Small Business Spotlight: Talking Huntsville history and iconic coffee with The Kaffeeklatsch

Everything about The Kaffeeklatsch is iconic to Huntsville, from its German name – a nod to the German rocket scientists who came here in the 1960s – to its nearly 50 year history in the historic Terry Hutchens building in downtown.

The business has grown up with Huntsville, so to speak, experiencing its own changes and challenges since it opened in 1976. What hasn’t changed is the commitment of The Kaffeeklatsch owners Grant and Kathryn Heath to provide high-quality, fresh-roasted coffees from around the world to the people of Huntsville.

Originally from North Alabama, the Heaths fell in love with fresh-roasted international coffees in the mid 1970s in the Italian neighborhoods of San Francisco where they were living at the time. The couple decided to come home to Alabama and open a coffee shop here.

That may sound like no big deal today, but in 1976 coffee shops were not as common as they are today.

The Kaffeeklatsch manager Joanna Weand said everyone thought that they were crazy. Nobody wants to go to a coffee shop, they said. The Heaths opened anyway in May 1976.

In 1977, they began what is today the core of the business: roasting.

“It’s really neat to take this raw thing and be able to manipulate it in a machine and then come out with this finished product and be able to drink it and share it with other people and they like it too,” Weand said.

By roasting the coffee themselves the business has better control over the quality and flavor of its products.

“This way we can make sure it’s as fresh as we want it to be,” she said.

The vintage 1929 Jabez Burns No. 7 Roaster –  still in use today – was brought up from New Orleans. This was quite the big undertaking. The front window of the building had to be temporarily removed to bring the roaster into the shop.

Many may remember The Kaffeeklatsch Bar, which became a popular music and entertainment hangout in the ‘80s and 90’s. Longtime Kaffeeklatsch employee Carole Record ran the The Kaffeeklatsch Bar for more than 30 years. When she retired, the bar retired along with her.

“I know tons of people miss the bar and I totally get it,” Weand said. “I have my own memories from there and I miss it sometimes too.”

But the primary focus of The Kaffeeklatsch, then and now, has always been the roasting.

“I don’t know that they ever thought it would become the main business,” Weand said, “but through the years that’s just what they really enjoyed and what they kept building.”

Just because The Kaffeeklatsch doesn’t run a full-service coffee shop anymore doesn’t mean that locals can’t enjoy a hot, brewed cup. Several Huntsville coffee shops and restaurants brew and serve The Kaffeeklatsch blends including Dragon’s Forge Cafe, Bus Stop Coffee, La Esquina Cocina, and Pizzelle’s Confections. Pizzelle’s also uses The Kaffeeklatsch coffees in several of their chocolates.

What even is a “kaffeeklatsch”? Weand said it is a German word that means coffee gossip or gossip around coffee. One of the Heaths’ friends suggested the name. Weand said the Heaths liked the meaning of the word and the connection to the German rocket scientists here.

“Sometimes we’ll have German tourists come in and of course, when they come in they’re like, ‘Oh, there’s not somewhere to sit down to have a treat and coffee,’ and we’re like, ‘We’re not exactly a kaffeeklatsch anymore.’”

The business roasts coffee beans from more than 25 countries from some of the world’s best coffee regions including Africa, Central and South America, and Indonesia. The beans arrive at The Kaffeeklatsch in large, 130-lb. burlap bags, about 20 bags at a time.

They roast every day, about 15 pounds at a time. The roaster can handle more but roasting a smaller amount is how The Kaffeeklatsch manages freshness, quality and flavor. Beans are roasted between 200 and 400 degrees, between 10 and 20 minutes, depending on the desired roast..

“At the different roast levels you’ll get a different flavor of the bean,” Weand explained. “When you do more light roasts you get much more of the inherent natural flavor of the bean but it tends to be a bit sharper because you haven’t developed some of the other acids and sugars that are in the bean. A medium roast you get a bit more of a balance where you get the natural flavors and you get some of the sweetness. When you get into the darker roast, that’s where it’s more about the roast itself because you still get a little bit of that natural flavor but it’s more about the boldness and richness of the dark roast that we’re aiming for.”

The natural flavors that come alive during the roasting process have to do with where and how the coffee is grown and how the beans are processed.

“Not all coffee beans are the same,” Weand said. “There’s lots of different varieties that you can grow, and some countries only grow certain kinds. All of the beans taste different, and even within a country, coffees will have a similar flavor profile from farm to farm, but even from farm to farm you’ll find little differences. Then when you bring in some of the different processing techniques, you can really change some of the inherent flavors.”

Weand, personally, prefers the flavor of naturally processed coffee which tends to have a lot more sweetness.

“Coffee beans are actually the seed of a little fruit that looks like a little cherry. Most of the processing that coffee goes through, they remove the outside first. But when they naturally process it, they actually leave that on and let it dry a little bit, so it leaves more of that fruity flavor behind from the fruit itself, and they tend to have more sweetness.”

Visit The Kaffeeklatsch, at 103 Jefferson St. N, Tuesday through Thursday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. – 7 p.m. or Saturday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Find out more about available coffees and order online at www.kaffeeklatsch.com.