Category Archives: Coffee

Cold Pressed Creation at Kreation

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Cold pressed coffee + fresh pressed almond milk + fresh cold pressed cashew with cinnamon added. Kreation’s cashew milk is so smooth it’s great on its own, but just a splash adds a lot of flavor to their coffee. However, even just the cold pressed coffee in the glass jar on its own is great & I don’t think you actually need to add anything- I was just feeling experimental and couldn’t resist their fresh pressed nut milk bar (if you’re not lactose intolerant they also have regular dairy milk options for you).
Since it was cold pressed my initial coffee sips were a pleasure: less acidic & so delightful!

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Caffe Luxxe on the Malibu Pier

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Malibu Farm Cafe serves Caffe Luxxe, just roasted this month! Testa Rossa Classic House Blend: Bold + Rich Body + Dark Chocolate + Caramel + Jasmine + Smooth Finish. It came in a lovely mason jar that fits perfectly with the beachy atmosphere at the end of the Malibu Pier. Rustic tables, white walls with gray-blue window panes, and large open windows that give a very Malibu feel, with the blue ocean surrounding on all sides. It reminds me of a beach house floating in the middle of the ocean. A great location for great coffee in Southern California.

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Epic Cubano at Epicenter Cafe

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I ended up at the Epicenter Cafe on Harrison Street in San Francisco for a few different reasons. First, I was alone in an area of the city I’ve never ventured, and thus immediately defaulted to finding a coffee shop. Second, this was the closest cafe to where I ended up. Third, they had four stars with 365 reviews on Yelp, which lead me to believe they must be good. Fourth, when I got here they had a hand-decorated sandwich board outside that said free-wifi, which was more than just a plus; it was a necessity due to the fact I have no idea how long it will be until Hugo picks me up. Fifth, I had never heard of it and ideally want to try every boutique coffee shop in San Francisco.

For starters, the first thing I noticed on their menu was that all espresso drinks come with a double ristretto shot (this is how I knew I was in the right place). All of their espresso is an Italian Rosetta/Italian Ristretto style, so when it pours it has a nice crema and is deliciously strong. All of their coffee and espresso is medium roast, which worked well. For espresso Epicenter Cafe pours Chromatic Coffee Company’s Gamut, which is their chocolate creamy butterscotch espresso. The description sold me instantly.

The barista recommended the Cubano, which is a cappuccino with a sugar base. They take a shot of espresso, add brown sugar on top, and press them together to get ready to pull. This heats the sugar on top as the water goes through, giving it the toasted sugary taste. The brown sugar melts on top as the espresso seeps through. I ordered it with soy, which is one of their two non-dairy alternatives. I was about to get it with almond milk, but I was told that the soy looks better for pictures, and so I was swayed.

I was able to taste the brown sugar/caramel flavor immediately on the first sip. There was a short, decadent layer of foam on top with a Rosetta (the leaf/floral looking) design. The barista is able to obtain this Rosetta design only if the milk is perfect, which is when the design basically draws itself as the milk is poured in. You need to have the milk perfectly textured to accomplish a beautiful design. The micro-foam was smooth with a velvety texture. In case you were curious about what I meant by micro-foam, you should know that it was described to me today as when you steaming the milk you let air into it a tiny bit, so that you get the same texture all the way out, which is opposite of Starbucks’ method of scooping the foam out unevenly.

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Mango + Chai

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Today I took my mother on her first Top Dog experience, as well as taking myself out to Morro Bay again for the first time as a college graduate. Although I know I love Top Dog’s SiD, the Iced Soy Mango Chai just sounded too good to resist. On their menu the mango chai is simply described as “Yum!” Sweet with obvious mango flavor, but not too sweet that you feel like you’re drinking a sugary drink. They give it the mango flavor in the iced drinks by pouring a little Mango Torani Syrup on top, then they mix it in with the rest, while for the hot they steam in the mango syrup with the milk. The double brewed chai by My Chai in Oregon is made with organic spices and is still one of my favorite chias to date. The chai is the perfect compliment, with all the spices making it sugar and spice and everything nice. Together these flavor combinations of mango and chai are surprisingly irresistable after the first sip. You get hooked so fast that, before you know it, you’ve finished and all that’s left is ice! It goes down incredibly smoothly, with the small granular bits of spice dancing on your tongue.

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Bucket List Coffee Stop

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In the spirit of checking things off my SLO Bucket List, Rebecca and I ventured to the last San Luis Obispo coffee shop I had to visit before I graduated: West End Espresso & Tea at the end of Higuera. With the large windows making up half of the walls, this particular SLOcal coffee shop has a different vibe than the rest. I like it.

As the first coffee house in downtown San Luis Obispo, they have welcomed coffee and tea lovers such as myself for over 30 years with the sounds and smells of tantalizing brews.

The Milk:
Good (but also not that surprising) news: they have two different non-dairy alternatives, soy and almond milk!

The Beans:
Espresso Nuovoq is a rich blend of Central, South American, and Indonesian beans roasted to a deep dark brown. These oily beans have lots of oil in them (interesting?), which makes the espresso amazingly strong. In addition to strong flavor, these beans produce a complex full-bodied brew with a thick rich crema. Apparently West End Espresso is known for having really strong espresso. If interested, you can even buy any of their whole beans to take home for yourself.

