ST(r)EAM Coffee & Tea Bike

After a 25 year hiatus, Jodi Eichelberger has returned to the Treasure Valley to embrace a slower pace of life. Not only has Eichelberger moved to Boise from Brooklyn, where he spent the last 10 years, but he also made the switch from being an actor to his new endeavor, ST(r)EAM Coffee & Tea Bike.

While the bike was custom-built in Portland, Ore., everything else about this self-propelled cart was brewed up by Eichelberger himself. ST(r)EAM’s specialty is cold-brewed coffee that is not only a labor of love, but also of patience. It looks like a science experiment with its glass beakers and jars, the top filled with filtered water that drips at the glacial rate of about one drop every second and a half. That water slowly works through the handground Dawson Taylor coffee, then a filter and finally drips into a carafe waiting at the bottom. The result is a bright, clean-tasting coffee that has none of the bitterness that sugar and cream usually mask. It takes approximately six hours of this methodical brewing to fill a 750 ml bottle—and Jodi keeps the process going around the clock.

The ST(r)EAM cart also offers blooming tea and flavored waters, and will potentially add cider and hot chocolate in the chillier months.

The day I tracked Eichelberger down, he was on the Greenbelt by the Boise River Park. When asked about the unusual location he said, “There’s lots of solutions for those that want coffee fast. I’m not one of them. I’m the anti-hurry-up. What I make is meant to be enjoyed leisurely and I can’t think of a more beautiful place to do that.”

Follow him on Facebook to have your own leisurely experience.

ST(r)EAM Coffee & Tea Bike | @streamcoffeebike
Dawson Taylor | @dawsontaylorroast