Tag Archives: Reviews

Cafe Hounding: Verve Coffee

Posted on 2012-07-14 by Cafe Hound | Leave a comment

Verve Coffee Roasters
816 41st Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
Phone: (831) 475-7776

http://www.vervecoffeeroasters.com/

Awesome service, attention to coffee, and people.

Kris checked this place out when stopping through Santa Cruz while galavanting through California per usual. The life of a professor… The atmosphere at Verve is relaxing in true Californian style. Plenty of natural light and wood and metal decor reminiscent of Urban Outfitters in its layout. The shop is located only a couple of blocks from the Pacific Ocean, which undoubtedly adds to the tranquil feel.

The beans are roasted next door in their own facility – it appears they also sell wholesale across the country. Check out their website to make sure. Verve is among the most raved about roasters in the continental US and their baristas are talented enough to consistently make a splash at the annual SCAA barista competitions. Unfortunately for Kris, during his visit the top baristas were actually in Houston competing in the SCAA annual competition on the national stage. The staff are super fun and friendly and the wifi is very, very free.

Two paws up for this place. We look forward to continuing to sample their coffee throughout 2012!

– Cafe Hound

Cafe Hounding: Echo Coffee

Posted on 2012-07-14 by Cafe Hound | Leave a comment

Echo Coffee
2902 N 68th St, Ste 135
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Phone: (480) 422 4081

http://www.echocoffee.com
Groovy spot in Phoenix suburbs.

Kris visited this spot in December 2011 and noted that they roast coffee on site every other day in small batches. Echo, owned by Steve Belt, opened in mid-2010 by the inspired graduate of Tempe, Arizona’s major university, Arizona State University.

Steve chatted briefly with Kris while roasting beans and briefly mentioned his origins from Portland, Oregon. With a modern, high-ceiling, loft-like layout and a good selection of pastries – Echo is a good place to set up shop, use the free wifi, and get on with life over a delicious cup of Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, and Kenyan coffees sourced from a local importer who claims the beans are “carbon neutral.”

Make sure to check this place out if you’re stopping through!

– Cafe Hound

Cafe Hounding: Peregrine Espresso – DC

Posted on 2009-07-27 by Maher | Leave a comment

Peregrine Espresso – Eastern Market

660 Pennsylvania Ave SE (between S. 6th St & S. 7th St)
Washington, DC 20003
Phone: (202) 629-4381

The illustrious Peregrine Espresso was my first real impressive specialty coffee experience in the Washington, D.C. area. It was quite a weekend for Cafe Hounding. Upon my first visit to this Eastern Market located shop I was admittedly distracted by catching up with an old friend currently working at Commerce but I was quickly brought back into focus when I entered this fine establishment and saw the fresh roasted bags of coffee sitting at the entrance.

The ambiance is a pretty straight forward hipster look with chopped up doors hung on the wall for decor. The lighting is good and it was packed with people taking up all of the available seating with their laptops (and there is a pretty decent amount of seating too!). Granted, this was a Saturday at Eastern Market in the summer so this is probably about as crowded as it gets.

Peregrine Menu

The menu selection was very limited — a positive for me meaning that they do COFFEE here.

Latte Art at Peregrine Espresso

Let me emphasize the quality of the coffee here. I entered and was able to choose between my very own personally drip brewed coffee from either Papa New Guinea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya or Honduras. All of these were roasted within the previous few days by Counter Culture down in NC and shipped same day up to DC. I can attest that the quality control in that process seemed superb to me. One, because the Kenya AA that I drank in the store went down pretty good although not as delicious as the Kenya AA that Caribou carries (sorry guys :-/). I’ll make a separate post on my experience with Kenya AA’s since it is probably one of my favorite single origins so I’ve tasted a lot over the years.

I also sampled an espresso to get my palate around their custom blend of espresso. I must say, both the preparation of the espresso and the blend were sort of underwhelming on this visit. I have heard so much good about Peregrine Espresso AND I was very happy that the baristas were both very knowledgeable of the entire industry and of competitive barismo AND unpretentious.

They have free wifi and a decent amount of indoor and outdoor seating. This is a great area of DC and thus, I’m sure they’ll do well for quite some time. It’s a must check out if you’re passing through The District. Thanks to David Flynn for his time and conversation while I picked his brain about specialty coffee. Flynn came in 3rd this past Feb 2009 in the Mid-Atlantic Barista Competition along with other local area talent. Peregine just opened in late 2008 and looks to have a lot of room to grow and prosper in the region.

Overall Rating: 3.4

Coffee Quality: 4.3, Cafe Ambiance: 3.6, Food: 1.8

–Maher Hound