The Goat wins it
After a damn good schizo mocha this morning at the Goat, I finally decided: the Laughing Goat is the most consistently good coffee shop in Boulder. I’ve never had a bad coffee at the Goat and usually they are very good. I cannot say the same even at the other “best” shops in Boulder (i.e. Saxy’s, The Cup, Joe’s, Sidney’s, Amante). Even though some of them serve perhaps slighty better roasts, the Goat’s good consistency is impressive, and its Kaladi roasts are always fresh, strong and flavorful. Kudos, Goat! Even when you’re slammed at 8 in the morn, your top-notch baristas are still pumping out consistently awesome coffees. Keep up the good work!
the friendly ones at Joe’s
Props to Joe’s on 30th at the Steelyards (Bluff/Mapleton vicinity). They continue to be one of the friendliest crews in Boulder. Went in for a spot check today and was met with just nice, friendly, genuine service. Now, of course, everybody knows by now that we don’t love their choice of roasters (how many times can we call Allegro “swill”? apparently often enough that some people think we’re working for our favorites…). But Joe’s makes up for that by knowing how to work their machines. As we’ve said plenty of times, it’s not just the roast, it’s a combination of the roast, the barista and the machine, and near as we can tell, none of the three swamps any of the others in importance. So a good machine and an excellent barista can make Allegro taste halfway decent, and Joe’s is the place to find that barista (along with Ozo, if you’ve taken a wagon ride out to 55th).
how to make tea
alright, so clearly tea ain’t that hard, right? insert leaves, add hot water. done.
this is how 98% of the shops in Boulder serve tea and how close to 100% of them outside of Boulder do it.
but this reviewer drinks more tea than coffee and is tired of being discriminated against for it. Boulder coffee shops, hear me: TURN DOWN YOUR DAMN HOT WATER DISPENSERS!!
Look, everybody has a different opinion of the proper water temperatures for various teas, but in general this list of proper temperatures will do. Only the pu’erhs need be boiled and I’d be willing to bet the number of dedicated pu’erh drinkers in Boulder is fewer than 5. The black teas come in under boiling and the greens and whites significantly so, all the way down to 160°F for some. But when I can’t drink my tea for 10 minutes because it still hasn’t cooled enough to not strip the paint off my tongue then there’s a problem. The water is too hot for the tea, and too hot for me.
The only shop that I have come across so far that does it right is Tea Spot. Tea Spot not only dails down the temperature for their more delicate teas, they have three different pots set to three different temperatures to match what each individual tea needs. Not even erstwhile Pekoe, also specializing in tea, does right by temperature control. Everybody else gladly ignores the issue, happily dispensing scalding, sizzling water in every cup. Boulder shops, next time your machine guy comes around, please ask him to at least dial you down to 180°F? Nice compromise for all the different temperatures required for your teas?
And this isn’t even getting into steep times. Again, Tea Spot has it wired, everybody else (including Pekoe) is clueless. Tea Spot holds your tea back while timing your steep, making sure they get it right. Everybody else hands it to you right away and you’re on your own. Only the most dedicated tea drinkers know that many green teas should only get 2-3 minutes in the water. Two minutes? That time is gone between the initial request and the final transaction, the details of the steep forgotten in the blur of the moment. Who can know how long the tea has been steeping? Not the baristas of these coffee-oriented shops who couldn’t care less about the bitters that arise in oversteeped green tea.
I can’t fathom why a shop (and this includes many in Boulder) would spend the time and energy to gather a pantry of fine loose leafs and a cupboard of personal steeping equipment, only to potentially ruin the tea each time by ignoring the water temperature and steep time. Maybe the time will come yet….
Panera Bread - Fenton, MI
Mountain Town Coffee
two woodwork shops
As in, “in the woodwork.” As in, how the hell would you ever find these places unless you were there in the neighborhood buying drugs? Funny what lurks in the nook and crannies of Boulder….
