5 Canadian provinces + 1 United State + 1 coffee tourist chick = one terribly caffiened-up travelogue. Those who hate coffee, please skip this… or perhaps consider taking up coffee. It puts you in a good mood, you get more done, and it’s cheaper than meth.

By way of preface, I should explain a quick thing or two to the non-coffee-psycho public about what the real pleasure is of coffee tourism. It’s not just actually about drinking awesome coffee. Or being addicted to a mood-elevating substance. Or making friends. Or feeling the community of total geekdom. Though—really—those would be enough. The best thing I’ve found about these mini-adventures (and I’ve said it before) is the paths they encourage you to take through a foreign town, that arbitrary goal you’re looking to achieve which takes you round and about and into neighbourhoods that have complementary and curious businesses, past sunny streets and peaceful rivers and hidden parks with miniature trains. Like my friends who look for good skate spots whenever they’re in a new town, the seemingly random quest to do what you like to do anyway in a new environment inevitably leads to some better, deeper connection with the town you’re passing through. Plus all that community and new friends and tasty coffee stuff I mentioned? Yeah. Okay. That’s pretty great too.

So. Something was wrong with me when I planned a trip to Vancouver to tag along on tour with Awesome Color, and it took me several hours to realize, “Hey! If I go to Vancouver…I could probably drink some coffee while I’m there!” I’m not sure what I was even thinking—I could go to Vancouver just to drink coffee. I started collecting tips from my ex-Vancouver barista pals in Toronto (the outspoken dwelltimer Nick Brown, and ex-Elysian man of mystery Matt Lee) and began composing emails. “Dear Lindsay Parker,” I wrote, “Think you could show me around?”

So it turns out it takes about 8 hours door to door from Mercury Organic Espresso Bar in Toronto to the Elysian Room in Vancouver, via subway, three buses, and WestJet. I’d seen pictures of the Elysian Room before, and while it’s not much to look at, it’s neighbourhoody and tranquil—and drinking your espresso in full view of the mountains (well, over top of the BMW dealership…) is pretty impressive to a flatlander like myself. I inconspicuously enjoyed my first macchiato as I perked back up from the long journey, and when I went back to the counter to ask for something off the Clover, something I asked about the Ethiopian gave me away.

“You’re here to meet up with Lindsay, aren’t you?”

Ah, so it was going to be that kind of trip.

[The Elysian Room]
For all the reputation of the Pacific Northwest and all the anticipation I’d stored up, it was easy to come to the same conclusion all my pre-trip advisors had when they counseled me: really? Elysian is the only place you need to go in Vancouver. If you’re downtown, the Artigianos can get you by—but if you want a seriously amazing coffee (and, yes, a view of the car dealership) served by knowledgeable, awesome people well into the evening: you’re going to want to stop searching. 49th Parallel on the Synesso, a handsome menu of three rotating single origins to try on the Clover, friendly if guarded baristas who you can talk into comparing a Clover cup of Aricha Selection Seven with a french press… what more could you want really? In my multiple trips to Elysian I met super people—hi Matt! hi Alastair!—and mysteriously ran into someone I’d already met in Toronto (hi Les!) and drank an endless string of perfect macchiatos. Will I get in trouble if I say that the Aricha warn’t all that? (it was when Matt Lee brought it into Toronto and we had it on the Solo…but it came off the Clover kinda flat, which is a shame for an expensive, theoretically amazing coffee that no one can stop babbling about because it partook of the miracle of air travel rather than a slow, stalemaking boat, but I digress.) The perfect coffee at the perfect quiet waypoint in a lovely city (that I hadn’t been to for 21 years, my god). Thanks dudes!

