Archive for January, 2009
Alimento in the Bay of Plenty
Our guest blogger Tina is German but lives and works in New Zealand. She enjoys the coffee culture in New Zealand and is sending posts of her espresso sojourn There are a lot of cafes in the Bay of Plenty that I like for a number of different reasons. But if I had to pick one, I’d probably name Alimento in Tauranga as my overall favorite. It is located centrally, they serve good coffee and lovely food, play nice music and the staff is always friendly. The latter by the way is something not hard to find in this corner of the world. The interior is just the way it should be, with brown wooden furniture, walls in black and white, and a beautiful original stone floor. Looking around, you can find red bits and pieces in every corner, from round lamps to old scooters. The central piece in the store is the massive, bright red coffee machine, where they brew flat whites, lattes, short and long blacks with beans from Coffee Supreme, a Wellington-based roaster. As with most cafes in New Zealand, you make up [...]
Of Motore Coffee, Vespas Scooters and Helmets
One of the unfortunate things about Motore Coffee is that its location. Well, let me rephrase that. Motore Coffee has a location that is great for many who work down-town in the Denny triangle, unfortunately, that is really not that convenient for me. This is simply because I don't normally hang out in the Denny Triangle area of down-town Seattle and so even if I wanted to stop in to get a quick drink, finding parking is a whole other story. I find that I like the place and the interior design but I haven't really found the time where I can actually go to the place, to sit down and just savour the environment over a nice latte. On of the things I found particularly interesting about the place was the interior deco. The place looked like an ode to the Vespa even down to the six, classic scooter helmets on the wall behind the baristas, each with a letter in red, spelling out the name, 'Motore'. This rather intrigued me so I decided to poke around and find out why the Vespa decor. Now normally I would talk to [...]
Btg Coffee on Capital Hill
Bedlam/to.go aka Btg Coffee is a little, almost nondescript street-side coffee stand that one could easily pass without thinking much about what they may have to offer. Well here is a little known secret about the place. Btg Coffee serves some of the best espresso you'll ever drink on Capital Hill and I say that from experience. The BTG coffee stand is located almost at the top apex of Madison Avenue, just to the west of Madison Market. I would say that a lot of the patrons are those who are walking by and need to get a coffee to go. I don't know what it was that made me first check out the place. It could have been that I had basically tried all the coffee shops in the surrounding area... Or may be it was the old vintage Open sign, or what I like to call the Betelgeuse sign, this is a huge arrow sign with the big star on the top, the wording, "OPEN" and the arrow pointing in the direction opposite to the stand... It also could have been the animated TV screen that I think included the menu.. for some [...]
Alex of The Fresh Pot Places First at NWRBC
Alex Pond (pictured above making his signature drink) of The Fresh Pot won of the 2009 Northwest Regional Barista Competition (NWRBC). Kevin Fuller of The Albina Press and Robbie Britt of Zoka Coffee Roasters came in second and third respectively. These were the top three of the six finalists who battled it out to determine the top barista in the Pacific Northwest region. The competition which started on Friday and run through today, Sunday. It featured some of the more recognizable coffeehouses in the Seattle and Portland area. Personally, as I was looking at the list of entrants, I was much more familiar with the Seattle coffeehouses as I was with the Portland ones. Although I didn't attend the finals today, I had driven down to Tacoma yesterday, to the Temple Theatre where the competition were being held, to check out the heats that led to the selection of the six finalists for today. These six finalists were Robbie and Brett from Zoka Coffee (Seattle), Kristina from Lava Java (Ridgefield/Portland), [...]
Kafeoke for Karaoke and Coffee
Our guest blogger Laura is volunteering in India and plans to spend some time in the new year traveling in South East Asia. She is sending posts of her experiences of the Indian and Asian coffee culture. Kafeoke is a coffeehouse-restaurant-karaoke joint-voice school located on the beach in a residential area in south Chennai. The setting is an inconspicuous big house in a quiet neighborhood, nestled between two fishing villages and set back from the street by a long driveway. We visited the place on a sunny Sunday afternoon and it was pretty quiet, filled with a handful of young, fashionably dressed Indian couples. The downstairs area is open to the outdoors, with wicker swinging chairs. No view of the beach though. Upstairs has a modern interior with photos of musicians framed on the wall. The folks who furnished the place seemed to have been trying hard to encourage people to forget the beach that exists outside the building, fully covering all the windows with a thick fabric. The only [...]
Rounding Out 2008 with Neptune Coffee
Neptune Coffee is the last coffee shop I visited in 2008... I discovered Neptune Coffee for the first time actually just a couple of days ago. Even though this coffee shop has been around for about a year or so in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle but I only discovered it by chance... I was actually on my way to Diva Espresso when I drove by this shop and decided to stop there instead. And I'm glad I did. The barista who I spoke to was really nice and friendly. We talked about about the place and the owners, Dan and his wife, and also of Stumptown coffee which they serve. And you guessed it, they use the Hairbender blend for their espresso drinks. But what I really liked about the barista was that she had no problem with me taking pictures in the place. Sometimes you'll get the uptight or freaked out barista who will not appreciate you taking pictures because "the owner might be upset" or "you might be trying to get ideas for your own coffee shop". This is something I have never understood why some are [...]