"We are in a world coffee crisis Gillies Coffee 800-344-5526 "We ...

"We are in a world coffee crisis." These dramatic words are some of the first uttered by Don Schoenholt, president and co-owner of Gillies Coffee, on a recent tour of his Sunset Park coffee roasting factory. Though Gillies is ancient by American standards-operations started in 1840 on a Financial District block that is now part of the footprint of the World Financial Center-Schoenholt, a conscientious businessman who is engaged at every level of his trade, runs a production that is impressively up-to-date. With a determined gait, Schoenholt, a slightly hunched man of 57 with a sober expression and tea-colored skin, makes a beeline through his warehouse, passing coffees-roasted and raw, ground and whole, flavored and plain, from more than 50 countries-before stopping at the section marked "Organic." Here, Schoenholt begins a game of Point-and-Tell, in which he points out a label on a bag of beans and explains why it is there.

"See this?" asks Schoenholt, motioning to a sticker that illustrates a person standing in front of a globe holding two bowls. "This one means we're part of Fair Trade," he says, referring to a movement in which buyers like Gillies pay growers more money than their crops are worth in order to sustain farms that, under normal circumstances, would have to close down. "In terms of price," he continues, "coffee is at a 50-year low. Farmers are starving and leaving their farms. They can't make enough off of their product to buy seed for next year. If coffee costs $1 a pound in free trade, we give $1.26 as part of Fair Trade." Then Schoenholt points out the next sticker, a Bird Friendly, Shade Grown label, followed by the USDA's National Organic Plan (NOP) seal and-finally-the Kosher symbol.

Schoenholt enjoys this game. Since he started working at Gillies-when his father, David, retired from the helm 40 years ago-Schoenholt has come to believe that making specialty coffees goes beyond choosing high-quality beans. After the first few minutes of Point-and-Tell, it quickly becomes clear that he is as concerned with the state of coffee in the world as he is with the state of the coffee in his roaster.

"We can sit; this is my couch here," says Schoenholt, approaching a heap of empty burlap sacks beside Gillies' coffee roaster, an intricate and powerful machine that is in the middle of processing 600 pounds of coffee, a practice that takes 11 minutes and generates temperatures as high as 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. From this makeshift seat, we can see the beans gradually turn from a pallid green to a robust brown through a tiny window in the roaster.

Schoenholt glances at a thermometer, "It's 111 degrees where we're sitting," he chuckles. "It's a frizzy-hair day; I should have warned you."

The weighty manner that Schoenholt takes on when addressing the global implications of the coffee trade all but disappears when he discusses coffee itself. The otherwise subdued Schoenholt, who only drinks two cups of the stuff a day, is prone to gesticulating like a Big Band leader and spontaneously bursting into song when going over coffee's finer points.

"Sometimes, you get one that just stands up in the cup and sings to you"-breaking out an improvised tune in a girly falsetto-"'I'm not only the Costa Rica that you picked! I'm the best Costa Rica you've tasted in nine years!' Then, a Sumatra comes in"-now in a hoarse baritone-"'Forget the Costa Rica. My tones are deep and rich, try me for a while.' That's how it happens.

"I'm not fickle," Schoenholt insists. "I'm kind of like a Mormon-I love all my wives."