All along 14th St
It’s kind of a long street, but along its entire stretch there are only two coffee shops, and they’re next door to each other in the block between Pearl and Walnut: Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop (website) and Tee & Cakes. We’ve written about Tee & Cakes a few times, but have missed Belvedere, both in its new location here and its previous location at the same latitude but on 15th. Belvedere we’ve probably ignored because it sells itself primarily as a chocolate shop that also sells espresso. In a city saturated with good coffee, that doesn’t work well. People are spoiled and know that a shop doing espresso as an add-on is very rarely worth the trouble.
I decided to confirm or refute directly. I mean, they’re right next door to each other, how hard can the comparison be? So I finally visited Belvedere for the first time and T&C for the 20th. Results? It’s like the over-run clip of Dennis Green flipping out about losing to da Bears.
Yep, Belvedere is what I thought they were. They serve Novo Coffee (out of Denver), but not well. Wasn’t the worst coffee I’ve ever had, certainly wasn’t the best, somewhere just about slightly below average. They shop isn’t something you want to work from frequently. You can do it in a pinch, but it just doesn’t feel right as a work space. And you’re going to be relying on Pearl St. Mall wireless because they don’t have their own.
Tee & Cakes is also who I thought they were, mostly because I’ve been there a bunch. I don’t like their choice of roasters (Boulder Organic, just a half step above Allegro), but they make it well enough (read: better than Espressoria pulls it off). My bone to pick today is how they confuse — like many — latte with cappuccino. Here’s my rule of thumb: a cappuccino is espresso with a bit of milk flavoring. A latte is hot milk with some coffee flavor. You should NEVER be searching for the coffee in the cappuccino because the coffee should be by far the dominant component. For most coffee shops, even most in Boulder, when you order a cap you’re still getting a latte, and there is very, very little difference between how a shop makes the two. There should be a huge difference, but for most there is not.
Rant aside, we still love T&C’s cupcake line up and the place is worth visiting for that alone. Belvedere? Go there if you need chocolate.
Brewing Mkt out on 95th
I had posted some reviews and news about The Curious Cup, most recent being that they died. While praising CC, I was basting their 95th and Arapahoe competition, Brewing Market. Well Brewing Market is still in business and CC isn’t, so I decided that I should probably suck it up and go work there for an afternoon.
Since I now live out that direction and I don’t want to come into Boulder every day, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Brewing Market on 95th so I could use it as a reliable satellite office. I was and I wasn’t.
First the good: the layout I like. Tables on one end with ample elbow room between them and a mix of table sizes. On the other end is a U-shaped couch and plush chair area that works well. You can work there, but it is more a comfortable meeting spot, and there were two different groups of people having coffee meetings while I was there. The entire east wall and much of the north wall is floor-to-ceiling glass which I think is a good orientation since you don’t get afternoon sun barreling down on you and your laptop.
Now the bad: Brewing Market is still Brewing Market. The coffee sucks and the chai is even worse (hard to think that’s possible, but I confirmed that it is). The internet policy is that you get access for two hours per order. I can see the business logic behind it, but it’s shortsighted. Unless your shop is packed to the gills with laptop zombies all day (ie., Saxy’s), you don’t need to worry about the occasional person who orders one drink and works for 6 hours. To the rest of the people it’s a turn-off.
It’s too bad that CC went down the loser and Brewing Market stayed around the winner, but for a workspace it is decent. Just don’t plan on loving your coffee. If you live in the vicinity, it works.
Curiosity is dead
Long live the Curious Cup, subject of a couple favorable recent posts (although let’s admit it, nothing much has been recent lately on this blog … that’s ok, judging by the stats you’re still reading). An email went out today announcing the immediate closing of The Curious Cup.
This reviewer is devastated. Having recently moved closer to Lafayette than Boulder (although still with a Boulder mailing address somehow), Curious had become my new office. Now I have to go to Brewing Market on 95th and Arap? No thanks! Guess I’ll be hitting Ozo more often now.
Ozo’s new in-house roast: first crack
Stopped by Ozo a few days ago and got my first shot of their new in-house roast. OMG. No: O-M-G. Damn, was that thing tasty. I had the dark roast (Isabelle) in a dry cappuccino and it was velvety, smoky and sweet without a bit of bitterness. For my palette Ozo was the only shop that could do anything with Allegro, but thank god they’ve moved on. Good job, boys!
Still on the move in northern Michigan
This reviewer is still in Michigan so if you’re tired of hearing about coffee shops outside of the Boulder area, sorry, but at least for me it’s interesting to observe the contrasts across the country. It’s especially interesting to see what locals get in small cities in the rural U.S. (I’m thinking population 1,000 – 10,000 and nowhere near a metro area). These are towns far too small to have a Starbucks, and maybe even too small to have a decent espresso operation, but as I said in a previous post, indie espresso joints are on the rise throughout the heartland.
One such city is Munising in the Upper Peninsula, population a bit under 3,000 but a spry little tourist town that’s home to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Visiting a couple of weeks ago, we badly needed decent coffee and ended up finding the only real coffee shop in town: the Falling Rock Cafe & Bookstore. Now this was a real locals joint. I don’t know how a town of fewer than 3,000 people has enough dedicated cafe regulars to have 300 earmarked mugs on the walls, each with a different customer’s name, but they do. Maybe our beloved Walnut Brewery has more personal beer steins on its walls than Falling Rock has coffee mugs, but it can’t be by much. It was nice to see a local coffee shop with such a dedicated following.
