Am I so experienced that I was able to actually pick up on all that? Not by a long shot. But I do know that when I taste this coffee and I don’t have to put cream in it, it’s because it’s smooth and bursting with flavors that are too interesting to cover up.

In case you haven’t been reading this blog for awhile, you may have missed the fact that Eastwood boasts one of the best coffee roasters in the Northeast. At one end of our James Street business district, in the Eastwood Plaza, is Cafe Kubal. While the cafe itself is small (okay, it’s tiny!), the taste of the coffees being roasted before your eyes in the 1904 roaster is huge. Matt and Rachel Godard go out of their way to find the best beans, to form business relationships with the growers themselves, and to bring the beans to Syracuse where Matt roasts them expertly.

In the cafe, you always have a choice of light or dark roasts for your cup o’ joe, as well as the usual variety of ways to prepare it. These folks pull a mean shot, equal to the best to be found in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Ithaca. Even if you’re not likely to do it often, try their espresso drinks once in awhile. You’ll never go back to Charbucks.

But if you just want a great cup of coffee at home, pick up a bag of beans. They’ll grind them for you or you can buy them whole for grinding at home. (If you want really great coffee taste, you’ll invest in a grinder and grind seconds before brewing.) Either way, you’ll know the date when the beans were roasted so you can be sure to use them within about ten days, when they’re at their peak of flavor.

Don’t want coffee? Try one of their many teas! In the mood for something to eat? They have an array of cookies, muffins, bagels, desserts – including Purity Ice Cream from Ithaca – as well as soups and other savory items.

Do you live out of town? That’s okay. Cafe Kubal’s internet business is even older than the cafe, and Matt ships his coffee all over this country and internationally. So if you’re originally from Eastwood and want to support a local business, give his coffee a try!

One of the best things about Cafe Kubal, of course, is that it’s located in a “20-minute city” – that is, everyone who lives in Eastwood (formerly a village, now a neighborhood), is within a 20-minute walk of the cafe. A daily walk of about 20 minutes is considered by some to be the minimum amount of exercise for maintaining health. How sweet it is, to combine a walk along Eastwood’s sidewalk-lined streets with a top-notch coffee experience.

Matt and Rachel Godard

It’s businesses like these that create a sense of place, that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging. We welcome businesses to Eastwood that are, whenever possible, locally owned and operated, for it’s the people from here who understand the needs of the people who live here.

SLIDE SHOW

Matt and Rachel Godard are the owners, employees, coffee gurus, and clean-up crew. In other words, they care deeply about every detail. An example noticed by a visiting customer: when Rachel chose a cookie from a stack for a customer, she picked one from under the top one, as the top one would be a shade dryer than the ones under it.

Another customer asked Matt, “How long do you roast the beans?”

Matt said, “Well, it depends on which bean it is, how high it was grown, the humidity, and so on. The longest roast is 45 minutes. The hottest is only for about 12 minutes.”

“How do know when it’s done?” the customer asked.

Matt just pointed to his nose with both hands and then to both his ears. He knows because he really knows his coffee. This is small-batch, artesanal coffee roasting, and Matt is a craftsman who lives and loves his product.

“It’s like when you make popcorn in the microwave. You listen for when the popping reaches a certain rate. The modern roasters have gauges and computers. I think they over-complicate things.”

Cafe Kubal was attracting all sorts of interesting people this morning. Steven Skinner, the owner of the plaza, stopped in to chat with us about the amazing series of events that was making his plaza bloom with businesses, including the True Value Hardware that moved in from down James St. He told us of the history of the plaza, the very first strip mall in the Syracuse area. He gave us pictures of the grand opening of the plaza back in 1953, and told us of more old pictures of the plaza that were found hidden in a wall in an Eastwood home until their discovery a few years ago. The cafe is in the old Merchants Bank space, so deep underneath it is a bank vault!

Another visitor to the cafe was The Craftsman, Ron Cosser. We had noticed the gorgeous wood front to the cafe’s counter. It had that Arts and Crafts look to it. Turns out Ron made it. After we finished our coffee and pastries, we went with him into the Parable Christian Store where you can see a fireplace surround that should be in the Everson Museum. Then we went to his workshop in the lower level of the plaza where he showed us around and regaled us with fascinating stories and his own, well-developed philosophies of work and life.

Folks, there isn’t enough room in this posting to go into a lot more detail about this man and his work. For now, we’ll let his gorgeous website do the talking.

Just remember, though: he carries on a tradition of fine craftsmanship that started in Eastwood with the workshop of Gustav Stickley. Uncompromising in his vision for making the highest quality furniture possible, Ron should be considered a national treasure. Let’s work on that. Ron Cosser, the Craftsman