“The first time I saw the way a bartender commanded the respect of his patrons, I thought, ‘this is how baristas should work,'” recounts Nik Virrey, half of the two-man team that wants to change the way you experience coffee.
The team? Matte&Gloss: Virrey and Brandon Paul Weaver, bartenders and baristas both. The goal? To earn coffee the same respect given fine wine or Scotch. And according to Weaver and Virrey, you can’t just do that by changing the coffee itself—you have to change the culture.
Virrey’s forays in coffee began a decade ago, at age 15, as a green-aproned barista for Starbucks. That was before a move from his native Los Angeles to Seattle ensnared him irrevocably in the specialty coffee scene. Virrey was working at Seattle’s Zoka Coffee, as the roaster’s youngest director of education yet, when Weaver contacted him out of the blue.
“He said, ‘I want you to teach me everything about coffee. I can’t afford to pay you, but I’ll bring the beer,’” Virrey says. The two stayed up until 4am, when Virrey told Weaver to quit his job, because he was going to hire him. In the intervening years the two have made a science of coffee, breaking down pressures, grinds and extraction lengths to emphasize terroir above all else. They began roasting for a local family’s Airstream-housed venture, which less than a year ago spawned the Ballard brick-and-mortar Slate Coffee Roasters. That establishment, which comfortably fits about eight people, just made off with the 2013 title of America’s Best Coffeehouse.
Clearly, Virrey and Weaver are doing something right. True, their vision of coffee borders on dogmatic, from a coffee-and-milk-only menu right down to their vocabulary. We’re dealing in “coffee seeds,” not beans; baristas are, in fact, coffee bartenders and 20 ounce lattes hardly merit the name.
But think back to the last time someone set out to change the very words we apply to our coffee. It started with “tall,” “grande” and “venti,” and the world hasn’t been the same since. Both the distinctive jargon and the inception of Matte&Gloss reflect Weaver’s and Virrey’s fundamental passion for disseminating their vision. Talking to either of them, that passion is nothing short of contagious and Virrey is such a firm believer in the company that he got the name tattooed onto his fingers.
Today Matte&Gloss is “consulting in the world of liquid management including all things coffee, cocktails and spirits.” They work events and private parties, assist in menu development for bars or coffee shops, and offer guidance to roasters. And they continue to elevate their art—thoughtfully and unaffectedly, one drink at a time.
I came to my interview with Virrey armed with questions. At the top of the list: “What’s the next big thing in coffee?” But in my two hours with Virrey, who’s animatedly explaining his hand-drawn diagrams and pulling illustrative espresso shots, I don’t ask that question. The answer is sitting across the table from me.
