By PAT GOUDEY O’BRIEN

Which came first: the coffee or the bean? Perhaps it’s not as uncertain as the chicken and egg question, but in the case of Waterbury-based Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co. and its sister company, Coffee Lab, the coffee bean was the focus before roasting and selling packaged coffee and tea came into the picture.

But, even coffee beans weren’t the first food items to catch the owner’s interest. That distinction belongs to wine.

Owner Mané Alves and his wife, Holly Alves, relocated to Vermont from northern California, where Alves was a wine maker and taster. But, life in California had changed by the 1990s, he said, and Sonoma was filling up with new people involved in the wine industry, altering the region’s economy and way of life.

The couple and family decided to move to Vermont when Holly Alves was recruited as head of marketing for Ben & Jerry’s. Far from wine country, Alves felt he had to find something to occupy himself in the new location. He explored importing tiles from his native Portugal but thought better of it.

He considered opening a micro-brewery, but thought the field might be too crowded. With a partner, he opened the Mist Grill, a popular Waterbury restaurant he later sold – but not before he’d started tasting and testing coffees for quality in a space over the restaurant.

Alves had had an opportunity to cup some coffees on a visit to a Costa Rican coffee plantation and found the process had similarities to tasting, smelling and savoring the qualities of wine. He discovered he had a transferable skill he could develop and apply to a new field he enjoyed.

He learned the intricacies of the business on subsequent trips to plantations in Costa Rica and elsewhere over the course of several years, and developed a keen understanding of the growing conditions that produce differences in the quality of beans, as well as learning to judge the beans and roasted coffees themselves. Different soil types, climate conditions, the presence of a deciduous leaf canopy that replenishes the soil so less fertilizer is needed and other factors contribute to how the final coffee will taste, he said.

Before deciding to start a company and roast and sell premium coffees, Alves developed Coffee Lab to test the beans before they were turned into coffee products by clients in the U.S. and all over the world.

Coffee Lab puts green coffee beans through a rigorous quality-control process – testing for size, moisture content, density and physical defects – before the beans ever see a roaster. They’re followed through the roasting process to ensure a crop will produce the premium coffee taste Alves’ clients are looking for.

Some of his clients are coffee companies that don’t have facilities to do their own testing and cupping, he said. Other clients include restaurants and other outlets that need to ensure the quality of a product that is one among many being used.

“Imagine a chain restaurant where coffee is not their primary business,” he said. “But, they want it to meet their criteria, to be sure it meets their standards.”

He said his typical customer is anyone from the producer of the beans who needs to maintain a quality crop, to the roaster who wants to ensure a quality product for the consumer. Anyone who has beans for testing can have them analyzed and a report generated, he said.

It’s a relatively new industry that has sprung up in the past decade, said Alves, and the vocabulary and benchmarks are still being refined across global borders, making it a dynamic time to be involved.

In 2001, Alves brought Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co. into the mix and began roasting and packaging his own brand, adding teas that are grown near the countries he visits on his coffee buying trips. The teas come mostly from Japan, he said, with others from India and Taiwan.

Located in leased space at 80 Commercial Drive in Waterbury, the two companies work side-by-side to test and taste beans and create the limited- edition, premium coffees and teas that are the staple fare of Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co.

A staunch supporter of the principals of fair trade, he said he has been able to establish strong relationships with both coffee and tea producers and their communities all over the world. With fair trade in mind, he said he is looking at the possibility of adding chocolate products to his line.

Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co. also is committed to supporting local economies –using local products and services where possible and participating in the Vermont Fresh Network – as well as being a good steward of the environment. The tea bags Alves uses, for instance, are a mesh developed from corn. They don’t add any flavor to the tea, he said, and degrade quickly in compost.

Alves said he buys his coffees based on the quality of each producer’s crop, and purchases only as much as is available from season to season, so some of his coffees – bought and processed in small lots at different times of the year and often sold based on the source – are only available at specific times. When they run out, they run out.

He communicates the availability of a particular item to his customers via e-mail, and lets them know when a product is expected to run out. Communication with his customer base is a key element of his operation.

His sources include several farms in Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, and Asian farms in Sumatra and Papua New Guinea. He also has Central American producers in countries including Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

In addition to providing testing services, the Coffee Lab operation – comprised primarily of Alves – now also teaches cupping and evaluation skills locally and worldwide, an activity Alves said is one of his favorite projects.

With about six employees who work on both sides of the business, Alves said he doesn’t aspire to the heights reached by companies like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, another roaster nurtured and headquartered in Waterbury.

He said he values his staff, including roaster Oliver Ray, office manager Renee Adams, and Coffee Lab tester Anji Heath, but added he doesn’t want to grow much beyond the company’s current level.

“I don’t think we will grow out,” Alves said. “That is not my intention. I want to be self-sustainable, employ people and pay good salaries, but I really love coffee and I don’t want to manage people.”

Limited by the capacity of his largest roaster, Alves said he still is satisfied. He can process about 150,000 pounds of coffee a year, with revenues of about $300,000 annually for the coffee company. He said he doesn’t expect to purchase another roaster to increase that output.

When Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co. receipts are combined with annual revenues from Coffee Lab and The International School of Coffee, Alves said the business is more than profitable and that income, plus income from his wife’s marketing company, provide a good living for his family.