Unseen Bean: Part 1

Gerry: So, let me describe for everyone what we’ve got going here. This is a big room and I’m standing in-between two coffee roasters.

James Host: Next time you see a coffee roastery, walk inside and ask them to show you around.

Gerry: So, the barrel motor sounds like this [sound of barrel motor] and then the fan that draws this air through and out sounds like this [sound of fan]

James Host: I am chatting with Gerry Leary. He is a very seasoned roaster, been doing this job for almost 20 years.

Gerry: and then the cooling fan for the tray sounds like this [sound of cooling fan]

James Host: But Gerry is different from other roasters.

Gerry: and, of course the brushes, there is your percussion section. I was born in Chicago, Illinois. I was a 24 week pregnancy and when they put me in an incubator, they put me on 100% oxygen and that’s what burnt the retina of the eyes because I was in so much pain I was screaming continuously they say and the doctors finally figured out that it was eye issues because the eyes were getting infected so they had to take them out and put plastic in.

James Host: Gerry is fully blind.

James: Do you have any visual memories at all?

Gerry: No. If I did it was in the first few minutes of life and I was not developed enough to know. [Musical interlude]

James Host: A blind coffee roaster is as rare as a blind car mechanic which is funny, really, because before roasting coffee, Gerry fixed cars for 30 years. In the USA, it’s estimated two out of three visually impaired adults don’t have full time work. That’s over 2 million people. This story explores all the hurdles Gerry has had to jump over to become a coffee roaster. and his story doesn’t end here either because today Gerry, at the age of 67, is also a business owner trying to get back up on his feet.

Gerry: So, I am not looking at all this as a dead end or as a finality. That part of life I am not really ready to look at.

[Musical interlude]

James Host: I’m James Harper and this is Filter Stories. The untold stories hidden in your cup of coffee.

There’s that old joke, right? You’re so good at your job you say you can do it with your eyes shut. But let’s be real how much of your job can you actually do with your eyes closed? Gerry as a young boy, struggles with this reality.

Gerry: It was tough for me as a kid. I had a temper. I didn’t understand at all. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the fact that other people could go ride their bicycles off to some place and I couldn’t.

James Host: But as Gerry gets older, he begins to accept his situation and he asks himself…

Gerry: Which would you rather be happy or sad? And if you want to be happy, you’ve got to make yourself that way. Well, Gerry this is your situation. This is what you’ve got, this is your deck of cards and you’ve got to play the same game as everybody else so you’re missing your joker or whatever it is. Play around it.

James Host: If you want a clue as to who Gerry Leary is, how he learnt to play around a missing joker card, there’s one story from his childhood that basically explains it all.

Gerry: When I was about two years old, I would start to go out into my dad’s garage during the day and play around with the cars that he was fixing at night.

James Host: His dad is understandably worried. His toddler is playing in a garage filled with heavy, sharp metal objects and he can’t even see what he’s touching. So, his parents do what any responsible, loving parents would do.

Gerry: They locked me out of the garage. And then I thought about it and I said, you know, my folks, when they lose a key, they go to the store and they get a new one. So, I went and stumbled down to the parts store three blocks away. Didn’t ask, didn’t say anything, just went there.

James: So, to just paint the scene. So, a blind three year old is walking block after block after block going to a hardware store to try and get a key to a garage so they can play around the machines. That sounds pretty mad from my perspective.

Gerry: [laughs] It is. So, I go over there and I found Joey and I said hey, can you give me a key to my dad’s garage?

James Host: Joey is the son of the shop owner.

Gerry: He was eight. He said well, no you have to make the key. So, I said well what do keys look like before you make them? So, he shows me this whole panel of key blanks and then I found one that felt like my parents’ house key. He gave me this key and I took it home and I put it in the lock, and it fit but it didn’t do anything. So, I went outside, and I decided that I was going to try scraping that key on our patio. It took a while but just to give you an example here we’ll take this pen, now this curb is a little more dull than the one, more round than what I was working with. I took the rest of that day and part of the next day to make this key and I finally got it and it worked. So, I started playing with cars again. A couple days went by and my father found me, and he said I thought I told you to keep out of the garage. I said well, yeah but I made a key see, look. That’s what they said, they were like okay I guess we’d better teach you about this. We can’t keep you out of there so if you are really that curious okay you can learn about cars.

