Flux Coffee opens in Farmingdale
At Flux, a new coffee shop in Farmingdale, coffee is pulled, poured-over or cold-brewed. Credit: Newsday / Erica Marcus
Drip coffee? In your dreams. Arsalan Pourmand disdains what he calls “batch brewing” in favor of methods that offer the barista more control over the finished cup. At his new Flux Coffee in Farmingdale, coffee is “pulled” from an espresso machine, “poured over” a filter with a long-spouted kettle, or cold-brewed. To prepare for the morning rush — when there’s not enough staff to individually brew each cup — his staff pours over into an armada of Chemex carafes and the coffee is stored in insulated air pots (fancy Thermoses).
The shop, right next to Lithology in the Village’s busy Main Street, is a stunner, with lots of warm wood and brick, tabletops paved with white and robins-egg-blue tiles, and a crazy light fixture that resembles a wiry octopus.
Pourmand grew up in Plainview, but didn’t get interested in coffee until he moved to Berkeley, California, and wound up running a coffee shop. He mastered the pull and the pour as well as the art of roasting beans, and then he began tinkering around with cold-brewing, the method of soaking coffee grounds in cool water overnight to extract more caffeine and less acid than hot methods.
In 2011 Pourmand launched the Flux brand of cold brew, selling bottles first to climbing gyms (he’s an avid climber) and then to markets all over the Bay Area. Now he’s back on Long Island, and he’s bringing Flux with him. Soon, cold brew will be available on tap at the shop — along with nitro brew (which has a head of foam, like beer), iced tea, kombucha and seltzer.
For now, Flux makes pour-overs from four different roasts, $3.50 to $4.50, a double shot of espresso is $3, cappuccino is $3.75, spiced chai latte is $4 and iced coffee and tea drinks range from $4.25 to $5.25. Flux also serves assorted muffins and pastries.
Flux is open Monday to Wednesday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
211 Main St., Farmingdale, 516-900-3589, facebook.com/FluxCoffee