[Caffe Artigiano]
After outing me at the Elysian Room, Lindsay Parker—coffee queen of YVR—led me on a delightful stroll into downtown. We were going to check out the Hornby Street Artigiano—the one worth going to, apparently, or, well, supposedly, depending on how your drink comes out, I guess. Spacious and adult-looking. A big chalkboard describing a a Cup of Excellence Colombian one might wish to sample of the Clover. And, is that a FIVE-group LaMarzocco? Too bad I couldn’t get a good shot of espresso though.

Lindsay and I had a real nice walk along the waterfront, however—before returning to Elysian and making a plan for some touring about the next morning.

“Meet up at 6:30 at the corner of Broadway and Commercial?” she asked—and anyone who knows me will realize that’s a completely psychotic proposition. But y’know what? Jet lag was on my side and I knew I was going to be up—plus, that’d give us more time to play around Lindsay’s work—so why the hell not?

I was there on time, and we headed straight to…

[Prado]
So white! So clean! So Euro! And yet, so strange that they thought the Ethiopian was a really “dark roast” and that they were so apprehensive to use the (beautiful, on loan from 49th Parallel) pourover station. I didn’t try an espresso. I wouldn’t mind hanging out here for an afternoon, but I’m not yet sure about what I would drink. Rumours on the street were that the baristas are inconsistent, but the snacks were sure good… something about the room reminded me a little bit of my home cafe, Mercury, if only it were really clean and white and run by friendly dykes.

[Continental]
First thing the barista says to Lindsay as we get to the counter is, “So, are you slumming it today, or what?” Once she’d been recognized it got a little subtly weird for everybody—my macchiato was pretty bitter, but everyone just really wanted to be nice here. The coffee bar itself looks like an espresso machine! And apparently they roast. Worth another try, but I won’t go out of my way next time.

We skipped JJ Bean and whoever else on “The Drive” because it seemed about time to get to the money shot(s)—a little tour of Lindsay’s work, 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters, what’s that you say? The best roaster in Canada? Mmm, let’s hop the SkyTrain to Burnaby, shall we?

[49th Parallel Coffee Roasters]
Roasteries may not sound like much to look at (‘cept for when those beans go shooting vertically up the vacuum tubes) but if you get off on big machinery and good smells, it’s always totally fun to go check out the birthplace of a delicious coffee. Okay, not the birthplace really. Maybe the finishing school. (Though I guess that bad metaphor conjures up the idea of a coffee bean balancing a book on its head…) I dug checking out all the different equipment because I am a nerd, and because I am an even bigger nerd, I was really happy to see all the boxes ready to get shipped to Cafe Grumpy in Manhattan. (Hi guys!)

Lots of fun toys here: owner Vince Piccolo was busy playing around on a new lever machine they had in—busy enough that I didn’t get to see anybody try out the Mistral. We had some shots of Epic (too fresh! oops, that’s what you get inside the roastery…) and then Mike came in to tell us that a roast was about to drop.

49th’s big red Renegade roaster is pretty fun to watch—and after a little bean-swirlng action, Lindsay and I returned to the coffee-drinking room to cup some Kenya AA Kihenia and something else that, for the love of god, tasted like pine and dirt, but I forget what it was, off of the Clover. The Kenya AA was super-lemony—delicious! And this is what I took home and drank on the porch for the next week after my return. Thanks so much for the petit tour and fun morning, Lindsay, Vince and Mike!

The next day would be my last in Vancouver, so on my way over to the Elysian Room from my friends’ house (hi new friends Mike and Andrea!) I intentionally took a route past…

[Wicked Cafe]
Oops, how did I almost not go to this place? Admittedly (and this is weird to say since I am a Chicago girl and am always thrilled to drink Intelligentsia coffee at home) I found the prospect of visiting a random Intelly cafe in the Pacific Northwest a little underwhelming. Until I went in and got kind of into it—and then I placed my order with the friendly-looking tattooed dude behind the counter.

Liz: “Could I have a cappuccino please?”
Barista: “Sure”
Liz (while pulling out camera): “And um, would it be possible to have that with Kid O?”
Barista: Are you that girl from Toronto?

