In latte art, there's more than meets the eye. Those frothy hearts and ferns are actually supposed to make your latte taste better.

Painting, as the professionals call it, is all about the milk-to-espresso ratio with each sip. It's also about getting people excited about coffee, says Laura Salinger Johnson, who runs Madison-based JBC Coffee Roasters with her husband, Michael Johnson, the company's founder.

Ronnie Steinweg from Rosie’s Coffee Bar and Bakery competes at a JBC Coffee Roasters latte art throw-down.

Every month, the Johnsons host a latte art "throw-down" for local baristas at their roasting facility in the city's far southeastern corner. The baristas compete in JBC's training center, the centerpiece of which is their shiny new state-of-the-art espresso machine, the same model used by the World Barista Championship -- yes, that's a thing.

"The primary reason for the training center is to get baristas excited about their craft," says Salinger Johnson. "It's not really a craft here in the Midwest yet; we're pushing for that."

Over beers in the early September heat, Salinger Johnson and her judging partner studied the contenders' foamy masterpieces, assessing their symmetry, line clarity, espresso-to-milk contrast, and difficulty -- the smaller the cup, the harder the pour. The onlookers stood conversing in clusters, barely hushing when a pair of baristas from Milwaukee's Stone Creek Coffee Roasters went head-to-head in a sudden-death tiebreaker for that month's crown.

Salinger Johnson says Madison's high-end coffee scene is only just emerging. Others might drop the Midwestern niceness and say it's been lagging. Vendors like the Johnsons are part of a larger movement trying to shift the coffee market from commodity to craft.

"We're trying to get people on board and excited about coffee like they are about wine," explains Salinger Johnson.

Indeed, with hints of wine culture, "slow food" and the farm-to-table movement, the craft coffee crusade seeks to change the conversation around coffee from just "caffeine and free WiFi" to an experience in farm-to-cup quality.

Sometimes packaged as the "third wave," a term coined by Norwegian Trish Skeie in 2002, this movement isn't new per se, even if it's new here. The thirst for quality was born of the desire to give coffee the respect it deserves. Or, as Skeie once put it, "It is just as much a reply to bad coffee as it is a movement toward good coffee."

Good to the last drop

Coffee has been prepared and consumed with varying degrees of mindfulness over the years. The so-called first wave was the proliferation of cheap coffee. The likes of Folgers and Maxwell House made coffee the best part of wakin' up, but the emphasis was more or less on only that: waking up.

The second wave inundated the world with higher-quality specialty coffee and venti vanilla lattes -- a trend often associated with Starbucks, the company every small, independent coffee shop lover loves to hate. But while the second wave helped sophisticate consumers' palates, dissatisfaction with automated and homogenized specialty coffee awakened a new movement.

America's third wave pioneers, such as Portland's Stumptown Coffee Roasters and San Francisco's Blue Bottle Coffee, focused on the qualitative experience. Buzzwords like single origin, varietals, pour-over, light roast and direct trade lingered on third wavers' tongues like the chocolatey finish of a cup of Ethiopian.

Madison has been a half step behind these trendsetters, says Matt Earley, co-founder of Madison-based roaster Just Coffee Cooperative. But he thinks the city's farm-to-table fixation is helping it catch up.

"The people who are really into it see the coffee that they're drinking, and other things that they consume, as a reflection of who they are," says Earley.

The folks at Just Coffee don't identify with the third wave, but they are taking cues from it. About a year ago, Just Coffee hired a master roaster to up its cup quality.

Even so, Earley shows some discontent with the direction the movement seems to be taking.

"We feel the definition of quality has become way too narrow. Now, people expect you're talking solely about how the coffee tastes in the cup," he says.

To Earley, the hype around the end product is dwarfing the social justice side of farm-to-cup. He'd like to see equal weight given to both ends of the chain. This is a hot debate in industry forums.

These days, there are as many ideas about "the true essence of coffee" as there are craft coffee enthusiasts, muddying any clear meaning to the term "third wave."

"For the most part, companies don't want their culture or mission to be summed up in one generic 12-year-old term," says Nick Brown, who covers the coffee industry for Roast magazine and never uses the term when he writes.

Locally, no one interviewed for this story fully embraces the term either. To some, it's just a marketing gimmick.

"I don't often call us third wave. We fit into that model, but we're a lot broader and deeper," says T.J. Semanchin, co-founder of Viroqua-based Kickapoo Coffee Roasters, one of the major players in supplying craft coffee to Madison, its biggest market. Like Just Coffee, Kickapoo places a lot of emphasis on commitment to small farmers, which is not generally a hallmark of "third wave."

Brown notes that the current movement does emphasize educating the consumer about quality.

