NOC Coffee – Hong Kong Cafe
Not too long ago, I was lucky enough to visit Hong Kong for a little over a week as part of a month-long trip through Asia. But my luck didn’t last long. I came down with the flu and spent several days locked down in a shared dorm-style AirBNB in Tsim Sha Tsui, with friendly...
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters, Lakewood, Colorado
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...
Huckleberry Roasters – Denver, CO
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...
Catación Pública – must-visit cafe in Bogotá
Up on a hill in Usaquén, in the northern part of Bogotá, I had the pleasure of meeting Jaime Duque, owner of Catación Pública – and a man on a mission. You see, for many in Colombia, like most countries where coffee production is a major sector of the economy, the best coffee is often ironically out of...
Intelligentsia Logan Square
Chicago’s Logan Square is now home to one of Intelligentsia’s newest cafes. A low bar with stools sits in the middle of the shop, with sparse white, angular booths at the windows. The back wall is covered with a birds-eye drawing of the neighborhood. The shelves are stocked with magazines. The diner style counter seating...
Recommended Specialty Coffee Roasters
The first step in improving your coffee at home is to start with fresh beans from a quality focused roaster. If you can find one locally, even better. I recently realized that I don’t have a consolidated list of recommended roasters on FRSHGRND, so I’ve started making a list here. I plan to update &...
Malmö & Lund Coffee Wrap-up
Long overdue but I wanted to quickly wrap up my time in Sweden with a few more cafes that I enjoyed and thought you should know about! Lilla Kafferosteriet Blog | Website This cafe is actually one of Sweden’s older specialty coffee roasters and importers. They occupy a central place in Malmö, located off the...
Handsome Coffee Roasters, Los Angeles
Los Angeles’ coffee scene has been steadily growing since I left it back in 2008, and one of the most acclaimed newcomers is Handsome Coffee Roasters. Based in the Downtown Arts District, Handsome was founded by several Intelligentsia expatriates: Michael Phillips, the 2010 World Barista Champion; Tyler J. Wells, former manager of Intelli’s Pasadena cafe;...
Coffee Subscription Roundup Review
I’ve noticed a growing number of subscription coffee services promising to bring you great coffee by mail once or twice a month. Each one has a slightly different take on this and I thought I’d lay them out below, with a few of my own thoughts and experiences. Tonx Coffee Perhaps the most well known...
Koppi Cafe & Roastery, Helsingborg, Sweden
When I first moved to Sweden every coffee geek I met spoke in reverent tones about this mysterious cafe and roastery called Koppi in a little town named Helsingborg an hour or so north of Malmö. It was described as the best cafe in Sweden, at the vanguard of the Swedish specialty coffee industry, all...
Tonx Coffee – Bolivia Buena Vista Mill
I just signed up for Tonx Coffee’s subscription using their $10 off coupon and thought I should share my experience. The first shipment I received was a coffee from Bolivia’s Buena Vista Mill. The silver packaging is iconic, and hard to photograph. The written materials in the box walk a fine line between personable accessibility...
La Frontera, Peru – Counter Culture Coffee
La Frontera, as the bag explains, is the name given to a collection of small family coffee farms in Peru near the border with Ecuador. In 2007, we began our work with five small cooperatives of farmers in a valley with no name, calling the project Valle del Santuario. It has been our most successful...
