蓝瓶咖啡，最好的咖啡（下）

一心一意泡咖啡

    从农贸市场起家，弗里曼的生意模式很快拓展为半永久性的手推车和售货亭。2008年，他接受了Kohlberg Ventures的一笔投资，这家总部位于硅谷的风投公司此前已投资过多家高端食品公司，包括后来被好时（Hershey）收购的Scharffen Berger巧克力。弗里曼不愿公开太多信息，只透露他“接受的投资不到500万美元”，而且他本人仍是蓝瓶的大股东，股权远远超过投资方。

    在这笔投资的帮助下，弗里曼在奥克兰建设了一个规模更大的咖啡烘焙场和商用烘焙坊。（糕点甜品方面由弗里曼的妻子凯特琳•威廉姆斯•弗里曼负责，两人是在伯克利农贸市场上相识的。）除了铸币广场之外，弗里曼目前在旧金山的渡轮大厦也有一家规模毫不逊色的咖啡馆，在旧金山现代艺术博物馆（the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art）也运营着一家咖啡店，不过稍小一些。与周围的艺术气息相呼应，那儿的甜点用黄油和糖复制了馆内的许多永久性藏品。

    弗里曼的零售业务没有什么固定模式，但它们确实都表现出一以贯之的干净、朴素的美感。墙上没有什么艺术品，店里也不提供付费音乐下载，柜台后也不供应PBMs（这是弗里曼式的缩写，意味着perfunctory bran muffins——质量马虎的麸皮松饼）。蓝瓶并不出售咖啡杯或T恤，尽管一旦开卖，销量可能很可观。“我只是想不清楚蓝瓶T恤到底该怎么设计才好，”弗里曼称，“我自己从不穿印着商标的T恤，为什么还要卖这种东西呢？”

    顾客倒是可以买一顶蓝瓶棉帽，它们与咖啡烘焙场和面包房里工作的蓝瓶员工所戴的工作帽一样。还可以花150美元——很夸张吧——买一件睡衣，其面料产自意大利，饰有蓝白两色细小花纹，蓝瓶商标装饰着一个口袋，隐藏于品蓝色镶边的领子之下。与任何弗里曼投注心血的东西一样，这款睡衣相当精致。他们很畅销吗？恐怕谈不上，不过弗里曼很喜欢这些睡衣，正如他喜欢上文提到的画图本，它们反映了他的个人美学趣味，某种程度上说，一如苹果款式寥寥但效果完美的产品反映着史蒂夫•乔布斯的美学趣味。

    既然旧金山湾区已经为他的咖啡癫狂，弗里曼开始寻找下一个值得进军的市场。该市场必须满足以下几点要求：弗里曼本人愿意每隔一周造访一次，能够说服忠诚的员工欣然前往，而且当地人对优质咖啡的需求很大。纽约这个城市正是这样的地方。

    过去两年来，蓝瓶咖啡已经在布鲁克林的Williamsburg区域开张了一家烘焙场和咖啡店。由于弗里曼要求所有产品都必须尽可能新鲜，他的运营方式有点儿像古罗马军团：首先设立一个供应基地（烘焙场），然后以此为基础拓展出去征服新的领地。这个夏季，他在纽约高架铁路公园（High Line）——除中央公园（Central Park）外，纽约最令人欣羡的景观——开设了一个咖啡亭。与旧金山出现的盛况一样，附近的咖啡爱好者们也纷纷排起队来。弗里曼透露，今年蓝瓶咖啡旗下零售和批发总额将介于1,500万-2,000万美元，这还比不上星巴克——根本还不是同一个数量级。但就目前而言，弗里曼对于每年70%左右的增长速度颇为满意。“我无意成为下一个星巴克，”他说，“星巴克只有一个，但还有其他许多增长方式，既有趣又能保持质量。”

    高架铁路公园咖啡厅的顾客主要是游客，因此并不能证明蓝瓶咖啡已经赢得纽约居民的芳心。同样，蓝瓶在Williamsburg的成功也不能说明弗里曼的咖啡策略在更广阔的市场仍然具有吸引力：不管是布鲁克林还是奥克兰，其实人们在络腮胡子、固定齿轮脚踏车和咖啡方面口味方面的偏好都是一回事。无论如何，弗里曼的下一步动作将是个真正的考验。今年秋季，他将在洛克菲勒中心（Rockefeller Center）的广场上开一家咖啡店，那里原本是包裹巨头UPS的门店。没错，就是那个洛克菲勒中心，那个有圣诞树、溜冰场、成群游客和成千上万往返于上班地点的纽约客的洛克菲勒中心。

    就像以意大利浓咖啡和cortado咖啡著称的Continental一样，弗里曼希望将洛克菲勒中心店建成高级咖啡胜地，完全以胡桃木和大理石装修。“我希望让它高贵端庄，”他说，“如果某个咖啡店允许你点一大杯南瓜咖啡（星巴克的一款咖啡——译注），那还有什么高贵感可言呢。”

    不管尊贵与否，总有些顾客没有那么多闲情逸致，不愿为一杯手冲滴滤咖啡等上太长时间。弗里曼明白这一点，他正在设计一套系统，使时间紧张的顾客可以单独排队，与愿意等待虹吸咖啡或手冲咖啡的顾客分开。“人们有可能会因此怒火中烧，痛恨我们的做法，那将是一个可怕的失败，”弗里曼说，“不过迄今为止我们还没犯过这样严重的错误。”

