The United States is the world's largest coffee-consuming country, with each person drinking 250 to 300 cups a year. For a long time, the weak flavor of American drip coffee and the burnt bitterness of dark roasts led Europeans to mock it as "sock juice," but the third wave of specialty coffee made America a leader. The author went deep into Los Angeles, a major coffee hub on the West Coast, drinking at forty shops over four days and selecting fourteen reliable, comfortable, worthwhile cafes, including the award-winning Portola, Bar Nine with its ModBar, and barista champion Charles Babinski's Go Get Em Tiger. The article also includes his encounter with his idol and his observations on the polarization of American coffee. This article is recommended for reading by Front Street Coffee.
What is your daily life like?
Dragged out of bed by the alarm, rinse your mouth and wash your face, grab a bite to eat...
Squeeze onto the subway, cross the street, rush into the office building, nod to the colleague you like, line up for the elevator...
Enter the meeting room, ponder the agenda, argue a bit, take minutes, send emails...
For many people, "coffee" must be added to this list.
The United States is the world's biggest coffee-drinking country, and "coffee" is practically a daily staple. On average, each American consumes 250 to 300 cups a year, and workaholics are even more extreme, keeping coffee within reach twenty-four hours a day.
Americans value speed in daily life, as seen in American fast food. When it comes to coffee, it's often just a drip machine, brewing a big pot and drinking it from morning to night, cup after cup. With lots of water and little coffee grounds, the taste is naturally extremely weak. In the past, America had no such thing as specialty coffee at all; coffee was often so burnt and bitter that it was impossible to swallow without adding large amounts of sugar and milk... Europeans joked that this stuff was "sock juice."
Later, as taste gradually improved, cafes with slightly lighter roasts that highlight regional characteristics sprang up all over America. The rough American guys used to drinking sock juice unexpectedly became the world's leaders in the third wave of specialty coffee.
Everyone talks about the third wave of specialty coffee, but few truly have an intuitive understanding of it. To put it plainly, if you want to know what's good about American coffee, you have to taste it yourself!
Instructor Zha flew to Los Angeles, a major coffee hub on the West Coast
Drank at forty cafes in four days
Fourteen of them are reliable, comfortable, and worth a special trip
There are top-tier famous shops that have won so many awards their hands are tired
And shops where "you can't even find a coffee machine on the table"
Most importantly,
Instructor Zha also ran into his idol!
The other person is also named Charles~
At the end of the article, there's also Instructor Zha's summary of observations from his US trip~
CHAIN SPECIALTY
1｜Portola Coffee Lab
3313 Hyland Ave, Suite B2 Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Strictly speaking, Portola is not in downtown Los Angeles; it's located in Orange County next to Los Angeles (yes, the place where rich people cluster). All six of the brand's shops are in Orange County, and they roast their own beans.
When I walked into the SoCo shopping center, people were already lining up to buy coffee (10 a.m. on a weekday—where did all these people come from...)
In one corner of the shop, a bearded man was cleaning the roaster, and I was amazed by how meticulous he was. From when I entered the shop to when I left nearly an hour later, the roaster had only just been cleaned and was being fired up to preheat.
I think it's precisely this care that earned them the title of Micro Roaster of the Year in 2015 from Roast Magazine!
Was the coffee good? Of course it was extremely good!! The roast was on the lighter side, and combined with the local water and extraction method, although the coffee's acidity was high, the sweetness and balance were maintained outstandingly!
Portola has its own way of promoting specialty coffee. Next to the flagship store, they deliberately opened a cafe called Theorem with only six seats, focusing on a slow pace and letting customers taste specialty coffee in cocktail form!
MOST WANT TO MOVE TO SHANGHAI!
2｜Bar Nine
3515 Helms Ave, Culver City
Overall on this trip, my favorite cafe!
Located in a quiet neighborhood in Culver City, with only a "9" at the entrance—the owner is so low-key!
Pushing the door open, the warehouse is six or seven meters high, the furniture is simple yet design-oriented, and the environment is so comfortable that it makes you feel that just coming to this one shop today was worth it!
When I wanted to order, I realized—where's the coffee machine? There's no coffee machine on the table at all!
It turns out Bar Nine is one of the first cafes in the U.S. to use ModBar. ModBar hides all the parts of the coffee machine below the countertop, exposing only the brew head and steam wand, precisely to tear down the wall between baristas and customers and make communication easier. This has something in common with the Black Eagle coffee machine.
I ordered a Kenyan espresso and a cappuccino. The espresso was on the sharp and sour side, with a salty finish, but the cappuccino was so delicious~ After asking my opinion, the barista immediately remade an espresso, and this one was clearly much better! As I was leaving, he refused to take payment. I said that wouldn't do, since I had ended up with something delicious. But he said he couldn't let a customer have an unpleasant experience.
