A design on a t-shirt at Ruta Maya

People are strange when you're a stranger Faces look ugly when you're alone Women seem wicked when you're unwanted Streets are uneven when you are down -- Jim Morrison, People Are Strange

by Jonathan Bennett

I met a friend at the Ruta Maya coffee house on one of those hot, muggy, overcast days that signals the summer doldrums here in Austin. The scent of fresh roasting coffee beans mixed with the lingering trails of the previous night's cigar smoke and wafted from the floor boards of the old reconstituted building at Fourth & Lavaca streets.

As one enters the establishment through the outside patio area, where occasional chairs and tables are set up for those who enjoy the art of people watching, you see a coffee roaster standing that is reminiscent of the architecture of old steam engines that I saw as a kid -- bright green with brass fittings and a large flue off the back end.

Indeed, when I spoke to Tim Sheehan, the owner of the establishment, he was standing rapt over the cooling bin, just having cleared the roaster of a fresh batch of beans. The cooling bin has a rotating arm that spreads the beans out flat in a continuous motion that speeds up the cooling process. Tim will cook batches of 50 pounds. to bag for re-sale and will cook small batches of beans for in house use daily.

After Tim finished his chore, he agreed to sit down with us and talk about coffee. Ruta Maya means "Mayan Route" or road, and the vision of creating the coffee house is based on a serious interest in the culture of the Maya and Latin America in general. Tim had visited the Chiapas area of Mexico and had met up with a gentleman by the name of Wilbur Garrett, a former editor of National Geographic and a man dedicated to conserving Mayan ruins and ancient culture. The name of the organization that was set up was called Ruta Maya, and thus the Coffee House's name. It turns out that the University of Texas at Austin is home to some of the most intense study of the Maya, so Tim feels a certain serendipity in his choice of names.

His primary coffee bean hails from Chiapas, the area of Mexico most disenfranchised by the current government and home of the infamous Marcos of ski masked revolutionary zeal. Tim feels that the bean that he imports is overlooked in the U.S. market and is one of the best. The better the bean the more one can do with it. Tim buys the bean directly from small co-operative farmers and then transports them by truck through Mexico and then to the U.S. There is always the possibility a banditry on the highways of Mexico, and it is necessary to figure a 45-day lead time to get the beans to the store.

The process starts from a green bean that has been milled down from a big red cherry that holds two beans within. One lays out the beans on a large courtyard similar in scope to a basketball court and separates the chaff from the beans. The beans are dried for a week to ten days before bagging and shipping. At this point the green bean is bagged in 70 kilo increments. It takes from 5 to 7 years to get a mature tree that will harvest. From that point on one can expect a couple of harvests per year.

The trend in coffee is towards a darker roast for expresso lovers, although most beans are roasted to a medium color. The Columbian dark roast is a result of the fact that those beans are grown at a higher altitude. They are a higher-grade bean that is capable of being roasted longer for more flavor without becoming bitter. A low altitude or inferior bean cannot be roasted as long without the bitterness of deterioration.

Ruta Maya has more than just Mexican beans. They offer varietals from at least 8 countries, including Ethiopia and Indonesia, each with the potential of up to twenty roasting variations. The favorites among medium roasts is the Ruta Maya; the expresso bean favorite is called Veradero.

The next project for Ruta Maya is "Cubita," and involves importing Ecuadorian beans prepared by Cuban craftsmen to achieve the closest approximation of Cuban coffee possible. It is still illegal to import most Cuban products, including coffee, but these beans will represent a true Cuban coffee in style. In addition, each bag will contain a piece of artwork or literature from Cuba, as these do not constitute a product under the embargo. Also in the works are a liquor made from the Chiapas beans, and possibly, hand-rolled cigars. Cigars? Scott Campbell is said to be a wizard when it comes to cigars. He created a store that is an adjunct to Ruta Maya, and he hopes to bring in the first Ruta Maya hand-rolled cigar soon. Thus, a certain synergy with coffee and cigars -- a Cuban sensibility here in Austin.

Campbell is a man of medium height with a serious red beard and sardonic eyes. He started spending his paper route money at the local tobacco shop when he was an impressionable child and has been smoking cigars for 17 years. He confirmed my sense that the new popularity of cigars is partly due to the crack-down on cigarette smoking, and that one can take on a sort of libertarian rebelliousness in the enjoyment of a good smoke. Otherwise, many people smoke cigars as an alternative to cigarettes and have discovered that they enjoy the taste and the mystique.

Located inside Ruta Maya, one will find the cigar shop with a door that keeps back a cloud of smoke being produced by a few aficionados ensconced in a couple of comfortable chairs. On the shelves in stock there are presently 125 different varieties of cigars. With the upsurge in popularity, there is as much as a-year- and-a-half back order time for popular brands, making them increasingly difficult to come by. As a result, Scott is trying to find a way to create his own brand of mid-priced, hand-rolled cigars in the $2-3 range. Some brands that are legal can go for as much as $16 each.

Although Ruta Maya can't claim to be luxurious (and doesn't), it is a comfortable place with a continual stream of interesting characters parading around, while others have their heads in books. Young and old, all are here to feed the senses and spend a little time between coming and going, while of course drinking or smoking.