Arthur Wynne, world fancypants barista/mixologist, totally caught me out! We talked about the Toronto scene for a bit (oh, you were just emailing my dear friend Amber this morning about her plans for the latte art competition back home? okay…) and I watched him try to pour six or seven *inverse* rosettas…and come pretty close. Arthur took his lunch break to sit with me and jaw, and was one of the most gracious and friendly and knowledgeable people I’d encounter (a distinction tough to make on a tour of warm and enthusiastic coffee people). Upon hearing that my rock-and-roll-tagalong travels would take me through the Canadian Prairies, Arthur not only had recommendations for me—he immediately got on the phone and started making me coffee dates! Amazing.

Sadly, my jaunt through Calgary would be ill-timed to make a planned meeting at Phil & Sebastian, despite trying to get Sebastian on the phone just before they closed up at the Calgary Farmer’s Market for the day… apparently the guys are rocking Hines coffee on a LaMarzocco and Clovering other delights. Too bad Calgary sucked so much otherwise, this probably would have elevated my opinion! Next time (if there is one)…

Edmonton, though, was another story… we rolled into town on Saturday night, me, sleepy from a hotel floor in the middle of Nowhere, Alberta… but I was supposed to check out Three Bananas coffee. Would it be open so late in some random town? Oh yes, yes it would.

[Three Bananas]
Right downtown, this startlingly good Intelly-based shop (oh, hello!) sits inexplicably as the near-centrepiece of a civic square—it’s open late weekend nights as the square fills up for free movies in the summer (when I was there, there was even a bouncy castle out there for kids…) and is nothing but sunlight and windows and pretty blue tile. Delicious (if not earth-moving) coffee, and a super-kind owner (hi Geoff!) and staff (hi Clemens!) comprise the beginning of a cutting-edge coffee scene in, yep, Edmonton. (Matt Lee tells me he was instrumental in suggesting they take the wooden boards off the front of their cherry red LaMarzocco, too…good call, buddy. People *like* to see sexy equipment!) They also had food, and wireless, good couches, and… well, the only bad thing was that they weren’t open til 11am on Sunday so I could go get three more coffees. See you again, Three Bananas!

Onward to provinces west where I would stumble into the Ukrainian espresso legacy of Saskatoon!

First stop:
[Museo Coffee + Espresso]
I was trying to figure this one out in advance—fancy coffee—in an art gallery?—open til 6pm on a Sunday—in Saskatoon? Yep. Totally. I called around 4:30 (maybe I thought it was 5:30—the time zone changes somewhere around here and everyone I was travelling with was confused) and asked when the shop would be closing up for the night. Unlike at Phil & Sebastian, where I was told it was not worth showing up at 4:50 when they planned to tear down at 5, I was cheerily told by Museo: “Oh, we’ll be open until six… or later… we’re usually around for awhile. Just come by.” And come by I did, partly by city bus and partly by pleasant riverwalk, through the park and museum land of strangely nice Saskatoon. Inside the Mendel Art Gallery (pay what you can) is this little cafe, then: clean, fancy, subtle, and solid, and who’s that behind the controls? Our man Jimmy O., of online muckraking fame and well-coiffed hair—enthusiastic, personable and happy to show an otherwise innocent Torontonian the best of his trade, that is, many shots of Epic espresso, some gold-filter pourover single origin jazz, and weirdly—he even talked me into an Americano. By 7:00 Saskatchewan time (or was it 6?!) I was flying high. A really handsome little setup this is, and though it’s embarrassing to me that the art gallery was an afterthought, I saw some amazing exhibits on my way away from the great coffee debauch of Saskatoon. A really good visit that transcended more than one preconceived notion. See you at the Nationals, Jimmy?

