Area boasts some fine roasters

My wife has an idea for a coffee place: a hole-in-the-wall in one of the hipper quadrants of Brooklyn - East Williamsburg, say, or Red Hook - with a 1950s percolator on an electric range, brewing Yuban out of a can. Totally retro, serving a cup of Joe that boasts bold intimations of tin and notes of cigarette ash.

The line, she predicts, will be out the door.

That's her response - joking, contrarian - to the super-serious artistry happening right now with the so-called Third Wave of coffee roasters and cafes in Philadelphia and across our caffeinated landscape. And while it can be exasperating waiting an eternity for a single-cup pour of some $130-a-lb. roast hailing from Panama's tiny Hacienda La Esmeralda, the wait, it turns out, can be worth it.

The process of transforming raw green seeds from Guatemala or Haiti, Ethiopia or Indonesia, into the chocolate-colored (milk and dark) bean that ends up in our cups, mugs, and Zojirushis is at once a work of chemistry and craft, instinct and inspiration, sourcing and selection - and maybe a bit of alchemy. Coffee beans have been culled and roasted since the mid-15th century (credit a gang of Sufis in Yemen). Wood-fired, gas, or electric, homebuilt models or 240-kilo machines that run $60,000 and up - the variations are endless, and endlessly argued over among coffee snobs.

But one thing is clear right now: Philadelphia can boast a community of roasters turning out some of the best single-origin beans and blends around the country. Sure, Stumptown (Portland and Brooklyn) has the hipster sheen, Counter Culture (North Carolina), Intelligentsia (Chicago, New York, L.A.), and Blue Bottle (San Francisco and Brooklyn) have their ardent followers. But with the exception of Philadelphia's La Colombe, whose classic and reserve blends can be found in cafes and restaurants across North America, the profile of our indigenous roasters is less pronounced, less hyped. But no less worthy.

"Most people in the coffee world in Philly feel like Philly doesn't get the credit it deserves," says Aaron Peazzoni, a partner at One Village Coffee, roasting out of Souderton. "Awesome things are happening in the coffee world right in front of us, but most people still think of Seattle or Portland or New York."