Elina Shatkin
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 officially; May 2nd unofficially), the newest Spring For Coffee is barely a wisp of floor space, maybe two feet wide by eight feet long, but Yoshitake still serves Blue Bottle coffee with precision and attention to detail.
He and lead coffee puller Alex Corona make their carefully weighed and measured pour-over coffees with white ceramic Bonmac drippers. For iced coffee, they do a 24-hour cold brewing technique. (About eight pounds of ground beans yields almost five gallons of concentrate that's then cut 50/50 with water.) There's also a La Marzocco for espresso, cappucino and the like.
Tucked in the base of an office building in the fashion district, Spring For Coffee a stone's throw from the latest in mafioso and pimp suiting. While the flagship location is a bona fide if small cafe with beans from a few different roasters (Stumptown, Ritual), its little sister is just a counter, a sink and a pastry case. Right now, it only serves Blue Bottle, but the Hario roasters perched behind the counter suggest more beans to come. If the Spring For Coffee is easy to miss, this one is barely noticeable (especially since signage doesn't arrive until Thursday), but what it lacks in flash, it makes up for in attention to detail.
Spring For Coffee: 817 S. Los Angeles St., LA.
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