Second stop:
[Caffe Sola]
Right downtown (basically behind our hotel, or was it behind the bus station?), Caffe Sola—a former Jimmy O. venture—looked promising enough. But my coffee—sorta bad, and apparently roasted in the Yukon (what?)—was only memorable for its, you know. Proximity to the bus station. Hmmm….

I missed drinking coffee in Winnipeg completely. Though according to many, I did not miss a thing at all. There was a place called the Pastry Castle that I encountered just after dinner—I believe they had tent cards with pix of latte art from their supplier, Fratelli Coffee. I’m guessing the Britpop band of the same name is better… onto the American detour.

Suddenly I wasn’t in Canada anymore! I was in Minnesota! Could it be true that there was amazing coffee in St. Paul, if only I could coerce my friend Emily into driving us there? It was true! Oh great day! We first rolled up to…

[Kopplin's Coffee]
Oh, man. I did very little research on this place—and totally missed the Barista Magazine profile on it in the April/May issue too—but when I saw the sandwich board outside enticing people to come drink off the Clover (there’s a Clover in St. Paul!?) and the placard inside advertising this week’s special feature—49th Parallel Epic Espresso (hi!)—I had a feeling I might be in the right place in this town. After some small talk with a super-shy barista (she warmed up after I told her how damn good her ristretto was…) I was intercepted by Andrew Kopplin, the owner, totally younger than me, but way more serious, and extra-friendly, dedicated, and eager to talk about everything he wants his shop to be. This place was great: the regular espresso is from excellent local roaster Paradise Roasters, and the vibe throughout this store was an unpretentious but steadfast commitment to making coffee exciting and excellent. I wish I’d had time to come back here a bunch more! But we had to head over and check out friendly competitor…

[Black Sheep Coffee Cafe]
Black Sheep Coffee Cafe ain’t your small-scale hipster dive—there are lots of sheep here, it looks like you could really bring dozens of mothers and breastfeed openly—but they have fantastic coffee (Paradise Roasters, why didn’t I bring home any of your coffee?) and it’s the home of sixth-place US Barista Championship winner Peter Middlecamp. Now, he wasn’t there, but his signature drink was…Jake was gracious enough to prepare one for me. And while I gotta say my spoon-taste of the basil-infused whipped cream was very good: I didn’t really want it mixed with the caramel, espresso, and star anise that made up the intriguing little con panna Peter took to competition. Could be my irrational anti-caramel bias though. Don’t ask me. I’m not qualified… Black Sheep was a great hang, though, especially what with the torrential downpours going on outside and the superior tuna melt. Sweet and unpretentious in just that perfect midwestern way—ah, feels like home.

In between all these journeys I got to spend a week at home drinking coffee where I drink it the most: well, actually these days that’s my front porch. But my usual hang, as I’ve mentioned once or two hundred times before, is Mercury Organic Espresso Bar. They play loud good music and the baristas will flirt with you and the store is too hot in the summer and it is nowhere, anywhere near my house. But most importantly the espresso is the best in Toronto and everyone there is as excited about coffee as much, but almost exclusively more than, anyone else in the city. They will make me a gibraltar without too much attitude and when I look like I have slumped over my computer in a stupor another drink will materialize. If I bring back interesting coffee from anywhere, we will cup it on the Eva Solo right away, and when there is something wacky or interesting in the grinder (or when there is a new grinder, heck) everyone is eager to geek and share. I miss you guys when I’m travelling, and there ain’t nothin like that first familiar cappuccino when I get home from a journey, and that taste of Dark City on my upper lip late at night.

That said, I got restless feet! Let’s get back on the road with the band and go see what’s happening in Montreal!

