PART 2: À l’Est
After a wonderful Saturday in Burgundy spent exploring the small city of Joigny (a place completely unknown to us until then), it felt like an interesting turn of fate when, just two days later, a real estate listing popped up on my phone for a countryside house in a village less than 10 minutes away. Strangely, it seemed to check all the boxes, but I was hesitant to make any assumptions.
My wife, Mélanie, and I had been actively searching for a home in the countryside for over a year. We wanted a place where we could escape the crowds and din of Paris, a life project where we could eventually transition more of our time, host family and friends, and one day retire. We had become quite good at scanning our apps and websites every morning, sending listings to a shared digital space where we could add comments or different levels of smiley faces, ranging from "not impressed" to "maybe this is something." However, after a year of searching within the confines of a very tight budget, resulting in many visits that ended in sad defeat, it was difficult to believe our future home actually existed. We took a pause at the end of 2025 to step back from the weight of it all, but we jumped back in early 2026 with renewed energy and fresh ideas about where to look.
PART 1: À l’Est
The Bercy train station feels like jumping back in time 25 years. It comes from an era that screams, "Hey, we just discovered this technology called LEDs!" And so do its trains.
In nearly all the train stations in Paris, it’s purely luck that decides whether your train was built yesterday or in the 1990s. As this was my first time taking a train from Bercy, we might have just caught the one old train still hanging onto its tracks. In any case, that’s exactly what we were given. At first glance, it looked clean, sized somewhere between a subway car and the average cross-country railer. It had a handful of single-level cars, no overhead racks, and no bar car in sight. Upon closer inspection, and after walking up and down the aisle in search of a good seat (this particular train is open seating), we noticed most of the tables and floors were covered in a thin, sticky layer of what could best be described as old juice. The seats themselves were a bit worn through. No matter.
Spring
Spring steps out a bit timidly in Paris. Every year there’s a sudden uptick in the average temperature, for a short run in late February or early March, before immediately plunging back into near freezing temperatures, and everyone reluctantly dons their overcoats again. Always a tote bag not far away with a heavy scarf lying in wait.
The roastery can be just as reluctant to commit to the new season. One week the sun will be out, and all of our roast profiles will have changed. The green coffee heats up more easily in the machine, racing toward the finish line. You can see its excitement in the roast, to be sent off to be ground down and extracted into a spring cup on a sunny terrace, in amongst the bobo chic.
The Search Continues
It has been over a year since we began searching through listings and researching different regions of France, hunting for a shabby but charming countryside home. Something in need of love, but not too far gone.
We have pored over countless listings and gone on several home tours. We’ve even made an offer or two. Along the way we’ve learned some valuable lessons. Our criteria--and our list of questions--has grown longer and more detailed.
A Visit to the old Presbytery
It has been a few weeks without a new post of our project notes, but for good reason: we’ve been busy visiting the house we recently mentioned.
Planning a visit to a property like this is an event in itself. With a building that’s stood for centuries, you don’t simply show up. First you gather contacts for regional artisans who know these homes, known as maîtres d’œuvre, or master craftsmen. We were lucky to be connected with one in the area of this particular property.
Not a chateau, not a mansion, not even quite a house, but a presbytery: le presbytère. It once stood with the church and the nearby chateau as part of the village’s small backbone.
After weeks of calls and emails, we finally secured a weekend visit.
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.