My Drink:
I went with my favorite; dirty chai with soy. Matt the barista recommended it the hot; how could I resist? They use Big Chai, which is a liquid concentrate sweet chai with vanilla flavoring. One of my favorite chais I’ve tried thus far: full of flavor.
They start by adding it the chai, then they cut it with milk instead of water (which is what Starbucks does, but they aren’t about that). The proportion was about half milk & half with the chai. If I wanted to have even MORE caffeine, they also have a dirty hippy, which is iced coffee, chai, and espresso. They called my drink out as a “Soy Chai Charger” which was new. It felt very light with a generous helping of the foam, which I was excited about simply because of the uniqueness of the frothy goodness on top. The foam actually tasted with chai and is a dark tan color. The dirty chai itself was incredibly smooth, with both the espresso and chai overpowering the soy in a delightful tongue-tickling way.

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Intelligentsia Perfection

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The second I saw Intelligentsia as Hugo and I were walking down Colorado Street in Old Town Pasadena, I knew I had to show him the wonders and magic of their Black Cat espresso. Intelligentsia’s soy iced latte can only be described as perfection with each sip. My taste buds fell in love at first taste, and my sense of smell was ignited before even walking through the door, hit with the strong smell of freshly roasted and ground coffee beans. Their soy latte is always a safe bet for an amazing beverage, mostly because of their high quality beans. Black Cat Espresso is a syrupy sweet espresso blend that has been the staple of Intelligentsia’s lineup since the beginning; the supreme balance and wonderful sweetness made this a classic, as well as one of my favorite espressos of all time.

Since it has double the espresso of the latte, Hugo’s Angeleno was a significantly darker color with a more intense, sharp espresso smell that is sure to excite any espresso lover. The Soy Angeleno is a shaken-sweetened iced latte with four shoots of the Black Cat espresso, sweetened with simple syrup. We asked for it to be only lightly sweetened, which ended up being a good call because then the amazing taste of the espresso was not overpowered by the sweetener. I would be willing to try it with their normal amount of simple syrup, just because I know how skilled these perfectionist Baristas are at Intelligentsia.

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New Orleans Coffee

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My first local coffee stop in New Orleans: Antoine’s Annex on Royal near Toulouse. Out of all the coffee I had in New Orleans during my time there for the International Collegiate Conference for the American Marketing Association (which also happened to be the same time as the
French Quarter Music Festival) I discovered that Antoine’s Annex was my favorite. I loved the look of the place; the locals who recommended it were definitely on point with how clean it is inside! The doors and window panes (right word?) were a deep teal on the outside, but once you walked inside the floors were composed of black and white tiles, while the walls were decorated with large black and white photographs and white shelves. Due to the fact that outside it was humid and in the 80’s, I knew I’d want something cold for after we left the air-conditioned black and white cafe. I knew iced was the only option, which is how I came upon this refreshing iced soy latte. It was very smooth and a light tan color when the soy and espresso were mixed, with a ratio of soy to espresso that was very heavy on the soy side of things. The espresso was so good that I wish I’d ordered it with another shot.

The fresh, certified organic, and fair trade espresso actually comes from a family-owned local roaster, Orleans Coffee Exchange, which provides coffee to the majority of New Orleans coffee houses.

Multiple New Orleans locals recommended the place because it’s clean, has better coffee, and most important: it has ice cream. Even though I’m lactose intolerant, I can still appreciate the concept and understand the appeal of having both ice cream and good coffee.

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Scout

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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.

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The art and science of good coffee.

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Best cappuccino in San Francisco is here at Jane. They have a list of different coffee options from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which I’ve noticed is very popular up here in SF. Your choices for now until March 28th include: Sulawesi Toraja (profile: honey, cola, naval orange and marshmallow), Duromina (profile: strawberries and cream), Huye Mountain (profile: peanut butter, cocao, and raspberries), and Hairbended (profile: milk chocolate, Meyer lemon, and caramel). From this selection I chose the Huye Mountain beans from Rwanda, which was the best decision, especially with the lingering tastes of chocolate and peanut butter, in addition to how smooth the foam was on the well-designed cappuccino. My options for ways to order the Huye Mountain included espresso, macchiato, Gibraltar, or cappuccino, and I now want to try them all! I ended up with the cappuccino because I felt I needed the largest one possible. I got it with almond milk and they complemented eachother perfectly. Highly highly recommend. It was served in a white cup on a black saucer, which perfectly matched the black and white decor in this chic cafe. Everything about this cafe is thought out and inviting, including (but not limited to) the chevron tile tables, long bar, large cold brew drip, mirrored walls, two stories, and simplistic exterior.

They also are featuring Stumptown’s single origins, including the Sulawesi Toaraco Peaberry with darker notes and an earthy taste. Their coffee manager decided to have a chemistry-tube rack filled with different beans and spices to display the science that goes into each cup of coffee. It’s an art and a science: visually appealing and builds on the fact that baristas are both skillful artists and chemists.

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Goodreads Quotes About Coffee

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Tonight I discovered the website goodreads! (https://www.goodreads.com/).  Somewhat interesting to see that 53 of my Facebook friends are already members.

Let me enlighten you on a few of my new favorite quotes (on the topic of coffee, of course):

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”
― Dave Barry 

“I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen.”
― Gary Larson

“The powers of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks.”
— James Mackintosh

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Police work wouldn’t be possible without coffee,” Wallander said.
“No work would be possible without coffee.”
They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.”
― Henning Mankell, One Step Behind 

“My couch is coffee-colored.  I can thank Starbucks and clumsiness for that.”
― Jarod Kintz

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from – or how you feel… There’s always peace in a strong cup of coffee.”
― Gabriel Ba, Daytripper

“Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
― David Lynch

“Come on, don’t you ever stop and smell the coffee?”
― Justina Chen, North of Beautiful 

You know you are really craving coffee when you start looking up quotes about it.