[Caffe Art Java]
Caffe Art Java has been the only modern specialty coffee cafe in splendid Montreal for some time—and though their website inexplicably doesn’t mention this, they have a second store in addition to their original plateau location. I visited both while in town—and while the wifi, location(s), and competent coffee are certainly welcome in town, I have a hard time getting it up for the Gimme! roasts these days, and the service is so confusing at these shops (where do I order? who do I pay? where is my coffee!?!) that it’s tough to feel like this could become anyone’s regular coffee spot. They’re going for more Euro-bistro anyway (that, and the eye-candy-doorcrasher appeal of latte art.) It’s a welcome part of the city’s gastro-beverage landscape, yet we can probably move our quest for good espresso in Montreal down to the old city, as guess who was poised to open the week I was in town but…

[Veritas Cafe Sante]
Sometimes you’re doing your pre-travel coffee research (okay, well sometimes *I* am anyway) and you find out that where there was no cafe before, a cafe is just moments from opening in the city you are travelling to! Chowhound and Coffee Geek both revealed exciting news that a new joint—serving 49th Parallel (world domination yet, Vince?)—was just about to throw open its doors. So um… I emailed ahead and asked if they’d be open yet by the day I was in town. And though they weren’t yet ready—they were willing to let me come hang out anyway (thanks, Sam, Charles, Anthony!) It’s a lovely, fresh li’l spot at St-Laurent and Notre Dame: poised to serve healthy food (I guess the Montreal bistro model holds firm) in a crisp red-white-modern environment (I guess the Montreal Eurostyle model holds firm—oh, okay, they have some real nice green/brown natural-style vibes goin’ on too), this place looks like it’s going to be really great. Anthony—who, I learn almost immediately, is incestuously cross-pollinated with the Vancouver/Toronto coffee scene by not only being ex-Artigiano but by his romantic ties to a certain Dwelltimer’s sister—was generous with time and coffee and chatter, and made drink upon drink of lingery-syrupy Epic shots, mmm, tell me again why I can’t have this in Toronto? Montrealers, definitely make a point of making this your coffee local. Hopefully Veritas wlll do great.

And though I turned around and headed back to everyday life after Quebec, I don’t doubt there are more awesome uncharted cafes kicking around the permafrost of this Dominion of Canada. I know for sure I missed something good at Phil & Sebastian in Calgary (perhaps one day—a real storefront?), and that damn place Victoria everyone raved about whose name I’ve forgotten. The Maritimes are another story completely, though while typing this I actually overheard someone talking about opening up a new specialty shop in Halifax—so. I dunno, guys—roadtrip?

. . .
Coupla links:
[More pix of everything]
[Woefully not-up-to-date but potentially amazing Espresso Map]
[Your best bet for travel research]

Although I purport to have standards, I am always keen for a wacky field trip. And when Laurel—my friend here with whom I am occasionally tied in the running for Most Complainy Ex-pat American—suggested we use the free coupons we each got in the mail to go check out Far Coast coffee’s new Toronto store, I was like, well, sure.

See, we both knew this was going to be a funny if not scary experience. Because aside from Far Coast opening up in a dubious area — a corner lot in boutiquey Yorkville that used to house a Lululemon and other reprehensible overpriced stores that still could not seem to keep up the property taxes — we knew another little thing about Far Coast.

A little thing they don’t advertise anywhere in the store.

A little thing that might, if you really thought about it, not make you want to drink their coffee so much.

Y’see, Far Coast is an experimental new coffee retail model run by Coke.

Coca-Cola. They are selling you coffee now. Or rather, they want to. They have opened this Toronto outlet—along with stores in Singapore and Oslo—to see if Coca-Cola Blak has truly primed the palates of international consumers who are ready to take Coke-branded coffee one step further.

Far Coast’s decor caught biting the styles of Beck Taxi

So when I arrive, the first thing that strikes me is that it’s pretty. It’s clean and polished and has nice wallpaper. But upon further examination it’s a little baffling. Are we going for eco-rainforest here? Japanese wabi-cha? African Lion Safari? Basically it looks like a Cost Plus threw up in here. There are huge stylized posters of people of ambiguous ethnic origin enjoying the ancient aromatic flavours of Far Coast coffees along the walls—coffees with names like “Belegante” and “Opal Noir”. Laurel and I are a little frightened, but I think, hey—there are eight Starbucks within a two block radius of here. So their coffee must at least be serviceable, even if a little scary, right?

