Specialty coffee shops in the States (San Fran, Texas, DC, New Orleans)

Q&A
1

Hi All,
Sorry for such a generic question, which is not at all technical.

A friend of mine is going to the States in the next month or so. He will be going to the following areas and would like some specialty coffee shop recommendations:
San Francisco
New Orleans
San Antonio
Corpus Christi
DC

Of these places, we have only been to San Fran and have suggested Blue Bottle(Mint St), Four Barrel and Ritual, as I visited in 2008/2009 and these are the places we enjoyed.

Any recommendations would be great.

Thanks,
Matt

2

Not sure how speciality oriented this is, but /r/coffee has a coffee map. Should be a good starting point for them to yelp from and read reviews.

3

@Donnas650

San Francisco : Andytown coffee roasters, Wrecking Ball, Saint Frank, Ritual (recently opened a new cafe), Sightless, Linea Cafe.

4

Sightglass* (there are 2 locations)

5

New Orleans has an really robust specialty scene now! Lots of great shops have opened in the past year or two. Here are some of my favorites:

Solo Espresso
Cherry Espresso
Mammoth Espresso
Arrow Cafe
(These top 4 really being the stars)
Hivolt
Hey Cafe (one of the few places that roasts their own in town)

Mojo Coffee is everywhere, but they’re just getting into the thirdwave/specialty scene
Then there’s Stumptown and Revelator and Intellegentsia has a spot inside of a bakery called Willa Jean

6

I’m from Pensacola, I coffee crawl in NOLA at least 3 times a year. I am a huge fan of Mammoth and Cherry. I don’t think I’ve been to Arrow or Hey Cafe, though! And of course Solo is so freaking cool, I love the vibe in there.

Of course, I love the decor in Stumptown and Revelator even though the last time I had an espresso at Revelator it made my stomach churn. Perfect example of Matt Perger’s downward spiral of death in roasting. Way “too developed”, way too roasty, way too underextracted.

7

@gonzalezjonathan - Thanks Jonathan.

8

@Bayard - Thanks Scott

9

@Rand_Ordway - Thanks Rand.

10

Of course! Btw: there is no lack of amazing coffee in the SF Bay area, and the list that Jonathan gave has a lot of the highlights. If I could add to it :

Subrosa (tiny shop in Oakland that is delightful)

Four Barrel Coffee (“The Mill” location is more famous, but I had hands down my all time favorite coffee experience at the Slow Bar at the Valentin Street location.)

12

Like I mentioned earlier if your trying to find the best coffee shops in these places then read this article. espressogurus.com has ranked the best coffee shop in each state for you. All you have to do is visit it. I’ve posted the link below so you can check it out. and yes Blue bottle coffee has been ranked the best in one of the states. read the full story at the link below.

http://espressogurus.com/index.php/category/best-coffee-in-all-states/

13

Hey if your friend visits Corpus Christi stop by Bloom Coffeeworks, we are right next to corpus in a city called Portland
www.Facebook.com/bloomcoffeeworks
We don’t have a website yet but there’s our FB page