Unfortunately, at least in terms of the actual coffee, the good citizens of Munising aren’t given much love in return. The coffee was disgusting. I went back twice in a day, both times didn’t drink my drink. This isn’t snobbery, this is plain, objective fact, confirmed by the multiple adults in our group (only one or two of which are coffee snobs) who tried the coffee. The first visit we got coffees for 6 people and all were more or less undrinkable. The second time, different shift, only two coffees and both were bad. The baristas were friendly but completely untrained. So maybe it was the baristas, or maybe it was the roast: Great Lakes Coffee. My guess is that it was both. Even with a woeful barista the quality of the coffee will still peek through. Not in this case. I’m still wondering where the good roasters are outside of Chicago.
The espresso experience was unfortunate, because otherwise Falling Rock is exactly the kind of shop I’d like to have in Boulder. Physically it is half coffee bar and cafe and half bookstore, both with a good, comfortable feel. Plenty of tables and chairs in both spaces and a cozy couch in the bookstore. The cafe portion has a good menu of food options (we didn’t try anything though) with what is absolutely bedrock standard in midwest cafes: ice cream. Saxy’s can have its gleaming euro stainless steel gelato cooler, but Falling Rock has the standard salt o’ the earth ice cream cooler. As far as a cafe and bookstore combo, don’t we have that in the Boulder Bookstore? No, not really. There we have a huge bookstore attached by a single opening to a very uncomfortable coffee shop (probably Boulder’s most uncomfortable coffee shop). In Falling Rock the scene is comfortable and mellow, with easy, natural movement between the cafe and bookstore. At Falling Rock they are built to be together; at Boulder Bookstore the cafe seems like a bastard stepchild appendage.
Ozo and Curious switching roasters
First, Ozo. We knew about this a month or two ago but didn’t want to leak it. But since Greg from Ozo just posted this as a comment on another post, it deserves a full entry:
Hey there coffee fans-
This is just an update for all the coffee lovers out there…. Ozo Coffee Co. is proud to announce that we are now roasting our own beans! Yep, we have phased out our Allegro roasts and are quickly depleting our Conscious Coffee stock so that we brew 100% of our own roasts! They taste great and we are excited to continue bringing superior organic, locally-roasted coffee to our customers. Come have a taste now! Peace, love, and coffee.
-Greg
Barista, Ozo Coffee Co.
Can’t wait to try it!
In other news, recently lauded Curious Cup has decided to switch from Unseen Bean to Conscious Coffees. (One major hooray from me!)
Ty @ the cup – baristas
I plan my coffee around when the good baristas are working at my favorite coffee shops. And if I walk in and see a not-so-good barista behind the counter, I will either leave or order a tea instead. I don’t want to waste my morning sipping a $3 cup of bitter ass coffee.
One stand-out – Ty at The Cup. He usually makes a great coffee, and I think he can make the best coffee in Boulder (doesn’t ALWAYS, but he’s your best shot) BUT he doesn’t work on Sunday or Monday-so I avoid the joint entirely on those days.
Woolly Bugger: Harbor Springs, Michigan
Any decent fly fisherman knows that a woolly bugger is a wet fly (that feels like it has the mass of a lead weight compared to a typical dry fly). It’s also the name of a little coffee shop in Harbor Springs, Michigan (and another location in Charlevoix, purportedly). The shop is fly fishing themed, with fishing quotes on the walls and other visual aides to bolster the case. It comes off a bit campy (ok, really campy), but otherwise the shop is cozy and workable, though pretty cramped.
Woolly Bugger roasts its own coffee (offsite, elsewhere in Harbor Springs) and the cappuccino I had was smooth and tasty and very mild. Mild well beyond Amante’s roasts, if that’s any indication. I’ll be near for a while so will go back for more visits and see if the subsequent shots are as mild. As a change, I rather liked it. I didn’t realize how inured I had become of the rocket booster roasts of Conscious, Kaladi, Unseen, etc. I could get used to a milder espresso, or at least get used to having the choice on any given day. At any rate, the coffee was well worth going back for.
The work space? That might be a different matter. It’ll do in a pinch (free wireless, of course), but for longer term working needs — i.e., reliably comfortable working space a day or two a week — Woolly Bugger isn’t going to be the choice because there is no elbow room. Then again, there isn’t any other choice in Harbor Springs, so good luck if the world brings you here for a month or two. Absolutely beautiful place of the country to visit and even stay, not the easiest place to be a traveling laptop zombie.
Travels through the Northlands
It’s been a few years since I was able to get the time and reason to make a long road trip but the opportunity presented itself recently and now here I am, 1,500 miles richer. My rough route was Boulder to a little town about an hour outside of Rapid City, SD. From there due east through SD and into Pipestone, MN before I headed northeastward. I stayed on rural highways to Duluth, then stayed on Highway 2 through Ashland, WI and on into the UP (that’s “Upper Peninsula of Michigan” to those of you not from Michigan or the northwoods). I stayed on Hwy 2 through the UP to the Mackinac Bridge, then into northern Michigan where I now rest.
First, two general observations. I’ve made this trip a few times, always along slightly different routes, but more or less the same trip, the last time about five years ago. Since then two things have happened: 1) wireless internet has hit the rest of the country; 2) indie coffee shops have hit their stride. I mean no patronizing in either case, just the facts.
A few years ago there was no such thing as “free wi-fi” in the rural middle of the U.S. Now, it’s everywhere. It’s on marquee boards of cheap motels, LED signs of gas stations alongside the current price of gas, and sandwich boards outside of run-down sandwich shops in towns of 428 souls. It’s shocking to see the variety of establishments you now see the sign proclaiming “free wireless,” “wireless internet!!” or “free wi-fi.” Again, this is not along the interstates but inside the little towns you must pass through as you traverse Highway 23 through Minnesota or 123 through the UP.
