Chinese Broccoli

For those mired in the dark ages of Maxwell House drip coffee in a canister (hi, Dad!) I feel this might be a good time to bring up the fact that for the past year I have channelled all my spare beverage energies into being obsessed with delicious espresso and pretty lattes.

My seemingly unending travels this year were made a million times more fun (or at least, more wakeful and chemically enthusiastic!) by becoming a bit of a coffee tourist. Be it through word-of-mouth, wifi research on coffeegeek.com or panicked long-distance phone calls to Oliver for guidance, I have ended up at dozens of fine-to-great coffee joints east of the Mississippi in 2006. Rainy Montreal mornings were made better by Caffe Art Java, repeated frenzied trips to New York City were anchored calmly by the heavenly, if horribly named Joe — The Art of Coffee, while Northampton Coffee and Intelligentsia continue to feed my crazy desire to start a cozy, amazing cafe you can actually do your work at here in Toronto. And let's not forget the two-hour detour to the headquarters of Gimme! Coffee in Ithaca, without which I never would have met that nice waitress at Moosewood who absolutely would not let me leave town without practically forcing me face-down into a gorge.

And of course, there is the home team. It is ridiculously inconvenient for me to trek over to Mercury Organic Espresso Bar (no real website, but this blog, and they're at 915 Queen Street East between Logan and Carlaw — really, just go there) yet I seem to make it there semi-regularly, to drink coffee easily worth my environment-killing gas mileage and the COPS-esque close calls with the domestically disturbed neighbours who inhabit the space behind Mercury's (illegal) patio. When I am stuck closer to downtown, I naturally go to Bull Dog, the first coffee shop (but not the only!) to recognize itself on my Flickr paean to latte artwork. (Nice catch, Amber!) Sadly, everywhere else that serves espresso in Toronto kind of sucks. But I'm patient.

Because my job as a writer completely rules, I recently had the opportunity to write a little piece on these dudes for City Bites, a nice Toronto food magazine you can pick up for free at finer food stores (or download in PDF format!) It was awesome to talk to Stuart and Matthew about their craft. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to drink more of their coffee. Hey, whatever you gotta do to pay the bills, right?

In any case, I just thought you all should know what you're missing.