If baristas in China all had this sense of responsibility, the coffee industry would surely advance by leaps and bounds!
A good shop always attracts customers of a similar temperament. The house manager and I often sigh that it would be great if Shanghai had a few more shops like this...
My idol! Charles Babinski
3｜Go Get Em Tiger
230 N Larchmont Blvd, Los Angeles
The first time I learned about Charles (not me—I'm not named Charles because of him, but perhaps this is fate), was when I watched a video of his 2009 U.S. Barista Championship. He was very relaxed and at ease throughout, as if chatting with friends, performing naturally. From then on, it changed my long-held view of competitions—it turns out you don't have to deliver information with a stern face.
By 2012 or 2013, he left Intelligentsia and opened Go Get Em Tiger, and this shop has always been on my to-do list. Finally, I had the chance to go.
Go Get Em Tiger is beside the beautiful, tree-lined Beverly Boulevard. The shop isn't big, and it's packed inside and out. The shop uses beans from famous American and Canadian roasters. Was the coffee good? Because he's my idol~ so it was good no matter what... (the face of a hopeless fan is fully exposed)
4｜G & B
c19, 324 S Hill St, Los Angeles
Another new shop—G & B, located in Grand Central Market. It uses an EK43 espresso grinder.
What astonished me was that the barista weighs the coffee beans and the coffee grounds cup by cup, and then makes the espresso. Their fussiness about quality control is the greatest I've seen among busy cafes!! And they're still fast, fully able to handle the queue!
After finishing your coffee, Grand Central Market has all kinds of food, taking care of all your eating and drinking needs in one go~
Not just coffee—the food is also painstakingly crafted
5｜Superba Food & Bread
1900 S. Lincoln Blvd, Venice
As for Superba, what surprised me was that its coffee is good, its bread is delicious, and its brunch is especially tasty! It's a cafe where both coffee and food quality are on point.
The coffee isn't exactly stunning, but the bread and food leave a deep impression!
In sunny Los Angeles with blue skies and white clouds, and with Superba in Venice (by the beach, with beautiful women!), plus its unique decor, it naturally attracts many good-looking customers. But Superba's owner knows that looks alone are not a core competitive advantage, so they've put a lot of effort into the food too!
6｜Paper or Plastik Café
5772 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles
Compared with Superba, Paper or Plastik Café takes a home-style decor approach. The coffee is mid-level, but it's very comfortable with breakfast—slight fruit acidity, not bitter, with sweetness and body well handled, and it's under three dollars, so the value for money is sky-high~
A tasty self-roasting shop in a wealthy area
Crowded even on rainy days
7｜Copa Vida
2680 Nina St, Pasadena
A tasty self-roasting shop in a wealthy area! Blue Bottle is nearby, but business is not affected at all. That day it was pouring rain, yet the line still stretched to the door, and the shop was packed.
I drank a cappuccino and a pour-over Yirgacheffe: the cappuccino was the best cup I had on this trip—the milk's sweetness, a super velvety texture, not bitter at all, with a hint of acidity in the finish, adding quite a bit of complexity!
Their coffee is divided into three series: go, enjoy, experience. I drank the experience Yirgacheffe, which was very typical; although it was made with an American drip machine, it still showcased the beans themselves and the care in roasting—citrus and floral notes, a chocolate finish, and a very good sweet-acid balance.
The atmosphere of the whole shop and the friendliness of the baristas also made it very comfortable!
Forty shops, nearly a hundred cups of coffee—overall, the American coffee industry is developing toward two extremes: one extreme, like Starbucks, follows the dark-roast path; the other roasts lighter and lighter, seeking to express "origin flavor."
Dark roast is like a burden. There are people already accustomed to this flavor, and there are also things that decades-old cafes can't shake off. It's suited to adding milk and sugar to balance the burnt bitterness.
As for light roast, quite a few cafes overcorrect, roasting far, far too light and overemphasizing fruit acidity, simply equating fruit acidity with origin flavor, but this often means incomplete development and is even less suitable for long-term drinking.
I'm someone used to drinking acidic coffee, but more than ten cups a day still wore me out. Instead, roasting just a little darker (fully developed, but without the bitterness, burnt notes, or smokiness of dark roast) gives a better sweet-acid balance and lets me keep drinking and drinking.
Most of the shops selected this time did an excellent job with balance. As for those that didn't make the cut, they either pursued overly light roasts or the baristas' skills and service were less than satisfying—in short, there were more or less problems with the output. Friends, when you go to Los Angeles, choose carefully!
Text and photos｜Charles
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
