Hidden in a nondescript tunnel attached to the Fulton St. subway station, Voyager is a refreshing change from the sort of samey visual aesthetic a lot of specialty cafes have embraced. With a name and logo referencing the Voyager space probe (which just celebrated its 40th anniversary), the vibe is decidedly otherworldly. A circular...
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters is a name I’ve seen being served at great cafes from New York to Los Angeles over the past couple years, so when I visited Denver I had to pay a visit to their cafe & roasting facility. Sweet Bloom was founded in 2013 by Andy Sprenger, a Brewer’s Cup champ...
Heads up if you’re in New York, the NY Coffee Festival is in town again with public sessions open from Sep. 17-18 at the 69th Regiment Armory. A number of quality focused cafes, roasters, and related companies have booths (Toby’s Estate, Counter Culture, Devocion, Chemex, La Marzocco, Curtis, Alpha Dominche, Joe Coffee, etc.) and there are...
Huckleberry Roasters is one of several local roasters making a name for Denver’s growing coffee scene. Starting out of a garage in 2011, they now have a retail cafe and roasting space, along with a new brand called Port Side in the RiNo arts district serving their coffee with breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast, and light...
Verve is a well regarded roastery and cafe out of Santa Cruz, CA. In the past couple years they’ve expanded with a handful of shops in Los Angeles and even an outpost in Tokyo. Their first Los Angeles location debuted at the Ace Hotel in Downtown, and it’s a really striking space. Mirrors give the...
Bar Nine is a Culver City-based cafe and roaster that recently celebrated its second anniversary. Despite its relative youth, the company is making a name for itself by experimenting with long-established cafe norms. Bar Nine isn’t alone here: I’ve noticed a wider move among more progressive coffee bars, especially in California, to drop some “Third Wave”...
Everyone loves to try out a new coffee brewer, but in all honesty the grinder is perhaps your most important piece of brewing equipment. When you grind coffee, even the best grinders produce a range of different particle sizes. The less size variation you have, the more evenly you’ll extract flavor from your coffee and...
Founded in 1997, Amor Perfecto is one of Colombia’s pioneering specialty coffee roasters. From their base in Bogotá, their reach is beginning to expand outside of the country as well (their coffee is now available through Amazon – though I’d try to find a fresher source myself). I lucked out when I visited as the...
You always hear about holiday travel being a disaster, but, at least until this winter, I’d always been lucky. However, after delays, American Airlines canceling one of my tickets in error right before final boarding, and other travel chaos, I found myself spending Christmas eve in Washington, D.C. So, naturally, I found the closest cafe...
It’s that time of year again, if you’re looking for last-minute gift ideas for yourself, or the coffee lovers in your life, I’ve put together a few picks below. And of course, you can always go for a bag of fresh coffee from your favorite local coffee roaster! New Grinder for 2015...
What we in the US call the “French” press is one of the more mainstream gateways to a heightened appreciation for coffee. If you had asked someone whether they were into coffee prior to the renaissance (or fad, depending) in theatrical methods like siphons and pour-overs, they would have likely responded in the affirmative by...
If you ever wanted to see how all the different coffee varieties are related, this coffee variety family tree by Cafe Imports is pretty great. Most specialty coffee roasters include information about the coffee variety on their labels, but it can be difficult to keep track or make sense of – next time, take a...
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