No. The coffee is just scary.

And although I don’t often say I should go around being more cynical, I should have been in this case. We approached the coffee bar. And we saw these.

This is about when I started to panic

That’s right. Proprietary pod-style espresso machines. You know, pushbutton kind. Like at the gas station.

I handed over my coupon and the Coke drone (“Why bother having employees?” said Laurel) pushed a button for “bold” coffee and “cappuccino” style milk and soon had dispensed me a “coffee” in an admittedly very stylish and technologically interesting partially double-walled cup. It was, needless to say, only barely drinkable. Though L. and I both agreed that it was the kind of thing we might be okay with if we were, say, on a plane.

But as we pretended to nurse our scary Coke coffees in the mysterious global village of decor that is Far Coast, our minds began to grow more and more resentful. Other than the obvious abrading qualities of pandering to the ancient/third world by a megalithic colonial corporation, one thing really annoyed us. There was a mancala set on the table behind us. Full of coffee beans.

Where did they even get coffee beans? I mean, you and I both know the stale coffee pods are drop-shipped from Atlanta. What’s with all the sacks of decorative beans you aren’t using lying around next to the cast iron Japanese teapots you aren’t using either? (If they’re going to spend all this money on the decor, Laurel and I kept asking—why not actually spend some of it on the beverage product?) Cheeky, Coke. Very cheeky. Just like the huge gestures towards eco-responsibility throughout the store (“Revel in our diversity. Respect the planet we share.” is posted over a ginormous recycling bin), everything smacks of pandering. Though their packaging—those double-walled 12% post-consumer-waste cups, not biodegradeable, and topped with handsome teal injection-moulded lids—is at least pretty and interesting, from a packaging engineering standpoint. But I will probably not start drinking coffee based on packaging engineering. (Microfoam rosettas maybe, but I do have a little self-respect.)

The double-walling ends before the last inch of the cup—saving millipennies off the Coca-Cola bottom line!

But overall, I’d still say Far Coast is worth a visit if you are in the area. Because without a doubt, it has an extremely nice bathroom. The only catch here is that the bathrooms are upstairs—but guess what, lazy people? It’s your lucky day! Far Coast has an elevator! Not only is the store itself good for a laugh (while it’s still in business), you can check out a convenient and clean Yorkville washroom in the middle of your Christmas shopping or spree of arsonizing celebrity restaurant hangouts. And after you sample their plumbing facilities, you’ll be ready for a little taste of the future. Take that, ancient worlds!

Just to be clear, Oliver is the person who decided it would be funny to get me really really addicted to coffee. I hope he’s satisfied. (I guess it’s only fair revenge on me for introducing him to the internet.) In any case, although my parents had their hand in it, allowing me to join in on the stuff when I was only a little kid, it’s Oliver’s fault that I am now in the condition where I just pour out bad stuff, arrange errands around crossing paths with a nice espresso, and have a Flickr page that outs me as somewhat of a weirdo.

Thus it is at his request that I will tell you places you can go and drink coffee if you go to New York City!

Joe—The Art of Coffee
Joe has kind of been my favourite this year over the course of several trips to the city. It has a really stupid name. Possibly it speaks to the more upscale West Village crowd they’re catering to, but I’m embarrassed every time I have to try and say that em dash out loud. That said, their cafe on Waverly Place is a splendid little joint: bright and cheery without being quaint, a bustling mix of easy-to-work-at tables (including two coveted window seats) wireless internet streaming in from the neighbours, and supposedly Amy Sedaris makes the cupcakes they serve, though I’m always a little too embarrassed to get them to confirm or deny this. The coffee is consistently great: Barrington Coffee Roasting Company beans at the hand of a pile of friendly baristi who make nice art and aren’t a little sassy. Joe is a great place to spend an afternoon, or just grab what you know will be a wonderful coffee when you’re near W4 St. or even at their humbler second location off of Union Square. (Apparently they just opened in the Alessi store, too, but the plebian in me wishes they’d open up in Penn Station or something.)

