James Marcotte. Courtesy picture.
James Paul Marcotte, the co-founder of Metropolis Bean Roasters and longtime Western U.S. gross sales director for Intelligentsia Espresso, died Feb. 16 on the age of 63.
Marcotte, who obtained a life-saving lung transplant in 2020 after being recognized with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, succumbed to a number of infections, based on a household obituary.
A fixture within the Los Angeles espresso scene for greater than three many years, Marcotte has been remembered as a sort and curious espresso skilled recognized for his outstanding palate, beneficiant mentorship and a novel capacity to attach individuals over espresso.
“Eloquent, affable and self-effacing, James was well-respected by trade colleagues for his phenomenal palate and beloved for his distinctive capacity to wax poetically about every cup’s artisanal heritage and distinctive taste profile,” Melissa J. Pugash, the co-founder of the Worldwide Ladies’s Espresso Alliance and longtime buddy of the Marcotte household, mentioned in a press release shared with Every day Espresso Information. “His affect on the Southern California espresso scene is plain.”
Marcotte and Sol Salzer co-founded the Metropolis Bean cafe and roastery close to the UCLA campus in 1992, creating one of many metropolis’s first small-batch specialty espresso roasteries centered on high quality and craft.
Marcotte later went on to guide Western U.S. gross sales for Swiss Water Decaffeinated, then nationwide gross sales for Cirqua Personalized Water earlier than becoming a member of Intelligentsia Espresso to assist lead its West Coast growth in 2005.
Tony “Tonx” Konecny, the founding father of YES PLZ Espresso, first met Marcotte 20 years in the past then labored carefully with him after being recruited to assist Intelligentsia increase in L.A.
“James was an enormous a part of making me really feel welcome and exhibiting everybody the ropes, and the perfect taco spots,” Konecny informed Every day Espresso Information. “Intelligentsia’s L.A. factor wouldn’t have occurred with out James… Everybody knew James and everybody cherished him.”
Marcotte remained with Intelligentsia till his retirement in 2019, inspiring numerous espresso professionals via his personal curiosity, his wealth of cultural information and famously eager palate.
“He as soon as cupped a espresso and couldn’t get previous the ‘rubbery notes,’” Salzer wrote on Instagram this week. “No one else on the desk picked up on the rubber, however James insisted. Once we checked with the farm… certain sufficient, they used rubber timber for shading.”
Salzer additional described his former enterprise accomplice as somebody who “engaged, cared, gave you his full consideration, whereas dishing out heat and love.”
In statements shared with DCN, quite a few L.A.-based espresso professionals echoed comparable sentiments about their relationship with Marcotte.
“James was all the time a terrific buddy, a trusted advisor giving intestine checks and a beneficiant soul who might all the time make me consider in myself once more when all the pieces was the other way up,” Konecny mentioned. “Nothing was ever insurmountable to him.”
Marcotte is survived by his spouse, Sarah Marcotte, his daughter, Rowan Jean Marcotte, and his brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Maria Marcotte.
“His openness, braveness, and curiosity won’t quickly be forgotten,” the household wrote. “His closing phrases had been to remind us that he was an organ donor, as a result of as a recipient he understood the worth of that closing reward.”
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