Coffee in the Countryside - Revisited
When I wrote this first post six months ago, it was a rough sketch: a small, quiet place outside Paris where coffee could be made without the usual pressures. No landlord clock, no race to open, just time to do it right.
Since then, the sketch has been refined into a blueprint. I’ve mapped the workflow beneath the surface, argued for repetition as craft, planned pallets and logistics, and obsessed over materials—paper, labels, cups, bags—so the outside matches the care of what’s in the cup.
I’ve questioned taboos (yes, blending), imagined a guest experience designed to protect the calm, and traced the train lines that make a “petite fermette” feel connected, not remote.
The idea hasn’t gotten bigger. It’s gotten clearer. Slow over fast. Fewer choices, better choices. Made by hand, on purpose.
Today we’re reposting this first post to reflect on where this project started, and why our journey forward remains the same.
The Village Between Two Cities
In August, much of Paris shuts down as people leave on vacation. Many shops close for three or four weeks, while larger stores and those in tourist-heavy neighborhoods stay open. In September, everyone talks about “la rentrée” like “back to school” in the States, but here it applies to everyone. Everyone returns, shakes off the lazy rays of sunshine. Paris looks well rested, already offering its annual preview of Fall before the calendar ticks over.
September marks the return to work, school, and research. My wife and I pick up our lists of contacts, areas of interest, and alerts, and slide back into our routine: homemade bread, toasted; freshly roasted coffee; and real-estate listings.
In France, countryside listings can be fickle. Some linger unchanged for months after a home has sold. Others reappear every week with new photos and a new price.
When we finally come across something that looks exactly right, our first reaction is less “Eureka! I’ve found it!” and more “What’s wrong with it?”
Behind the Scenes
Coffee professionals love to focus on the thing we work so hard to find, source, roast, grind, extract, and serve. That’s the part with aroma and applause. But behind every cappuccino is a whole other world: the back office.
In France, the love of bureaucracy is happy to make this world even more excruciating than it might be elsewhere. Forms for forms. Numbers for numbers. Stamps for stamps. Meanwhile, tech startups over here keep releasing clever ways to streamline everything, from health insurance to transport passes to taxes. It’s progress, yes, but the behind-the-curtains part of a business still takes as much planning and preparation as the fun stuff on the bar.
The Way Forward
I’ve been working as a coffee professional for some years now. One thing I love, one thing that keeps this industry free to evolve, is how few of us started here. Nearly everyone I’ve worked with came to coffee from somewhere else: art or design, finance or pastry. We bring those old tools to a new bench.
When a product with such a long history is constantly seen by fresh eyes, it becomes free to change.
So the questions never stop:
What if we tried this?
Why hasn’t anyone ever made coffee like that?
Who grew this variety, and why not another?
Mystery vs. Trust
In Paris, there are dozens of reasons to step into a café or bistrot.
Sometimes it’s sheer survival. The urban hike has wrung you out and the city, which is constantly trying to kill you by walking you to death, finally wins. In that case, the first place that looks like it won’t poison you will do.
Other days you’re poring over a map, digging into the far reaches of the internet, hunting for a hidden gem. The difficulty becomes a credential. Hard to find? Good. It means the place doesn’t need to shout.
Time and Innovation
How do we weigh the push and pull of innovation?
What I mean to say is, as we spend months - and in some cases years - planning and preparing a project, innovation inevitably happens around us.
Sometimes it stings: “Ah crap, I bought all of these coffee scales months ago but they just released a new version that does exactly what I need.”
Other times it’s a gift: “Wow! I’ve been looking for months trying to find the perfect grinder for our shop, and this new release has features that are going to save us so much time and money!”
The dilemma is this: we can’t wait forever for innovation to catch up with our dreams.
Impossible Is Not French
It’s romantic to dream. To picture rolling hills that fall away into wildflower meadows and small patches of forest. To feel the sun pour through skylights in a vast atelier turned coffee workshop, with a thoughtful boutique and treats from the garden just outside.
« It’s just 10 minutes from the station, » we say, « and a little over an hour from Paris. »
We imagine taking the best of a tasting room and the best of a coffee shop and making something you couldn’t find in any city. Something attached to our place, and only our place.
Hidden Gems
We keep full-time jobs and part-time dreams, sprinting between them with a phone full of listings that promise “hidden gems.” On weekends we run for the station, still half on work calls, and throw ourselves onto whatever train will take us to the next maybe. Sometimes that train moves at ten kilometers an hour for reasons no one can explain. Sometimes its engine and brakes are not on speaking terms. Sometimes we’re fifty minutes late and already texting the agent: so sorry, still on our way.
“Fifteen minutes from the station,” the listing says. Fifteen minutes can mean a sunny stroll, or thirty minutes along a forest road where wild boar consider their options in the middle of your lane. We don’t have a car yet, so it’s Uber—when Uber exists. The app is confident days in advance and then coy an hour before, then thirty minutes, then five. Or silent. There’s sometimes a taxi, if you can find a number. And if it happens to be on their route. The driver shows up smiling, narrates the town’s entire recent history (it was better before they removed the fountain, traffic is a nightmare now), and quotes the 20-minute ride at 51€, card accepted. She reminds us we’ll need a ride back, too, (you’ll have to coordinate that with my office though).
A Label Worth the Coffee
A label seems so small. It's just a slip of paper riding on the side of a bag. But for me it carries the whole promise of the project. It has to tell our story in a single glance: hand‑craft, contrast, quiet curiosity. It also has to survive the inglorious journey from roastery to countertop without bleeding, smudging, or costing more than the coffee inside.
A few months ago I told myself, half‑jokingly, that I would try lino‑printing again—something I hadn’t touched since high‑school art class. That same evening, on the way to dinner, I passed a shop that sells nothing but professional lino supplies. Serendipity yanked me off course. I rearranged my roasting schedule, squeezed through their door the next morning, and spent an hour with a lino artist who spoke about gouges and brayers the way farmers speak about weather. When I explained our coffee project he nodded and said, almost off‑hand, “Why not make paper from your old jute sacks?”
Paper or Plastic?
Earlier this year, I attended Paris Packaging Week, a name that sounds fancy but is a little misleading. It suggests a week of varied events – a gift-wrapping championship, perhaps, or a presentation on new shrink-wrap styles – when in fact it’s a two-day trade show filled with booths from manufacturers and distributors. "Packaging Week" is a bit of an overstatement.
Still, I went for one clear reason: to discover innovative new ways to package coffee.
I arrived straight from the metro with high hopes, grabbed my badge, and began winding through the aisles. My mission was to scan for keywords: “Made in France”, “recyclable”, “compostable”, “circular economy”, “food grade”. I was searching for an undiscovered El Dorado of thoughtful packaging, hoping to find a product that met our needs or, at the very least, to spark some new ideas.