First is Great Awakenings. They co-locate in Art Cleaners’ front on 15th between Arapahoe and Canyon (1715 15th Street). As we noted in the “by roaster” post, they serve Cafe Solé coffee, which is halfway decent. They have free wifi but they’re not set up as a work space. They have one long bar-height counter along the front windows but no tables. One wouldn’t normally think to work there because of the shared space with a dry cleaners, so the feel is of a walk-in/walk-out shop. That said, it’s probably a good place to sit for an hour when you absolutely need a coffee shop space with free wifi and no other patrons sitting around you (how’s that top-secret business idea coming?).
Second is Shamane’s (co-located with Rustica Baking?). This is probably our find of the century because the location is so damn random. Shamane’s is not a coffee shop but a craft bakery that has a retail front serving coffee. It’s located deep within a slate of warehouse businesses on Wilderness Place and if you’ve never heard of Wilderness Place, don’t worry, your knowledge of Boulder isn’t being severly challenged. Wilderness Place is the right turn off of Valmont when driving east towards Foothills Parkway, just after you pass over the railroad tracks (map). It’s not a retail or residential destination but a chockablock full of random warehousey shops and Rustic is buried deep within, a “Suite 800″ sign right above the door. I won’t tell you why I was in the area and stumbled upon it, but it was a worthy find. They serve Cafe Solé (must be a coincidence) and damn fine pastries right out of their craft workshop in the back. Absolutely no working environment as this is a tiny, opportunistic retail front clearly set up to cater to the local employees of the Wilderness Place “office park,” but worth a visit if you’re already there.
Best of Boulder? Um, yea….no
Once again the popularity contests come out and distort reality. And we love reality. We don’t love gimmicked phone-tree (email tree?) influenced “popularity” polls. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the Best of Boulder 2008 has — who else? — Vic’s as the best coffee shop in Boulder. Ug.
Vic’s, people? Can you possibly be serious? The only thing this proves is that Vic’s is the best at getting their friends, neighbors and relatives to vote. What does it take, an email address? Yeah, I’ve got five, and my uncle in Michigan has ten. Yeah, we just won best coffee shop blog.
The real deal with Vic’s is that they serve some of the worst coffee in Boulder (it is Allegro, also served by numerous other shops) and the flagship shop is dark, crowded and otherwise laid out in almost unworkable way. The socialite crowd needed a nearby see-and-be-seen hang and Vic’s was all the neighborhood has to offer, so it became so by default. It decidedly did not become so because it is a good coffee shop. So Vic’s won “best coffee shop.” It ain’t the coffee, it ain’t because it’s the best shop, it’s because somehow the 30-somethings single ants collect there looking for honey.
When in Chicago….
We’re sure that there are awesome indi coffee shops here in the Windy City, but we’re not at one of them right now. We’re parked at Caribou (corner of N Ashland Ave and W School St), which is on the SBC/Peaberry/Pete’s tier-II level of mega coffee chains. Free wi-fi got us in the door. Moving on shortly to find some babes on Southport Ave…. (and when I say babes, I mean the toddler types. This neighborhood outdoes Boulder in toddlers per capita by at least 2:1). Caribou was absurdly loud, with the chiller motors like chainsaws. Go there in a pinch, don’t go as a destination.
Ok, now we’re sitting in the Southport Grocery and Cafe (corner of N Southport and W Addison, not too far from Wrigley Field). Now this place is a find! No wireless in here but there are enough open ports that we’re live. Oh, the Matrix. We also tried Julius Meinl across the street but you have to {gasp!!} pay for that wireless so we walked.
Boulder coffee shops by roaster
[This will be another ongoing post. Please comment with updates and added intel.]
Alphabetical listing….
Allegro Coffee (our least favorite)
- Ozo
- Vic’s
- Joe’s
Boulder Organic Coffee (just so-so)
- Burnt Toast
- Dish
- Espressoria (Jet’s)
- Tee & Cakes
Conscious Coffees (our most favorite)
- The Cup
- The Kitchen
- Playgrounds (NoBo, not yet reviewed)
- The Rail Car (Nederland)
- Sidney’s
- Tea Spot
