Stephanie and I decided this was the perfect day, now that we are back in San Luis Obispo after over a week of traveling to San Francisco and Las Vegas, to relax over good cups of coffee and try out the frequently talked about hipster coffee shop Scout on Garden Street. Scout has been open for 2 months, still new to San Luis Obispo’s coffee market, and it is also very open-feeling with the large glass door/windows that extend from the floor to near the ceiling, around 9 feet tall, in the high-ceiling coffee shop. It was a great atmosphere, with the windows wide open on this beautiful day. We chose seats at the smooth wooden bar with tall green-metal stools to get the best view of the behind-the-bar action.

I ordered a large latte with almond milk for here; Stephanie got hers to-go in a hand-stamped cup. The highlight is that almond milk here is house-made; Scout buys almonds in bulk and puts them in a blender with a little water before it is strained and made into the delicious almond milk they sell today. The milk was steamed to 165 degrees of perfection. The espresso is a medium-roast Street Level from Verve. It’s a blend of all Costa Ricas with four different coffees featured. The tasting notes are black cherry up-front with the tanginess and a sweet almond finish. We also ordered the Scout Cookie (which complemented the latte VERY well). The Scout Cookie is a triple chocolate using dark, semi-sweet, and bitter chocolate with toasted pecans and oats. The very-chocolate-y cookie was huge; we definitely made a good decision by splitting it. The cup had lingering marks from the foam of the coffee towards the top rim, similar to the lingering tastes of almond and my lingering desire for another cup.