Blue Bottle’s James Freeman is profiled in WSJ.

James Freeman‘s first memory of coffee comes from when he was 4 or 5, growing up in rural Humboldt County, Calif. His parents let him open a container of MJB Coffee. He remembers the whoosh as the air rushed from the vacuum-sealed can and the rich fragrance of the preground beans.

Four decades later, Mr. Freeman, 46, is founder and roaster in chief of Blue Bottle Coffee. Headquartered in Oakland, Calif., Blue Bottle has cafes in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, New York’s Rockefeller Center and, soon, on the High Line in New York, as well as seven other locations. It may be best known for the long lines of customers who wait for its individually brewed cups of coffee.

Waiting is part of the Blue Bottle experience: Mr. Freeman believes coffee gets stale within minutes of brewing, so every cup that Blue Bottle serves is individually brewed. His cafes and kiosks offer no sizes and no special flavors: they generally use beans roasted no more than 10 days earlier. Well-known chefs such as Gramercy Tavern’s Michael Anthony and Coi’s Daniel Patterson serve Blue Bottle at their restaurants. Overall, the company expects sales of about $20 million this year.

Read the full story here.