The Globe and Mail

Espresso is a delicate art. It begins with the beans and ends in the hands of a barista, ideally working a manual grinder.

Even then, a grind too coarse can ruin the best beans, hot water flowing through the coffee too quickly in the machine. It's a fraction of a difference on a grinder and a recipe for an espresso that's too bitter, too weak. An espresso pulled well, born of great beans sought out on remote farms in the mountains of Guatemala, Costa Rica and Kenya, ground just right, the dark liquid in a small porcelain cup sings, a cascade of flavours.

“Espresso is fickle. It's a multivariable equation,” said Kyle Straw, current Canadian barista champion and a store manager with Vancouver-based Caffè Artigiano Inc., a small chain of 14 cafés set to slowly expand to North America's largest cities: Toronto, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles.

When Starbucks Corp. abandoned manual grinders a decade ago, sacrificing quality for speed, it planted the seed of a new wave of coffee sellers, from Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland and Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea Inc., to Vancouver's JJ Bean Coffee Roasters and Caffè Artigiano.

Now Artigiano -- Italian for artisan or craftsman -- is attempting a Starbucks-like ascent, not in sheer scale but in geographic scope. The same difficult equation exists: to maintain a delicate quality as the company gets larger and further flung. Like Starbucks before it, Artigiano has staked its expansion on developing quality workers at its existing cafés to open new stores and finding top-quality busy locations to draw in new customers one by one.

Annual sales of the privately held company are more than $10-million, up about 40 per cent as it has just gone through a burst of expansion.

“As you get bigger, the purists will say you'll never be as good as when you had one, two cafés. It's hard to convince them it's possible,” said Willie Mounzer, CEO and co-owner of Artigiano. “We'll never be Starbucks. You just have to take it slow. If Artigiano can occupy this niche in Vancouver, it can do it anywhere.”

Mr. Mounzer, 52, has helped do it before. In 1982, he started as a server at a new restaurant in Edmonton, Earls. The one-restaurant operation was chaotic in its first months and began to expand. Mr. Mounzer rose quickly and for years was a top executive, vice-president operations, as Earls expanded, never more than four stores in a year. The emphasis was always on quality, once hiring gourmet chef Michael Noble to oversee food development.

But Mr. Mounzer had always wanted his own show, the enterprising blood born of an entrepreneurial Lebanese family. His grandfather had moved to Canada in 1918, and he had grown up around strong Turkish blends in espresso cups. So when he walked in to one of the two Caffè Artigianos about seven years ago, he fell in love: “This is exactly what a cafe should be.” He offered to buy Artigiano right away, but he was turned down several times.

Artigiano was born as the 1990s ended. Vince Piccolo had worked in Vancouver's fine dining business. He was starting a family and wanted a day job. He felt there was an absence of great coffee, so he opened Artigiano and several years later founded 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters. In 2006, when Artigiano had five cafés, he sold to Mr. Mounzer to focus on the roasting business, which supplies Artigiano and cafés around North America.

“At one point, Starbucks was the predator,” Mr. Piccolo said. “They'd set up wherever there was an indie café. What's happening right now, indie cafés are opening near Starbucks and taking business. I don't know how Starbucks can compete.”