James Host: And eventually Gerry becomes a car mechanic. Years go by, decades and it goes great. He’s got clients, he buys a house but a trip to San Francisco changes his life.

Gerry: Yeah, it was in 1994. I went to a restaurant for breakfast and I hear this machine turn on and it sounds like a gigantic rock polisher.

James Host: Gerry asks the owner who’s waiting his table, ‘what’s that sound?’

Gerry: So, he said, oh come here. That’s our coffee roaster and you’d be good at this because you don’t have to see to roast coffee and I thought oh my gosh I’ve got an open-minded guy here, okay. I was all excited and enchanted and I said, you know if I ever get out of cars, I think I want to do this next. 2001 came around and I was fixing cars and I was kind of getting bored and tired of it and so, I think I am going to go try and get into coffee.

James Host: At the tender age of 51, Gerry begins his coffee roasting journey. [Musical interlude]

Okay, roasting. If you want to do it commercially, you have to roast the same beans the same way every time and that’s because the customer who liked the flavors yesterday wants the same flavors today and the same beans can taste very, very different depending how you roast them. Sighted coffee roasters stay consistent by gluing their eyes to computer monitors. Let’s explore how Gerry does it.

Gerry: So, we are going to roast some Colombian coffee today. So, I am going to pour these beans into the hopper.

James Host: Gerry hauls a bucket of unroasted, green beans up over his head and tips it into a funnel at the top of the roaster.

Gerry: So, we are going to turn it on now. [Gerry putting beans into the hopper and turns on machine]

James Host: Now, this simple gesture, just pouring beans into a funnel above your head. You know, from Gerry’s perspective, that bucket is moving through black space.

James: How did you…? I am surprised you knew where it was without having to feel your way up the spout.

Gerry: Well, so I’ve done it since 2003. So, I’ve done it a lot of years but what I used as a cue as I walked up to the machine, of course I heard it…

James Host: And so, as Gerry explains this, he drops a big clue.

Gerry: …and I touch this which is the cooling tray and so I know…

James Host: When we use our eyes, Gerry uses a routine. [Musical interlude] When you can see, you develop routines subliminally. For example, if there’s a cup of coffee on the table in front of you, you see it, your hand picks it up but, if you want to put yourself in Gerry’s shoes try this. Shut your eyes, spin around, full 360 and pick up the coffee again.

Gerry: I have learned just a few techniques. You don’t go looking for a coffee cup like this, you look for one like this.

James: The difference here is now your hand is on the table but before your hand was hovering mid-air.

Gerry: So, I hit the top of the cup see, almost knock it over whereas if I lay my hand flat on the table left to right, a little further forward left to right, a little further forward oh, there is it.

James Host: Alright, back to the roasting. The roaster is now super-hot. Gerry reaches up to the spout and he pulls a flap.

Gerry: Here we go.

James Host: Green beans tumble down into a hot spinning drum.

Gerry: And the noise you hear now is the coffee rotating in the barrel and warming up…

James Host: A roaster basically a spinning oven, and coffee kind of behaves like popcorn. When you apply enough heat, it starts to pop, or crack. While sighted roasters have monitors splattered with graphs and numbers, Gerry listens.

Gerry: Now, the sound, you may or may not notice this but as the roast continues the sound of the beans tumbling in the roaster will change and it will get a little quieter.

James Host: This is what it sounds like a few minutes into the roast.

Gerry: There is a subtle change and it doesn’t click in. It just slowly changes. It’s like as if you would turn the treble on your stereo down.

James Host: Fast forward 10 minutes.

James: The beans are a lot less shrill now.

Gerry: Yeah.

James Host: Jump ahead a few more minutes.

James: I am hearing some cracks.

Gerry: Aha, that’s the first crack, it’s begin to crackle a little bit and…

James Host: This is a critical point. If a roaster can get the first crack to happen at a consistent time and a consistent temperature, the odds are that the flavors will be pretty consistent too. Now, sighted roasters know whether they are being consistent because they look at a thermometer and they track the change in temperature over time by looking at a stopwatch. Gerry can’t see thermometers or stopwatches. A talking clock is easy to find. Today he uses his iPhone.