Joe—the Art of Coffee, Waverly Place

Ninth Street Espresso
You want views of willow trees, stupid East Village bootwear, cadres of people that look like they truly need it lining up for really strong espresso? Come here! The coffee is amazing! The only thing about Ninth Street is it’s a little far out there—but that’s only spoken by my lazy voice. It’s totally worth crossing Avenue C for. The atmosphere is more utilitarian than lingery…but you didn’t come to linger, right? Also, everyone who works here seems extremely excited about coffee.

Blue Spoon Coffee Company
This place is startlingly cozy for Chambers Street, but makes no pretensions about catering to the business crowd, and as such it’s a little more brisk and basic than most of the other places I’ve been to in the city. If you’re looking for good coffee below Canal, this is it for you: skillfully presented Black Cat from Chicago’s massive Intelligentsia roastery. But, all hometown loyalty aside, Black Cat has never struck me as truly special—mostly functional. Good, but functional. (Someday when people actually let me become more of a food writer, I’ll expand my vocabulary of beverage descriptors to things more illustrative than “it had a functional aroma”.) It was totally nice, but the best thing about going to Blue Spoon was accidentally running into my friend Ben on his way to work.

Gimme! Coffee
Gimme! roasts and serves excellent coffee, no two ways about it. The only thing is if you want to have some in New York you have to go to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is a bummer. It also means the Brooklyn cafe is full of Williamsburg people, and it is also crowded, because though there are supposedly something like 4,889,201 coffee shops in Williamsburg, many of them have figured out that Gimme! is fantastic, and they come and crowd the pleasant booths and sit in the creepy hipster eggshell space chairs. It’s okay, though. You can sit facing away from the eggshell space chairs. I’ve been to Gimme! in Ithaca, too—and the Brooklyn store seems way cleaner! I’m going to risk partisanship and say that if I were in Wililamsburg I’d just keep walking to Greenpoint so I could go to…

Cafe Grumpy
So orange! So cozy! So perfectly lit and kind of awesomely getting everything right. Big wooden corner table to spread your New York Times all over and make chitchat with nice people. Wireless internet. A front room for drinking coffee and getting work done and a back room for looking at artwork and sitting close to your friends on the couch. Exceptionally friendly baristi. Exceptionally good coffee—Counter Culture and Ecco, possibly the Ecco is only at the Manhattan store—and name notwithstanding, a sense of warmth and personality that pervades the whole room. And though the Greenpoint shop (tucked away, just like a neighbourhood place should be, on a mild-mannered corner of Meserole Ave.) is exactly the kind of place I’d make a home away from home, their newest store in Chelsea is exactly the kind of place anyone in Manhattan should be stopping in on as often as they can. It’s spare, and new, and when I was there they didn’t have enough chairs, and the lighting was flickering, but—you know what they had? The best macchiato I’ve ever had. And a coffee bar full of baristi from other cafes all excited to come down and check out the newest spot in town, offer encouragement, paw over the two! wildly expensive and fancy single-cup drip coffee Clover machines, and just generally be part of a thriving and inclusive coffee scene the likes of which I hope we someday have in Toronto. While I was in there I overheard the gaggle of coffee people talking about the inter-cafe kickball tournament between Ninth Street, Gimme!, Grumpy, Joe and Park Slope’s Gorilla. HOW COOL IS THAT.

