Some News on Local Phoenix Coffee

As you might know if you’ve been reading here awhile, I like quality coffee. I have a few little bits I’ve observed over the past few days. It’s obvious that downtown Phoenix is growing a solid coffee scene, but it’s spreading to other places, too. Enjoy!

That’s no space station … It’s a coffee bean!

Press Coffee introduced its new Dethstaar bean. The name reflects its African origin (as you can read in Roaster Tom’s post about it) and tidily protects Press from any legal unpleasantness. I still think Press needs to promote this by having a weekend where they’ll give a free shot to anyone dressed as Darth Vader, and a gift certificate to the silliest spin on a Darth Vader costume … I’ll pair my mask with my loudest western shirt and cowboy hat and call myself Garth Vader.

Tips and Profits Go to Haiti

My esteem for the excellent Sola Coffee Bar continues to rise. Not only is the staff skilled and exceptionally friendly, but they’re also generous. When I dropped in this weekend, they were donating tips and profits to relief efforts in Haiti. I hope that the goodwill they’re generating by being awesome gets rewarded.

Commitment to the Cappuccino

My buddy John at Conspire creates a top-quality cappuccino. Even better, he’s passing his knowledge on well. I saw a perfect example of that in Shane, one of his apprentices (continuing my Darth Vader theme here!). When he first started working there, his cap was pretty average. Better than the big box places, but he couldn’t hang with John. But man, that gap is downright skinny-ass narrow right now. I can’t remember seeing anyone so stoked on getting praise for a cap, either. Shane obviously worked hard to get the technique down. Kudos to him!

Obviously, places like this are making it hard to decide which shop you want to visit on a given day. That’s a really nice problem to have. Keep it up!