Gerry: We’ve been roasting for 15 minutes, it’s 12:14.

James Host: But finding a talking thermometer is a different kettle of fish. [Musical interlude]

So, 2003, Gerry decides to get into roasting. He doesn’t know the first about it, so he goes on a course but after the course, he is in a pickle because he can’t find a roaster that’s going to speak out the temperature. The people who the run course promise him that they’ll build something just for him. So, Gerry goes home, excited and he waits.

Gerry: I was laying around here just trying to figure out how to go further and how to find a talking thermometer.

James Host: And waits, and waits. Weeks go by… While waiting around, Gerry would listen to spoken word audiocassette newsletters. In-between the articles, they have adverts and one day Gerry’s ears prick up.

Gerry: In it there was an advertisement for a meter that would read thermocouples.

James Host: As in a talking thermometer

Gerry: And it just made me jump up. I ran over here to the table, I rewound that cassette a little bit and I played the advertisement again and I couldn’t believe it, so I played it again and again and again and again. I think I played it ten times. So, then I called the roasting company and I said hey, so how’s it going as far as making that roaster talk? Well, we haven’t got around to it yet, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I said well don’t, forget it, I did it and anyway half a day later I got the roaster together and then I took their thermocouple out and I said yea, this is just like the one I have and I bent mine to match theirs and shoved it in, tightened it up, plugged it in and turned it on.

James Host: Gerry still uses the same talking thermometer.

[Thermometer giving temperature]

Gerry: We’re already up to 420, we have about 15 degrees left to go.

James Host: The roast is almost finished!

[Thermometer giving temperature]

Gerry: So, we’re at 435. I’m going to open this plate.

James Host: Gerry lifts up a handle and scorching hot roasted coffee falls into a circular tray while a fan pushes cold air through the beans. So, back in 2003, after a lot of trial and error, Gerry finally figures out how to roast coffee that tastes good. Now he had to come up with name for his business and he faces the question: how will coffee drinkers feel knowing their coffee is roasted by a blind man?

Gerry: All of my blind friends said Gerry you don’t want to put anything about blind on your coffee. It’s going to trash your sales. People won’t have confidence in you, and I said well, I’ve never hidden the blind thing in my life, so I don’t think I’m going to start now.

James Host: Gerry names the company The Unseen Bean. His tagline ‘Blind Roasted Coffee’.

Gerry: And that blind roasted coffee saying just draws people in. They go what’s blind, roasted coffee? What does that mean? And then I say oh, it just means it’s coffee roasted by a blind guy. Everyone told me I needed to see the color in coffee to roast it, so I figured out how to roast it without it. So, I’m not looking at it, blind roasted coffee.

James Host: Gerry’s business grows and grows. He picks up wholesale customers, buys a little cafe in downtown Boulder and he becomes quite the sensation. The coffee media loves the story.

Gerry: When I started the roastery here I wanted to learn more about coffee, so I started out…

James Host: Even Whole Foods makes a six minute documentary about him.

Gerry: And I met a woman who owned Buchannan’s Coffee here in town…

James Host: This is Gerry at his peak.

Gerry:…it’s not making any money buy it from me.

James Host: Alright, back to the roastery.

Gerry: So, here we go [sound of beans] Do you have a coffee grinder?

James: I do.

Gerry: Oh, then we’re going to get you some coffee.

James Host: Gerry drops the cooled, roasted coffee from the circular tray into a big plastic bin. A few beans miss their mark and scatter across the floor.

Gerry: I spilled some beans. What’s that?

James: Can I pay for this?

Gerry: No

James: Please, let me pay for this.

Gerry: Okay. Wholesale price, 10 bucks.

James Host: Gerry needs a heat sealer to close my bag of roasted coffee. So, he begins walking to one of the walls crushing a spilled bean or two underfoot. But he’s heading towards a cluster of plastic bins full of coffee. My mind flashes to a tsunami of beans surging across the floor.

James: You’re about to walk into the barrels.

Gerry: [laughs] It’s only the solid objects you have to worry about.

James Host: Gerry arrives at the wall.

Gerry: So, I’m going to go over here to our sealer.

James Host: He feels around. Gerry’s off the mark by about 6 feet. He feels the table, moves to his right and then his hands land on the heat sealer.

