We now move to the question you’ve been pondering since childhood, the age old question “What is crema?” Sleep well for we have your answer…

What is Crema? Did we mispell cream? No, it is a real word. Crema is the thick, golden-brown foam that develops in the filter and encrusts the top of an espresso serving. Crema gives espresso its complexity, depth of flavor and texture. Crema is the single most important indicator of espresso quality.

Proper emulsification of water and oil is what produces proper Crema. Dr. Joseph Josuma, a leading espresso expert states, “Crema markedly alters an espresso in terms of its mouth feel, density, viscosity, wetting power, and foam-forming ability, making it the single most important indicator of espresso quality. If there is no crema, it means the oils have not been emulsified, and hence it is not an espresso.”

We chose CREMA as our name because it represents our primary goal, excellence in quality. Our passion for the best quality in coffee, espresso and service is proudly rooted in our Italian heritage. So is our love for pizza we suspect.

We believe that smaller, traditional European sized beverages highlight the taste of espresso. Few Americans have tasted genuine Italian-style espresso, even though specialty coffee purveyors bode high quality, many Baristas are ill trained to craft a truly Italian experience. We want to change that.

At CREMA, we guarantee that every espresso has been properly extracted. Our Baristas have gone through intensive training and continue to grow in their skills. At CREMA we are always looking for ways to perfect our coffee and espresso. We hope you enjoy sharing in this experience, your satisfaction is our delight.

Rob Wilds of NPT’s program Tennessee Crossroads, profiles Drew Park, a Nashville coffee craftsman who is dedicated to brewing a better brew.

Tennessee Crossroads travels the highways and byways of Tennessee, highlighting the personalities, crafts, places, foods and events that make Tennessee special and its character unique.

Check out the video by clicking image to the left, and view episode 18.

Kristen Foster wrote a nice little story on my journey to creating CREMA over at the new hip chick magazine her nashville. Check it out: CREMA of the crop.

Speaking of hip folks, head over to the Nashvillest blog and check out what guest blogger Jon Arnold has to say about CREMA. The Nashvillest is an entertaing-must-ad-this-to-your-rss reading list. Check it out: the Nashvillest.

While you’re surfing, check out these photos Dave has snapped at CREMA, he’s making a small fortune seling them over at istockphoto.com. Nice work Dave! Check them out.

While I’m on a roll here with links, here’s one of our favorite new blogs, Soapbox Musings, she “gets it” and also wrote a few kinds words about CREMA,  “…the best cappuchino I have had since returning to the States…it’s as close to an Italian morning as I’m going to get in quite some time.” Read the whole post.

One of our dear CREMANIAN’s dropped off this photo a few days ago. This is what CREMA was before it was…

Wish we still had that drinking fountain, how sweet! And if you were wondering, it was a diesel engine repair shop before falling into disrepair itself.

Hi there everyone. Thanks for all your calls, volunteer work, and for stopping by to see what all the excitement is about. We made big progress today, we passed (with flying colors!) our Health Department inspection. We’re really excited and ready to be open, but until we get our final inspection, the Fire Marshall, we must continue “testing” the drinks ourselves.

You heard it here first, Crema announces Grand Opening January 28, 2008! We’re “going out on a limb” as they say, but 99% certain it’s a strong one. A “soft open” will be announced on the email list, but our Grand Opening is absolutely on the 28th!

In the meantime, here are some tidbits you might find interesting about CREMA:

- Have you seen it? Our sign! It’s truly a work of art and labor of love by a person who is guaranteed many free CREMA drinks. Drive by and check it out!

- We recycle. We are hiring a private company to take our recycling. Why doesn’t the Nashville government pick it up? A tangent we have not the space to write about. We are still on the hunt for a good use of our old coffee grounds. Can you use them? Email us and let us know.

- A good thing to do is support your local Habitat for Humanity store. We did. Every door in our space is from Habitat. And as many building materials as possible were purchased from the local Habitat for Humanity store.

- It’s hard work and expensive to use green materials. So we discovered. But not impossible, even on a small budget we’ve found it possible to think differently. Our counter top is renewable bamboo, we used recycled lumber for the bar structure, and best of all, with every light blazing (22 compact fluorescent bulbs) our total light wattage use is only 250 watts!

- Excited, privileged, ah, neither of those are the right word. We’re uber-glad (what?!) that Aaron Grayum will be our first featured artist!

p.s. please don’t mistake our excitement as boasting, we’re just passionate about a few too many things, possibly.

If your goal is to serve great espresso than you need a great espresso machine. We’re so happy to be the only shop (or at least one of only a very few) in Nashville who have one of the finest espresso machines ever made, the LaMarzocco GB5 built in Firenze Italia!

Just another week or two and you’ll see it yourself. Want to know the very moment we open the doors? Join the email list.

It’s so nice to see your smiling faces in our window! Thanks to all who have stopped by and offered encouraging thoughts!

We’re close! This next week is filled with final activities. We’ll announce a soft opening on the email list. We’ll announce a grand opening later, stay tuned!

So tired, not much to say, we’ll let the pictures speak for us. Here’s a few snap shots of our recent hard work:

Why choose Drew’s Brews? There are many great roasting companies out there to choose from, but let’s talk about why we think Drew’s coffee is well, awesome!

We, like many consumers are concerned with buying organic and fair trade coffees because we deeply believe these ideals are right. However, there are many other coffees that may not specifically fall under these stringently labeled categories. One of the coffee types that doesn’t always fall under the organic or fair trade labels is estate coffee, these are coffee beans from a singular farm vs. a cooperative of farmers, or the trademark name of an exporter, importer, or roaster. Estate coffees represent the hard work and uniqueness of a specific farm. Most estate farms grow organic, but a lot are not able to slap the official organic label on their beans due to the high costs associated with the certification process.

Drew’s Brews uses many estate coffees because of the wider selection, finer qualities of small batches, and it is the better thing to do because of a closer relationship with the farmers.

Often, due to the closer relationship in estate coffees between the purchaser and grower the coffee farmers are paid higher than what would be the “fair trade” price.

Drew and estate coffee buyers have many choices when purchasing. Estate farmers must be competitive, they must sell their coffee for the highest price to remain viable. They are more motivated to produce a superior crop than a cooperative farm who is paid the same price regardless of quality because they are not highly competing with other farms. Superior crop, superior coffee, which in turn means awesome flavor in your cup!

Drew is a true craftsman at roasting, and lucky for all of us, he is a local Nashvillian. We want to support local businesses that affect our local economy. Crema wants to know where our coffee comes from, when it was roasted, why it was roasted a certain way, and how to best translate that to our favorite people, you!

Thus, we have chosen Master Drew. You’ll never meet another person more passionate, more knowledgeable about coffee than Drew.