Amor Perfecto Cafe, Colombia
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...
Cafe Devotion – Bogotá, Colombia
Cafe Devotion recently opened a beautiful new cafe & roastery in Brooklyn (called Cafe Devocion in the US), so when I learned that they’re based out of Bogotá, I had to visit when I was in Colombia. Serendipitously, just a few blocks from the hotel I was staying at, Devotion has a cafe at...
Intelligentsia Venice, Silver Lake, and Pasadena
What follows is a little photographic ode to Intelli’s California outposts. I took these around August, 2011, and also earlier this June, 2012. These remain some of the best coffees I’ve had and I always enjoy stopping by when I return home to Los Angeles. I wanted to highlight how unique each location is, each...
Blue Bottle Coffee, Chelsea
Blue Bottle has been one of the bigger success stories in specialty coffee, garnering press and praise since the early 2000s, starting with its locations in San Francisco. Since then, they’ve expanded rapidly, with recent profit growth of 50% each year. Blue Bottle excels in creating and telling its own trend-setting story about coffee, using...
Solde Kaffebar – Malmö, Sweden
This post is incredibly long overdue given that one of the first people to welcome me to Sweden was Dan Stenqvist, blogger, barista extraordinaire, and roaster for Solde Kaffebar in Malmö. It’s been about nine months since I arrived, and I think I’ve been to Solde more often than any other coffee bar in Malmö....
Coffee Collective – Copenhagen
Coffee Collective is a world renowned Danish cafe and roastery, part-owned by 2006 World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen, along with Peter Dupont, Casper Rasmussen, and Linus Törsäter. Their coffee is highly regarded and I’ve seen their bags proudly displayed like trophies behind the bar or in the back rooms of specialty cafes around the world....
Cafe de l’Ambre: Old School Coffee in Tokyo, Japan
Cafe de l’Ambre is a quirky Tokyo legend, located a few zigzagging side-streets away from the main shopping area at Ginza. You may have seen it mentioned before when Australian barista champion Scott Callaghan wrote about his trip around the world here. The coffee bar and roastery has been around since the late 1940s and...
Lugo Coffee
Lugo is a well appointed cafe in the huge Garden 5 shopping mall, complete with their own roaster in shop, La Cimbali and Ditting espresso set up, as well as kit for hand drip. Combining the two main Korean cafe trends, they offer all their coffees (around ~10 single origins) as either espresso shots or...
Choi Ga
I’ve been keeping an eye out for good coffee on the northeast side of Seoul, but so far I’d only been able to find Star City’s Star Kitchen and Lotte Mall’s Cantata kiosk, which are above average, but nothing to go out of your way for. Then I came across a post at Jihye Chang’s...
Coffeelab
Coffeelab is a quirky specialty cafe located in Hongdae and run by Bang Jong Koo. I’ve only been there twice – the first time just long enough to drop in and try a single espresso. I finally made it back this weekend. Click below for my thoughts and photos. Click here to continue reading!
Coffee Factory
Coffee Factory is one of my favorite cafes in Korea. It’s in the popular Samcheongdong neighborhood around Gyeongbokgung palace, the Presidential Blue House, and a number of foreign consulates. It’s an upscale but unpretentious area that blends traditional and modern Korean culture with its various art galleries, old and new architecture, tea houses and coffee...
Republic of Coffee – Kenya & Costa Rica
I received these two coffees from Lee Jong Hoon (Korean Barista Champion ’09) and his girlfriend and partner Seol Mi Gyeong, who run Republic of Coffee together. Two great people and very dedicated coffee professionals that I feel privileged to have met! The Kenya AA Top Mchana is complex and fruity. Dry red wine is...
