Roast & Refuel (in Muncy!)

RSS

Roast & Refuel (in Muncy!)

09 Dec

Into the Wilds. After many fits and starts, the Journey is heading into the Pennsylvania Wilds. I’ve been teasing it for a long time, but something always conspired to keep me in the valley. This time, I found the perfect excuse to get me on the road: a road trip with my Mom taking us through our family’s ancestral home in the hills to the north of where the West Branch and North Branch of the Susquehanna River connect.

The coffeehouse we visited today was located in Muncy, a town best known for being an attractive stopover on the way north to Williamsport along Route 180. It’s also known for SCI Muncy, a women’s prison known for housing some of the loveliest female inmates outside Texas, Florida, and Kentucky. OK, there’s more to Muncy than a prison and a gas station. We’ll get to all of that later. Let’s talk coffee.

Roast and Refuel is in the part of Muncy that lies on the east shore of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It’s located at the far northern end of town, at the intersection of Water Street and Main. The thoroughfare leading into town is stunning, by the way. Tree-lined streets and old stone houses are everywhere. For its size, it has a surprisingly vibrant downtown, at least in the core of it (in the previously mentioned intersection). The building housing Roast and Refuel has been part of that scene for a long time. The coffeehouse is built into an old theatre called The Ritz.

Fantastic news: They left the theatre lobby largely intact. The outside has been kept in its Art Deco glory, but I wondered what had been done to the interior. Not much, really. Two features really stood out: The first was the lounge area that looked much like the green room at the television station where I formerly worked (albeit with a few artsy accoutrements). The second area of note was the long hallway leading to the restrooms. Here, you can see old photographs of Muncy’s past beauty. Like most small towns in Pennsylvania, it’s had a long past, including Quaker settlements in the 1700s and political throwdowns over abolition in the 1800’s.

The coffee was a proprietary roast by Gnosis Coffee Roasters in nearby Lewisburg. We’ve been to Lewisburg before on the Journey. That town and nearby Milton are home to a series of brilliant cafes detailed elsewhere on this blog. It shouldn’t be surprising that Lewisburg is home to a craft coffee roaster. The town hosts Bucknell University and embodies the conventions of college towns everywhere, including a burgeoning coffee scene.

The House Blend was a true mixture of flavors. It synthesized these features through balanced acidity and a general smoothness. The beans hailed from Guatemala and Brazil. They were excellent examples of what these specific locales offer in a cup. In other words, if you enjoy the qualities of these beans specifically, you’ll view this blend as an epitome. The Brazilian beans showed off their dark and velvety aspects and the chocolate and nut flavors and aromas for which they’re famous. Fun fact about Brazilian beans: Usually, they’re optimal for dark roasts, but they can skew medium depending on how they’re brewed. Guatemalans, like most Central American offerings, make balanced medium roasts. Combining the two stiffened the Guatemalan while mellowing the Brazilian. I’m really going to have to pay a visit to Gnosis.

I asked about events here, and the truth is that they’re rather sparse. That said, Roast and Refuel is clearly a center of the artistic community here. A local art studio called Centered Earth holds a painting class in the cafe. I’ve never been there, but with a name like ‘Centered Earth,’ it has to be a bit of a hippie haven. As you can see in the pics below, creative energy oozes from the very walls of Roast and Refuel. Statistically speaking, even if only one in a few hundred people is interested in the arts, every village and hamlet has a secret underground of people who think outside the box. When I think of that, I think of places like this coffeehouse.

On the way home, all I could think of was how massive the landscape was. Yes, that’s the word I’m using despite Grammarly’s protests: massive. The bridges were bigger. The fields were bigger. The entire region took on a traditional quality as if everything was between here and elsewhere. That’s not far from the truth.

Look at a map of the Wilds, and you’ll see only a few major roads crisscrossing the otherwise endless forests and fields. State and national parks sprawl for thousands of acres and getting a signal on your phone is anything but a give. This is a land of adventure, plain, simple, and in the traditional sense of the phrase.

The next leg of the Journey will either be to the northwest (into the center of Pennsylvania), to the north (to Williamsport and deeper into the Wilds), or to the northeast (into the Poconos). I’ll try to keep us in the Wilds this time. If this is what one segment of its creative coffee scene has in store for us, imagine what else there will be. Until next time, stay caffeinated.

Oh, and if I don’t post in two weeks, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Io Saturnalia, and all the rest!