Portola Coffee Lab's Jeff and Christa Duggan Are the Deans of
Caffeine   Portola Coffee Lab's Jeff and Christa Duggan Are the
Deans of Caffeine Photo: Austen Risolvato | Design: Dustin Ames
"Lactose is a really interesting sugar," says Truman Severson,
his hands punctuating his words. His hair side-slicked as though
he were Clark Gable, complementing an Eton College professor
outfit of a tie, brown tweed vest and browline glasses. On a
Saturday afternoon, he holds court at Theorem, a six-seat
tasting bar inside Portola Coffee Lab in Costa Mesa. He has just
poured from a steel kettle a stream of water heated to 203
degrees, in a steady, circular pattern over dry coffee grounds
resting in a shiny, chrome dripper that resembles an alien
spacecraft.  The liquid darkens to a deep mahogany and trickles
into a beaker-like glass vessel filled with perfectly formed ice
cubes. After glancing at the numbers on a digital scale, then at
the stopwatch in his hand, Severson removes the dripper, grabs a
metal stick and give