Coffee

Free Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Ice Blended at Coachella

Year after year, Coachella draws a range of notable bands and performers. The weather, however, tends to stay one note: Staggeringly hot. For those headed to the music and arts festival, it might be useful to keep in mind Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's ice blended giveaway over the weekend.

5 Lessons From the Sustainable Coffee Culture Panel

If coffee is your preferred source of caffeine, then you may have come across the term "sustainable" in some form or another on a package label. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sustainability is both a principle and a set of precepts for a productive co-existence between humans and ... More >>

Baristas Prepare for This Weekend's Southwest Regional Barista Competition

Starting today and going through the weekend, over 30 baristas -- including a good number from Los Angeles -- will be in Santa Cruz to compete in the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Southwest Regional Barista Competition. This would be one of six such regional competitions; the top 6 from ... More >>

Handsome Coffee Roasters Celebrates Its First Birthday Today with Free Coffee

Oh, how good times fly: Handsome Coffee Roasters is turning one year young, and to celebrate, the shop will be pouring free coffees today from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. So maybe take a detour on your way to work this morning, or go on a long coffee break this afternoon. It'll be worth it. The party doesn't ... More >>

Cafeina Galeria: A New Silver Lake Spot With "One Bitchin' Espresso Machine"

"This is the story of a cappuccino," says John Ownes, the owner -- as well as the barista -- behind the Spaziale Vivaldi espresso machine at Cafeina Galeria, the new Silver Lake coffee shop that Ownes insists isn't really a coffee shop. "We're a gallery with one bitchin' espresso machine," he says, ... More >>

"Artisan" Instant Coffee? Just Add Panela

Sooner or later, a modern marriage of the current artisan and coffee crazes was inevitable. Still, when that box of Jiva coffee cubes landed on our desk, we found the idea of 'artisan' instant coffee highly entertaining (it was a long day). And, to be fair, our Folgers times have changed. Starbucks ... More >>

Cognoscenti Coffee Opens Today in Culver City

After starting his Cognoscenti Coffee as a pop-up coffee cart in Burbank and Eagle Rock, then setting up shop inside Proof Bakery in Atwater Village, Yeekai Lim now has expanded into a room of his very own. Four hundred square feet of room, to be exact: Cognoscenti Coffee's new shop in Culver City ... More >>

Elephant Dung Makes a Smooth Cup of Coffee

Civet poop is so yesterday for coffee connoisseurs. Coffee beans "laundered" through elephant dung is where it's at. Called smooth and earthy in flavor, an exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by a herd of 20 Thai elephants and retrieved the next day from their dung, the Associated Press report ... More >>

Cafe Demitasse and Trystero Coffee Launch Demitasse Roasting

With coffee shops opening up in Los Angeles faster than the newest gastropub can fry its Brussels sprouts, it was only a matter of time before a few local coffee professionals decided to go beyond the brew and see about roasting their own coffee. Such is the case with Cafe Demitasse's Bobak Roshan, ... More >>

4 Coffee Classes Where You Can Learn How to Make (Better) Coffee at Home

If we've learned anything from all the specialty coffee shops in the city -- other than what, exactly, constitutes barista chic -- it's that we can pick up a bag of great beans and easily figure out how to make our own great good cup of coffee at home. But that probably will be just the beginning: ... More >>

Nickelback's Coffee Music Video: Jason Alexander as a Royal/T Barista

We're not sure exactly what to make of Nickelback's music video for "Trying Not To Love You," which stars Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander as a bumbling barista trying to win over former Baywatch babe Brooke Burns with intricate foam art and "half-caff soy lattés." Set at the recently closed Royal/T ... More >>

Now Open: Tierra Mia Coffee Serving Specialty Coffee Horchata Frappes in Downtown

Compared to its other locations scattered throughout the South Bay, Tierra Mia's new Downtown's location at the base of the Bartlett Building at 7th and Spring Streets is small. "Yeah, this is Downtown-sized," owner Ulysses Romero says, noting that a few of Tierra Mia's comparatively spacious cafes ... More >>

Coffee Might Help Prevent Skin Cancer

Any bleary-eyed 9-to-5er can vouch for coffee's miraculous qualities. But while java is keeping your face from slamming into your keyboard, it also might be protecting you from sun cancer (should you have the opportunity to step outside). A recent study has found that people who drink three or more ... More >>

What's Up With All the Dapper Baristas?

