out because of its roasting techniques, its quality beans and unique philosophy on the coffee-making process. Ben Kaminsky, quality control director, said the company works selectively with coffee producers that focus on quality over quantity and uses seasonal coffee beans that are sourced from eight countries in Central America and Africa, including El Salvador, Kenya, Costa Rica and Colombia. Hassi usually spends at least four months a year in these countries looking for good coffee bean producers.

It’s Ritual Coffee’s policy to not use beans that have been in storage for more than six months. In addition, Ritual Coffee has its own roasting factory, as management believes coffee should mimic the freshness of fruits, considering coffee is in its own way a special kind of fruit.

Hassi, who has been in the coffee business for 10 years, opened her first Ritual Coffee Roasters five years ago. Now she owns two stores in San Francisco and one in Napa, California, with another 25 shops using their trademarked coffee in their stores.