"The problem is that it can often come off as snobbishness or elitist. Not so much in Madison, but elsewhere," says Brown. Many consumers, he says, are so accustomed to underpaying for coffee that they often don't realize the higher prices for higher-quality coffee are not actually just to sit with the cool kids.

The greater care put into the product at every step on the way to market -- including paying higher prices to farmers for growing and harvesting high-grade beans -- simply makes it worth more.

Brown see Madison as fertile ground for the craft coffee market to grow even larger.

Michael Johnson of JBC Coffee Roasters picks coffee cherries in El Salvador.

Ripeness is all: JBC Coffee Roasters

Michael Johnson jokes that he's part of the anti-snobby barista campaign. He and Laura just want to share their passion for high-quality coffee.

"To have the best high-grade coffee, it's really very simple -- you have to utilize ripe fruit," asserts Johnson, whose coffee is poured locally at Manna Cafe, Rosie's Coffee Bar & Bakery and the Saturday Dane County Farmers' Market, among other places.

Ripe coffee cherries soak their seeds -- the beans --with the optimal amount of sugar for superior flavor. In fact, ripe fruit is integral to JBC's business model. As the heaviest fruit in the basket, ripe cherries guarantee a higher price to farm laborers, who are paid by the weight of their harvest. In other words, quality pays both ways.

"Our motto, 'sustainability through quality,' involves picking ripe fruit, because we know that coffee weighs more and that is the bottom line. [Coffee] is the second-largest commodity behind oil and employs the most impoverished people on the planet," says Johnson. He says there are otherwise no standards for rewarding farmers to produce high-quality coffee.

Johnson's personal journey to quality began with his farmers' market cart, which he opened as a part-time gig while taking classes at Madison College in the early 1990s. He realized that to fit in with the farmers, he needed to create his own fresh product -- thus was born his roasting operation.

A few years later, he lost a big account to a competitor in a taste-test battle, which fueled his desire to improve his quality. He hired a big-name coffee consultant to help him hone his craft, among other refinements.

JBC's coffee bags, which got a makeover in the business' recent rebranding and name change (from its former moniker, Johnson Brothers Coffee), are designed to give credit where it is due. As with wine bottles, the producers are labeled first, and the bags' artwork reflects the beans' region of origin.

"There's this misconception that a Kenya is a Kenya is a Kenya, and that really isn't the case. Some of these guys are picking ripe fruit and some aren't," says Johnson.

× Expand JBC Coffee Roasters founder Michael Johnson visits with farmers in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia.

But ripeness is not the only factor to influence coffee's cup quality. Microclimatic variables, such as shade level, also matter. For example, Johnson has a relationship with a farmer in El Salvador who has two lots situated opposite each other in a valley, each planted with the same seed stock. Because one lot gets more shade than the other, it produces higher-quality coffee, and the farmer gets more money from bags of that lot's beans.

JBC's quality also derives from the roasting process. Maximizing the flavors of high-quality beans -- especially the unique nuances of single origin beans -- involves deep knowledge of coffee chemistry and a love of the light roast.

"Organic acids are on the forefront of what creates flavor in coffee," explains Johnson. You know that smoky flavor of a dark roast? You're actually tasting the essence of the roast, not the bean. While not necessarily an indication of bad coffee, dark roasts allow roasters to mask defects of lower-quality beans or unify the flavors of blended beans. Light roasting, on the other hand, allows roasters to develop the bean's organic acids and accentuate its unique flavors.

JBC roasts everything light. A new bean, selected for its quality, is roasted five to six times using roast profiling software. Each roast is then blindly cupped, a process of sniffing and slurping to evaluate factors such as aroma, acidity, body and aftertaste, to find the one that best expresses the bean's quality.

"Tasters aren't born, they're developed," says Johnson, a professionally licensed Q grader, which means his palate is among the most well developed in the industry. He was even hired recently by the primary coffee producer in Papua, New Guinea, to help its farmers improve their quality control.

But the Johnsons are careful to not pooh-pooh coffee drinkers' proclivity for dark roasts. They just want people to try something different.

"We're trying to convert people," says Johnson. "If you like rich deep chocolate tones in your coffee, we have that varietal for you. If you like bright citric lemon notes, we have that varietal for you."

× Expand This set-up at Johnson Public House shows how timing is key to the pour-over, a manual technique that calls for patience, attention to detail and a bit of science.

Playing with the variables: Johnson Public House

Developing a palate for high-end coffee is like finding your taste in wine or beer, says Ian Floeter, manager of Johnson Public House.

"We can help guide people in the right direction," he says.

A major part of taste is finding the right brewing method -- just any coffee maker won't do. Johnson Public House specializes in the French press and two types of pour-over, a manual technique involving patience, attention to detail and a bit of science. Even the smallest change to one of its many brewing variables can make a big difference in taste.