In a city known for its casual dress, one wearing suspenders and a tie can stick out like a sore (but dapper!) thumb. Especially if that person is not, say, a lawyer or an actor on their way to a audition to play Butler #1 but instead the person behind the counter at a coffee shop. The nicely-dress ... More >>

Cognoscenti Coffee Pops Up at the Normandie Hotel

In the middle of the lobby of the Hotel Normandie in Koreatown is a piano. And if you are the type of person who considers an unplayed piano as tragic as an unread copy of The Master and Margarita and thus sit down to tickle the ivories, maybe, just maybe, you will be rewarded with a cup of coffee ... More >>

Grand Opening Party for Café Dulce's Downtown Pop-Up Tonight

Café Dulce has been serving fine coffee and pastries to the Little Tokyo community for a little more than a year now, and, starting tonight, also will have a presence in the South Park neighborhood of Downtown: The shop will launch an indefinite pop-up coffee bar in an empty converted warehouse spa ... More >>

Coffee Drinkers May Outlive Us All: Thank You, Malcolm Gladwell The AARP

Anyone who habitually reads The New Yorker along with their equally habitual morning cup of joe will remember with great fondness Malcolm Gladwell's 2001 story "Java Man," in which Gladwell considered "how caffeine created the modern world." Now comes yet more evidence that Sweden's King Gustav III ... More >>

Katie Carguilo Wins U.S. Barista Championship; Intelligentsia's Charles Babinski Places Second

Over the weekend, Katie Carguilo took the champion title at the annual U.S.B.C. event -- that would be the United States Barista Championship and not the United States Bowling Congress (though that too apparently had everyone on pins and needles this weekend). Hosted by the Specialty Coffee Associa ... More >>

Drink This Now: Nik's New Orleans-Style Iced Coffee at Single Origin Coffee

Iced coffee might not be at the top of your list of things to drink during these cold mornings, but for those of you who drink cold brews the way Apple fanboys and girls line up and wait for the mothership's newest gadget - that is, in rain or shine - "Nik's Cold Brew" at Single Origin Coffee is a N ... More >>

The Barista Who Compared a Coffee to Her Ex-Boyfriends Other Winners at the South West Regional Barista Competition

While some of us were reaching for copious amounts of coffee yesterday to cope with the loss of the hour, the city of Santa Cruz had its fill of caffeine. Over the weekend, more than 40 baristas from California, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado converged onto the beachside tow ... More >>

Coffee Common at TED2012: Or, What $7,500 Buys You, Besides Priceless Inspiration

The annual TED conference starts this week at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center for the lucky and the monied who can afford to spend $7,500 to hear inspirational talks by amazing individuals whose titles belie the impact of their work (i.e., "Vulnerability Researcher" Brené Brown; "Expert" John ... More >>

Preview of Handsome Coffee Roasters' Coffee Bar Grand Opening Feb. 15

If you ask Michael Phillips, one of the three co-founders of Handsome Coffee Roasters, how it feels to be opening Handsome Coffee's very own coffee bar on Feb. 15 hosting Handsome Coffee's grand opening party for its very own coffee bar on February 15 (the shop may be officially open to the public s ... More >>

Handsome Coffee Roasters Officially Opening Next Month

Handsome Coffee Roasters hoped to open their Downtown coffee bar right before the holidays, but what was supposed to be an early holiday present to coffee fiends is now a Valentine's Day gift to their fellow coffee lovers instead. According to Handsome Coffee's press release, their coffee bar will ... More >>

Tony "Tonx" Konecny Launches Roastery Promises to Stay Out of the Way

T. NguyenTony "Tonx" Konecny​Tony "Tonx" Konecny is a bit like the Forrest Gump of recent specialty coffee history: if you look hard enough, chances are you'd find him somewhere on the scene, sipping coffee quietly in the background, observing the events he helped frame. And, even as he is ta ... More >>

10 Best Coffee Shops in Los Angeles

T. NguyenCoffee Commissary​It used to be that you just needed one hand to count all the truly outstanding coffee shops in Los Angeles. Now, thanks to a recent surge of brave coffee geeks-turned-entrepreneurs, you need both hands to tick off all the stellar shops in the city, and maybe that is ... More >>

