Jay Caragay, coffee obsessive

Once all of the brewing is done, Jay fills four white mugs with coffee. Although each cup has been brewed from the same bean, the color varies dramatically, from the ochre luminosity of the Chemex (the clearest of the four, thanks to the paper filter, soaked with hot water to dislodge stray dust and fiber before the coffee grounds were spooned in), to the French press, surprisingly light in color, the surface edged in foam. The Vac Pot is both the darkest in color and, when it comes to tasting, the least clouded with sediment. It’s also the hottest.

We sample each cup, first lifting it to smell the aroma, dipping a spoon in to check color and translucence, and then drawing the coffee in with a quick inhalation, the opposite of blowing out a candle.

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This noisy slurp is an important part of the cupping protocol, Caragay explains: “The idea is to quickly suck in the coffee sample, while mixing it with air before coating our palates for a representational taste of coffee.”

I try the French press brew. “It tastes like coffee,” I offer. Caragay inhales a spoonful. “It lightly dances on the tongue,” he says. “It has a light body and hints of oranges.” I’m surprised: I’ve always thought of French press coffee as thick and dark. I taste it again.

The Vac Pot, our second sample, seems more layered and interesting, though maybe it’s just that I’m starting to get the hang of this. And while it seems richer to me, it’s also a bit lighter on the palate. The AeroPress, is — not surprisingly, like the French press — cloudy with escaped sediment.

Caragay pronounces the Chemex version endowed with “a brown-sugar character that stands out more than the other methods.”

Coffee, says Caragay, “is like beef,” and will react differently to various preparations. “You can saute, grill, braise and roast meat,” he points out. “It will always taste like beef, but the cooking methods will enhance different qualities.”

Coffee drinkers seemingly are becoming more and more aware of the drink’s nuances. “It used to be, people would say ‘it’s bold’ or ‘it’s dark,’ ” says Volta Coffee’s Anthony Rue. Lately, consumers have gotten more comfortable with a new vocabulary and new flavor profiles. For example, he says, his shop in Gainesville is serving a coffee from Burundi “with the overwhelming flavor of fresh watercress. It’s spectacular. It doesn’t taste like what you think of as coffee.” In wine, Rue says, “people call it terroir.”

These days, says Ric Rhinehart, about 40 percent of all coffee sold in the United States is considered “specialty.” Twenty years ago, “the number was so small, we couldn’t even calculate.” And back then, he adds, “the word barista didn’t even exist in idiomatic English.”

Caragay, 41, who grew up in Pikesville, the son of two doctors, studied film in college and was well into a career doing sound recording and video assist on location for Hollywood films before opening Jay’s Shave Ice in Timonium in 1999. The stand, which sold the Hawaiian version of snow cones, began offering coffee a few years later, and in 2006, Caragay submitted a bid to take over a small coffee concession at the Towson library.

He also began entering barista competitions, visiting coffee growers, blogging and doing a weekly podcast, with Nick Cho (who owned Murky Coffee in Arlington and Eastern Market — now Peregrine — and now owns Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in the San Francisco Bay Area).

By now, Caragay is well known in the select world of specialty coffee. He’s a frequent guest judge at international barista competitions and is an occasional critic of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. At his shop in Hampden — he hopes there will be more, in Baltimore and possibly elsewhere (“hopefully in cities I like to visit,” he says) — Caragay seems to be building a following. One carefully brewed cup at a time.