    或许他真会尝到失败滋味。尽管他品味脱俗，秉持高质量标准，但弗里曼或许不是领导蓝瓶咖啡实现下一阶段发展的最佳人选。弗里曼承认这两种情况都可能，但他同时也颇为自信。曾经有一帮大牌律师来到芝加哥渡轮大厦的蓝瓶咖啡店里，急不可耐地四处转悠，可之后又发生了什么呢？

    弗里曼称，尽管他们已开始有些抗拒。谁有这么多闲工夫等一杯咖啡？但最终他们还是尝到了蓝瓶咖啡。事态发展与蓝瓶进入任何市场后的情况一样。不是说这些法律界的精英连等待一杯虹吸咖啡的时间都没有吗？结果他们还不是像其他人一样开始乖乖排队。

    译者：小宇

No mugs, muffins, or t-shirts

    From his farmer's market roots, Freeman quickly expanded to semi-permanent carts and kiosks. In 2008 he took an investment from Kohlberg Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC firm that has backed several high-end food companies including Scharffen Berger chocolate, later sold to Hershey (HSY). Freeman will say only that he took "less than $5 million" and is still majority owner of Blue Bottle by a substantial margin.

    With the investment, Freeman built a larger coffee roastery and commercial baking kitchen in Oakland. (The pastry program is run by Freeman's wife, Caitlin Williams Freeman, whom he met at the Berkeley farmers' market.) In addition to Mint Plaza, Freeman now operates a full-fledged café in San Francisco's Ferry Building and a smaller café in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Cueing off the art that surrounds them, the pastries replicate, in butter and sugar, works from the museum's permanent collection.

    There isn't a formula to Freeman's retail operations, but they do display a consistently clean, unadorned aesthetic. There's no art on the walls, no music for sale, no "PBMs" (perfunctory bran muffins, in the Freeman lexicon) behind the counter. Blue Bottle doesn't sell coffee mugs or T-shirts, even though it could move a boatload. "I just can't figure out how to do a Blue Bottle T-shirt," Freeman says. "I don't wear T-shirts with logos. Why would I sell them?"

    Blue Bottle places enormous stress on coffee provenance, identifying factors such as soil composition and the species of shade tree under which the coffee beans are grown.

    You can buy a Blue Bottle cotton cap, as worn by employees in the roastery and bakery. You can also buy -- get this -- $150 pajamas made from blue-and-white micro-striped cotton Italian shirting. The Blue Bottle logo adorns a pocket beneath a collar finished with royal-blue piping. Like everything Freeman turns his mind to, the pajamas are exquisite. Are they a hot seller? Hardly, but Freeman loves the pajamas just as he loves the coloring book. They reflect his personal aesthetic, in the same way that Apple's (AAPL) limited, beautifully executed product line reflects that of Steve Jobs.

    With the Bay Area officially gaga over his coffee, Freeman went looking for the next territory to invade. It had to be a location that Freeman himself would want to visit every other week, and where he could persuade loyal staffers to move. It also had to be a place sorely in need of some good coffee. That place is New York City.

    In the past two years Blue Bottle has opened a roastery and café in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Because of his requirement that all products be utterly fresh, Freeman operates a bit like the ancient Roman army: Set up a supply base (the roastery), then spread out and conquer. Over the summer he opened a kiosk on the High Line, New York's greatest landscaping triumph since Central Park. And just like San Francisco, the coffee hipsters are lining up. Sales this year from all the Blue Bottle stores and wholesale accounts combined are in the $15 million to $20 million range, Freeman says. It's not Starbucks -- not even in the same universe. But for now, Freeman is content to grow at 70% or so a year. "I have no desire to be the next Starbucks," he says. "Starbucks is already Starbucks, but there are ways to grow that are interesting and keep things tight."

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    Operating a kiosk frequented mainly by tourists doesn't prove that Blue Bottle will catch on among New York residents. And Blue Bottle's success in Williamsburg doesn't demonstrate the wider appeal of Freeman's approach to coffee: Brooklyn or Oakland, the neck beards, fixed-gear bikes, and taste in coffee are all the same. However, Freeman's next act will be a true test. In the fall he's opening a café in a former UPS store (UPS) in the concourse level of Rockefeller Center. Yes, that Rockefeller Center, with the Christmas tree, ice rink, tourist hordes, and thousands of harried New Yorkers shuttling back and forth to their offices.

    A serving of iced coffee is $4.25 for 12 ounces, available at Blue Bottle in Brooklyn and San Francisco

    Like Continental bars where customers go for a café cortado or an espresso, Freeman is aiming for a grownup coffee place, all walnut and marble. "I want it to be dignified," he says. "You can't go to a place where you can order a giant pumpkin latte and expect it to be dignified."

    There's dignified, however, and then there are angry patrons who don't want to wait for a hand-poured cup of filter coffee. Freeman knows this and is working out a system to keep time-strapped customers in a line separate from coffee drinkers who can wait for that pot of siphon coffee or the hand-pour. "There's a chance that people are going to be enraged by us and hate us, and it's going to be a horrible failure," Freeman says. "But we haven't had any belly flops yet."

    Maybe he's due for a failure. Despite his exquisite taste and uncompromising quality standards, Freeman may not be the best guy to lead Blue Bottle through its next growth phase. Both are possible, he says. But he also knows what happened when a bunch of high-powered lawyers from the neighborhood started nosing around the Blue Bottle café in San Francisco's Ferry Building.

    Initially there was resistance, Freeman says. Who has the time? Eventually they tried the coffee. What happened next has been the same every place Blue Bottle has gone. All those masters of the legal universe, with no time to spare for a siphon pot? They got in line like everyone else.