DTLA Barista Throwdown Happening on Monday

T. NguyenA cappuccino and truffle at Demitasse Cafe.​We're not at all convinced that baristas are the new mixologists. We're not even convinced about the word "mixologist," which we can only say after suppressing our gag reflex. Nonetheless, Bobak Roshan's Demitasse Cafe will, on Monday, host ... More >>

The Ristretto: The Lame Duck of Coffee

There was possibly a time, a decade or two ago, when walking into a café and ordering a ristretto instead of an espresso meant something. A bold, strong, tasty version of espresso, maybe. Whatever it meant, it appeared to mean the same thing to the barista and the customer. That time has passed. ... More >>

Dripp "Coffee Boutique" Opens: Intelligentsia Turkish Coffee in Chino Hills

DrippThe interior of Dripp's coffee boutique in Chino Hills.​A few years ago, Rabih Sater was working in the energy industry. A few years ago, the country was mired in a Great Recession, and the energy industry, like most other industries then (and now), slowed down considerably. Rather than ... More >>

5 Best New L.A. Coffee Shops: Wake Up

R.E.~/FlickrPourover coffee at Cafe Dulce.​Until recently, coffee barely registered a note in the many love songs to the foods and drinks that have made Los Angeles proud. Sure, great shops like Groundwork Coffee and Jones Coffee Roasters certainly existed here and there, but it was only in th ... More >>

Handsome Coffee Roasters Opening in December

R.E.~/FlickrHandsome Coffee Roasters coffee​ For the coffee lovers in the city, Handsome Coffee Roasters presents an early holiday gift: a December opening date. The coffee company founded by 2010 World Barista Champion Michael Phillips, Tyler Wells, and Chris Owens -- all of whom left top po ... More >>

AeroShot Coffee Inhaler: Snort the Caffeine

5 Ways to Make a Damn Good Cup of Coffee

R.E.~/Flickr​ "Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love" was French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand's perfect cup of coffee. And ours too. Fortunately, that black, hot, pure, sweet cup of coffee requires only the right tool, great beans, water, and the willingn ... More >>

Intelligentsia's Slow Bar or: An Experiment in Coffee and Customer Service

T. NguyenAn affogato at Intelligentsia's slow bar.​ Google allows its engineers to devote 20% of their full-time jobs to "work on what they're really passionate about." Similarly, Harvard & Stone has a "R&D bar" for visiting mixologists to beta test drinks. The closest thing to a coffee shop ... More >>

Going Three for Three: L'Epicerie's Revamped Coffee Bar

T. Nguyencappuccino at L'Epicerie Market​ Nearly nine months after opening L'Epicerie Market in Culver City, and, yes, owner Thierry Perez is still there. Perhaps not surprisingly however, the man noted for his "culinary ADD" is still tinkering and improving his French restaurant-slash-market ... More >>

Drink Up: Coffee Won't Kill You (Probably)

"There is no drug quite as effortlessly adaptable as caffeine, the Zelig of chemical stimulants," Malcolm Gladwell wrote a decade ago in Java Man, his excellent survey of the history of coffee. Since that article in 2001, there have been a plethora of scientific research and studies (some ostensi ... More >>

Coffee, Pretzels Friendship at Coffee Tomo

T. NguyenPour-over coffee at Coffee Tomo​ "Hot and fresh" is how Kibum Sung describes his cafe, Coffee Tomo, right off of Sawtelle in West L.A. True to his mission, everything here is hot and fresh, from the coffee roasted on-site to the handmade pretzels. That's right, fresh baked pretzels. ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Iota

Iota: K-Town Teen Heaven

F. FriesemaJonagold apples​ Are you a teenage girl? Do you know a teenage girl? Because if so, Iota may be your favorite place in the universe, a barn-size K-town coffeehouse where K-pop booms from giant screens, the air is permeated with caffeine, the walls pop with color, the menu groans wit ... More >>

