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When coffee meets Pynchon

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This morning, I had my coffee with Thomas Pynchon -- well, sort of. I was drinking my first cup of Trystero Coffee, named for the conspiracy threaded through Pynchon’s book ‘The Crying of Lot 49.’

Based in Los Angeles, Trystero Coffee is a microroaster so small that it says it roasts in ‘nano batches.’

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The connection between coffee and Pynchon’s book isn’t obvious at first. There is some coffee drinking in ‘The Crying of Lot 49,’ but it’s not the high-end, sensual experience today’s coffee drinkers expect. In the book, protagonist Oedipa Maas drinks ‘thick lukewarm coffee from a clay pot’ with revolutionary Jesus Arrabal. Later, when the psychiatrist Dr. Hilarius is threatening people with a gun, his assistant Helga Blamm burns her mouth on instant. Instant?

What Trystero Coffee does have in common with Pynchon’s book is a muted post-horn logo, and its just-under-the-radar presence. There is no Trystero Coffee storefont or advertising campaign. To discover its website, you have to go looking -- or it’s possible you’ll stumble across its Facebook page, where Trystero’s owners post information about beans and batches (upcoming: new beans from Papau New Guinea and Ethiopia).

The roaster accepts orders via e-mail, with buyers being able to pick their beans and roasting level. Trystero delivers -- for free -- to downtown Los Angeles and select parts of the city. It also ships via e-mail.

Is it good? I’d tell you, but I might just have to run around the block first.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

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