"For a good cup of coffee, you need a proper extraction rate," says Floeter, referring to how much of the coffee he extracts when he pours water over it. The secret is to aim for the brown spots in the grinds; if the grinds go white, the coffee is over-extracted.

Floeter weighs the beans, times the drip, and minds details such as grind settings and coffee blooms (a step in the pour-over that lets the coffee breathe and dispels its bitterness). Because Johnson Public House works mainly with single-origin beans, playing with the variables is key to hitting the right tea notes of the Kenyans or squeezing the citrus from the Central Americans.

"This is all the nerdy stuff we deal with behind the bar," says Floeter, adding that the staff tries to keep these preoccupations to themselves so as not to intimidate customers.

According to owner Kyle Johnson (no relation to JBC's Michael and Laura Johnson), Johnson Public House has adjusted its practices since opening in 2011 to keep step with the fluid nature of specialty coffee culture. In addition to increasing attention to brewing techniques, Johnson Public House follows the buzz surrounding craft roasters from across the country and hosts a rotating selection of their coffees, a relatively new business concept.

In September, the coffee shop joined the micro-roaster bandwagon, starting one of its own, Kin-Kin. In January, it will supply coffee to a second cafe, A-OK, scheduled to open at 829 E. Washington Ave.

And while the nerdy stuff is fun for them, approachability is paramount at Johnson Public House. The casual cafe welcomes customers with an assortment of vintage furniture and walls adorned with local artwork, as indie coffee shops often do. After choosing your bean off a chalkboard inscribed with the day's selections, a barista delivers your coffee, restaurant-style, to your seat.

On a weekday morning, the cafe buzzes with a mix of students on laptops and professionals on their way to work. A dog sprawls on the floor. Johnson takes breaks from our conversation to greet familiar customers, field questions from behind the bar and care for his squirmy toddler son in his lap.

"It's like a family, almost. We're changing people's idea on what coffee is and can be. And with that, we're building friendships with a lot of our everyday customers," says Johnson. His love for coffee's social aspect is behind the name Kin-Kin, meant to represent the array of relationships that make up Johnson Public House.

Building trusting relationships across the supply chain is part of that, too. Beans for Kin-Kin come from an importer that sources its coffee in what Johnson deems an ethical and sustainable way.

Johnson thinks the room for growth here is "pretty crazy" and hopes Madison will someday become a specialty coffee destination. He's heartened by the enthusiasm he sees among the city's baristas for sharpening their skills and imagining a future in coffee.

"The more people start caring, the more shops that come in, then everybody's tide rises," says Johnson.

Josh Makoutz of Bradbury’s says Madison’s penchant for quality food could help advance the craft coffee movement.

Coffee like art: Bradbury's Coffee

Josh Makoutz, who co-owns Bradbury's Coffee with his wife, Jill, thinks Madison's penchant for quality food, especially its appetite for farmers' markets and slow food, could help advance the craft coffee movement.

"If people understand there are similarities between [coffee and food], they'll really get behind it," says Makoutz.

When he first opened Bradbury's in 2008, Makoutz didn't want it to be just another typical Madison coffee shop. Prior to opening, he and Jill spent a month in London visiting their good friends, the Bradburys, and touring the city's cafes. Their trip inspired more than just their future cafe's name -- they returned to Madison with a vision.

"We just wanted to open a tiny little space downtown and serve small, simple drinks and simple food," says Makoutz, who has a long history working in Madison's coffee scene.

A week after their return, a 400-square-foot corner space on North Hamilton Street became available.

Wanting to emulate the care and attention to detail he'd witnessed from London's baristas, Makoutz set up a pour-over station at Bradbury's.

"The exciting thing about pour-over coffee is it's made to order, so it's fresher," says Makoutz. He describes the method as "micromanaging the extraction of the coffee."

"Coffee also in a way feels like art to me," he adds. He likes the challenge and the reward of trying to extract coffee's best flavor. "You shoot for the highest quality you can possibly get," says Makoutz. "You're not always going to hit perfection, but it's something you're striving for."

While Wisconsin obviously lacks local coffee farmers, Makoutz fulfills his farm-to-cup interest through his relationship with Kickapoo Coffee Roasters and its direct small farmer ties.

A few years ago, he had the chance to meet some of the farmers growing his coffee when Kickapoo took him along to Honduras, an experience he found eye-opening.

"The local food movement and the third wave coffee movement, or whatever you want to call it, go hand-in-hand," says Makoutz. Despite such parallels, Makoutz has never wanted to label Bradbury's as third wave.

He just wants to serve something he can be proud of.