The Inspirational Effects of Coffee, or: What to Drink at a TED Talk

R.E.~/FlickrA cup of inspiration​ In what is both fodder for a future article in The Onion and an actual survey, leading "coffee retail brand" Don Francisco asked some 1,000 Americans to quantify their level of inspiration on a scale of 0 ("not at all inspired") to 100 ("extremely inspired), t ... More >>

Drive Thru by Coffee Commissary to Bring Craft Coffee to Laguna Beach

R.E.~/Coffee CommissaryA cappuccino at Coffee Commissary's West Hollywood location. Imagine this in a drive-thru setting.​ Tyler King, co-owner of Coffee Commissary, wants to bring great coffee to Laguna Beach, one car at a time. That's right, one car at a time: the West Hollywood craft coffe ... More >>

Portola Coffee Lab and "The Best Fresh-Roasted Coffee in the World"

T. NguyenPortola's Show No Mercy espresso​ Portola Coffee Lab is not one to shy away from hyperbole. Take, for example, its unabashed declaration that it has "the best fresh-roasted coffee in the world". Or the title of a recent post on its blog: "Our Coffee Roaster is Saving the Planet." C ... More >>

Demitasse Will Not Have Pourover Coffee Other Twists on the Third Wave Coffee Shop

Bobak Roshan, DemitasseDemitasse's Clever brewing bar.​ Most law school career service offices will tell you that a Juris Doctor degree is an invaluable life passport. "This is really open doors for you. You'll be able to do almost anything," they boast in the glossy admissions packets. Tel ... More >>

Q & With Coffee Geek Mark Lamberton Blue Crow Media's Best Coffee In L.A. App

David BernsteinMark Lamberton at work​ Over the past year, London-based Lamberton brothers Derek, 33, and Mark, 23, have rolled out Best Coffee iPhone apps -- the kind of comprehensive, searchable interactive map of cafes that java enthusiasts dream of -- for London, San Francisco and New Yor ... More >>

Mini Sneak Peek Of L.A.'s Best Coffee App: 4 Coffee Bars

T. NguyenEspresso Cielo in Santa Monica​ If you read our interview with Mark Lamberton earlier today, you'd know that the London-based younger brother of Blue Crow Media's Derek Lamberton was recently dispatched to Los Angeles to swig untold cups of coffee as research for their upcoming L.A.'s ... More >>

Spring For Coffee Opens 2nd Location

Ken Yoshitake is always looking for coffee's sweet spot, the perfect brew that draws out the full complexity of the beans without the drink turning bitter. With the second location of his downtown L.A. coffee shop Spring For Coffee, he may have found it. Opened earlier this month (May 8th official ... More >>

L.A.'s Best Coffee: The Google Map

​ A few days ago, we listed 10 Places to Get a Damn Good Cup of Coffee. As many of you pointed out (passionately) in our comments, however, there are coffee shops not on the list that also make a great cup. And so, for your handy reference, we mapped L.A.'s best specialty coffee shops. The ... More >>

10 Places to Get a Damn Good Cup of Coffee

T. NguyenA pretty cup from Espresso Cielo in Santa Monica.​ Intelligentsia's founder, Doug Zell, told us in 2009 that "LA got a later start in terms of the very best coffee can offer, but they seem to be embracing it with the religious zeal of a convert." The conversion didn't happen overnight ... More >>

Pete Licata Wins 2011 Southwest Regional Barista Championship

[For the record, an earlier version of this post incorrectly named Chris Baca as a the barista champ. In fact, Pete Licata is the barista champ and Baca, the winner of the Brewer's Cup. This is what happens when we try to write before having our morning coffee.] Intelligentsia Coffee produced tw ... More >>

Judging the 2011 Southwest Regional Barista Championship: March 4-6

Images courtesy of the SCAA.​ Aside from an ironclad stomach, what does it take to judge a coffee contest? We don't know, but we're about to find out. The Southwest Regional Barista Championship happens this weekend, and for the first time, members of the media (i.e. us) have been invited to ... More >>

Rob Zombie vs. Darth Vader vs. David Lynch: Celebrity Coffee Showdown

Rob Zombie's a freaky guy. Darth Vader's a frightening one. David Lynch is just plain strange. As diverse as these three figures are, they have one venture in common: They have each lent their name to a brand of coffee. Having recently discovered these celebrity roasts, we wondered: How special ar ... More >>