Gerry: Here you go.

James: Thank you. It’s fantastic thank you.

James Host: And if you’re curious to know, the coffee tasted like chocolate and liquorice. Gerry’s been roasting for 15 years, but it’s still not a perfect performance and there are also some things he can’t do. For example, he can’t see where the machine is dirty.

Gerry: Is that Rose?

Rose: Hi Gerry. Hello, good morning.

Gerry: How are you?

Rose: Making machine for roasting coffee for Monday.

Gerry: Yeah. [Both laugh]

Rose: You’re welcome.

James: It’s quite dirty?

Rose: Yeah

Gerry: Yeah

James: It’s a lot of work?

Rose: Yea, it is. [sounds of Rose cleaning]

James Host: And there’s the question of safety. Just touching the face of this blazing hot oven it’s going to burn you. I spot a fire extinguisher in the corner of the room. I ask Gerry have you ever used one.

Gerry: Yeah.

James: How did that work?

Gerry: Well, I started a fire in a roaster chimney.

James Host: Fires are very common in roasteries. As green beans are getting roasted, they shed this thin paper called chaff and it gets pushed out through the exhaust chimney, but the paper often gets stuck and then bursts into flames.

Gerry: And so, I said to myself, I’ll just take the fire extinguisher and shove it up here and squirt up the chimney.

James: [Laughs] Okay, what happened?

Gerry: All of the chaff that was stuck to the chimney started coming down and burnt the hell out of my hands. That’s what happened. these three fingers on both hands were just fried. [Gerry laughs]

James Host: I tell Gerry doesn’t this prove the point roasting is too dangerous for a blind person.

Gerry: Same thing would happen to you guys though. This wasn’t a blindness issue. This was a stupidity issue because I thought I could attack the fire from underneath.

James: It’s interesting because as soon as I see there’s been a mistake or a bad decision my first reaction is to be like well, of course, the operator was blind so it’s a blindness issue.

Gerry: Yeah, I mean, for instance the people that work with me here any one of them would have done the same. The same thing would have happened. We didn’t realize how much junk had gotten stuck in the pipes.

[Musical interlude]

James Host: Gerry figuring out how to roast is just half of this story.

James: So, it seems like roasting coffee is easy but the business side?

Gerry: The business side is tougher for me.

James Host: Gerry today is a long way from Gerry at his peak.

Gerry: January came around and I was looking at the books and we hadn’t cleared more than 200 bucks in a week or two and I just said I can’t keep this going, I’m just gathering debt.

[Musical interlude]

James Host: Tune in to part two next time on Filter Stories.

[Musical interlude]

Credits

Thank you for listening. So, as you can tell I’m experimenting with this new style of creating episodes, splitting them into different parts. It means that the episodes for you are like 20 minutes-ish, very digestible and for me, it just gives me some extra time to make them as great as possible for you.

Now, I’ve just got back to Berlin after travelling for two and a half/three months and The first thing I did was attend The World of Coffee in Berlin and I met some of you who are big fans of the podcast and it meant so much to me that you came to say hi and how much the podcast means to you so thank you so much. Now, if all goes well I’m planning a kick starter for the next episode. Some of you mentioned you missed the last kick starter of Aquiares because you maybe batch the episodes to listen to on car trips and stuff and you missed the window to join and for this kick starter it won’t be a very big window to join either. So, get the information straight from me by joining the newsletter. There’s a link in the episode description and following Filter Stories on Instagram, @filterstoriespodcast.

Now, let’s play a game. Listen to this:

But Gerry can’t see thermometers or stopwatches. A talking clock was easy to find. Today he uses his iPhone.

Gerry: We’ve been roasting for [iPhone gives time] 15 minutes it’s 12:14…

And now listen to this.

But Gerry can’t see thermometers or stopwatches. A talking clock was easy to find. Today he uses his iPhone.

Gerry: We’ve been roasting for [iPhone gives time] 15 minutes it’s 12:14…

The difference there is Dom Edgley. This episode was engineered and mixed by him. If you need him find him at domedgleysound.com and the Filter Stories logo was created by Headquarters which is a branding and packaging design team. You can find them at headquarters. studio. The next episode drops in two weeks. Speak to you then.