ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Crema of the Crop

Ground beans, purified hot water and pressure are all it takes to make a shot of espresso, but for Rachel Lehman, proprietress of Crema, the seemingly simple process is an art form.

Lehman served her first cups of coffee as a teenager in her small hometown of Sandwich, Illinois. Though the product standards at her first job weren’t as high as her own, she was immediately drawn to the community aspect of the café, where she constantly met new and unique people. But then there was the coffee. While earning her bachelor’s degree in music, Lehman’s infatuation with the fragrant fruit deepened significantly as she trained in a more quality-conscious shop.

“They really invested in our training. I got involved in classes and eventually started teaching classes to the public,” Lehman says. “I love coffee. I love the complexity ... it’s not cut and dried,” she says. It’s this training-and-service template that Lehman used when she and husband, Ben, were designing the business. After four-and-a-half years of working as the manager of Sam and Zoe’s café in Berry Hill, Lehman felt she was ready to strike out on her own.

“I always wanted to open a coffee shop but I made a commitment to myself and my husband to work in the industry as long as I could to make sure it was really what I wanted to do.” At Sam and Zoe’s, she helped organize a large staff with the added difficulty of a full kitchen and a drive through window. She likened the experience to a juggling act where the quality of both the coffee and food had to remain in balance.

At Crema, you won’t find a wide food menu because for Lehman, it’s all about the coffee, which she purchases from local roastmaster Drew Park of Drew’s Brews. It is partially Park’s influence to start his own roasting company that gave Lehman the push she needed to start Crema. Once the head roaster for Bongo Java, Park started his own roasting company in 2007. “I was seeing somebody else I knew take the risk and do it,” Lehman explains. “We have a really good relationship. We’re constantly talking and working with each other on new ways to be innovative with blends.” Advantages to this relationship include special coffees sold only to Lehman that increase the novelty of the Crema experience.

So what makes the perfect shot of espresso? Lehman insists it’s the careful training of her employees. “It isn’t just dosing the espresso, tamping it and pouring water through it,” she says. During our interview, Lehman was preparing her staff of three for a bar exam where they were asked to make espresso beverages for her careful critique. This level of control makes a superior beverage, the flavor of which is both sweet and pleasantly acidic, but never bitter. Of course, a thick, frothy crema (the shop’s namesake and the flavorful emulsification of coffee bean oil and water that settles on top of the espresso shot) doesn’t hurt either.

Neither coffee snobs nor novices can resist the warm aroma escaping through the door of the converted diesel engine shop in the Rolling Mill Hills neighborhood of SoBro, where Crema resides. Once a filthy garage, the space was converted by the Lehmans into a cozy, relaxing hang. Strongly disliking the aesthetic of “big box store” furnishings, the couple reused salvaged wood and old doors from Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore to build their espresso bar and the surrounding tables. Though difficult and labor intensive, the modifications create an atmosphere of put-your-feet-up comfort where friends can gather to play games, read, laugh, debate and, of course, drink coffee.

Lehman has no plans to expand anytime soon, but she would like to one day move a roaster or an education facility into the vacant second half of the building. There she could hold classes to teach the community more about the complex world of coffee. From her invaluable staff to her customers, Lehman’s Crema is first and foremost about people. This essential facet of her business plan is articulated when she says with sincerity, “If I can do something positive for someone in their life, even if it’s for five minutes, it’s great.” With a product as good as her intentions, Lehman can’t fail.