Cafe Grumpy Chelsea

Cafe Collage
…and while I was drinking my coffee on the street outside Cafe Grumpy Chelsea (because they didn’t have enough seats, and besides it was 63 degrees in November) a friendly Argentinian gentleman leaving the cafe stopped to ask me how I was enjoying my drink. And, like everyone else I’d encountered at the finest NYC cafes, told me to go to every coffee shop I’ve mentioned in the above list. But he also mentioned a new one that I hadn’t heard of yet, Cafe Collage, on Bleecker Street and Macdougal. He told me it was bafflingly spacious, and that they were serving Black Cat, and that it was worth a visit. He was right—and though I kind of didn’t even really want coffee that badly when I walked in the door, the sight of a perfect cappuccino being served up to someone else turned me right around. I made small talk with Kyle, who if he didn’t seem perfectly content to be working at Cafe Collage I would have picked him up and put him in my pocket and taken him home to Toronto with me, to, oh I dunno, talk about coffee and make snarky comments about silly people with all day long. I had a really really wonderful cappuccino (see, Black Cat? You do have it in you!) while butting into a conversation behind me between another barista and a guy who was all, “Yeah, I played drums on the first Sonic Youth LP….” sitting behind me. (Mostly we discussed the relative merits of Lemony Snicket versus Harry Potter with his daughter, but does it get much more New York than that?) It’s a little dark and shiny in here—kind of reminds me of a place I would have done my studying in college—but it’s new! It’s great! It’s friendly and the coffee is good!

Now all the people who live in Williamsburg, people who actually know about coffee and people who have broader descriptive vocabularies than I can all write comments about the broad strokes with which I’ve painted a coffee community in a city in which I don’t even live. But I gotta say: the New York scene is really inspiring, both in terms of entrepreneurialism and taste, and in terms of fostering a sense of locality in a city where often people feel shuffled along like cattle through concrete. That everyone was so mutually supportive and enthusiastic about each others’ cafes (and eager to talk to coffee tourist geeks like me) was really fun, and added another dimension to both my enjoyment of my trips to New York and my enjoyment of the drinks themelves.

These NYC and Bklyn shops are doing it just right, full of the breathy excitement of geeky people building a new scene together, without too much of the cynical competitiveness that would make for just another cranky, snobby moment in what could easily be an endless string of them in anyone’s day (in any city, really.) Maybe that breathy excitement is just palpatations from all the coffee they’re drinking—but if it’s making them do things this good—hey! You should order some, too!

So I went out of town for eight days and as I was walking home from the subway last night, I thought, hmm, I wonder what opened or closed while I was out of town? Because even though eight days is not very long, I always find something has changed when I leave my city for a little while. And yes, something had. There was a brand new pawnshop in my neighbourhood, next to the one that opened a few months ago. But the really good news was there is also a new cafe! (Sadly not in my neighbourhood, but the need for pawnshops here clearly demands a lot of real estate.)

Dark Horse coffee, which my friend Amber had been mumbling to me about the opening of for a few months, finally arrived at Queen and Broadview. It is awesome. I am happy. All year I have been wondering why someone had not opened a high-end espresso place in Toronto in a sunny room with a huge wooden communal table to read the newspaper at. Ed and Deanna did this (the table looks like they built it out of railroad trestle actually, which is awesome!) Okay so the wireless internet isn’t working yet. And they have pendant lamps, which give me butt shivery memories of Starbucks decor. But EVERYTHING ELSE IS GREAT, especially the coffee, and perhaps you can tell that I’m on my third as I write this? Go see them, if you haven’t already. I was in here fifteen minutes and already ran into a friend, so this is a good sign indeed.

And let’s not forget The Common which actually opened up near me and west of Yonge Street last month, and is lovely and cozy and also run by an Ed and is making me very happy on cold days that are not Wednesday when he is closed. Hooray coffee culture finally coming to Toronto! Life ist gut!

But the real reason for this posting is that Oliver asked me if I was going to blog about all the coffee I drank in New York and Massachusetts. Which I should and I will, but only after I save my car from the parking authorities and rent a movie to show at tonight’s Pontiac Quarterly.

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.