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Cafe owner has 'Bean There' from seed to cup:

When people say they've "been there" Amy Perez is hoping they're referring to the Bean There Café.

Perez opened her independent coffee shop in Towne Place at Greenbrier in June 2007. After earning a marketing degree from Longwood College in 2000, the 29-year-old native of Danville lived in Annapolis, Md., with her husband, Tony. It was there that this coffee fanatic fell in love with coffee shops.

When the couple relocated to the Shore Drive area of Virginia Beach, Perez realized that she missed the quaint cafés and thought more intently that she always wanted to own something.

She embarked on several years researching coffee and the industry. She hired a consultant, sampled countless coffee roasters in different cities, attended a coffee fest and traveled by herself to Nicaragua last February to learn "the true seed to cup" experience.

While staying in a bungalow on the Salva Negra Coffee Estate in Matagalpa for six days, Perez picked coffee beans, put them into baskets and helped dry them. "I learned the whole process because I wanted to be able to educate our customers on the whole coffee process," she said.

The experience also helped Perez narrow down a roaster and find the right beans for her business. She finally selected a roaster from a Seattle company that has won several international awards, but Perez prefers to keep its name a secret. Unlike most local coffee shops, Bean There Café specializes in hand tamping and frothed milk.

"Everything's done by hand, nothing's automatic here," she said. "That's really important to me because when people come into our store, we are making their coffee specifically for them."

And people seem to like that. Church groups, book clubs, team-building parties, poetry readings are all able to say they've "bean there."

Perez recently held her first "coffee cupping" - similar to a wine tasting.

Perez employs seven baristas who go through intense training, follow guidelines of the Specialty Coffee Association of America and must create the perfect latte as their final test. She incorporated a barista contest, challenging her workers to the most sales, speed, blindfold tamping and latte art, including hearts and flowers.

The Bean There Café features high ceilings, warm colors, ample seating in a relaxed atmosphere and free wi-fi. One wall features a rotating display of local artists' work for viewing and for sale.

Perez is not letting her marketing skills fall by the wayside either. She has created a "Have you bean there?" campaign by posting signs throughout the city.

"If people come in and taste the difference, they'll come back," Perez says in her best marketing-speak.

Customers speak for her, too.

Coffee aficionados Carol Bennett and T.C. Whitehurst have made the drive from their Virginia Beach home several times a week.

"We buy our espresso beans there. They're truly divine and we just absolutely love this place," said Bennett, 60.

Whitehurst, 61, summed up her coffee experience at the Bean There Café up with two words, "Absolutely decadent."

 

Sandra J. Pennecke, pennecke@cox.net