balboa shop has actual seating and reasonable parling situation… also a different rotation of beans than the washington st location, but the two swap back and forth.
its too bad you werent here a week earlier - they had two insane beans, one of which was
Damn that really is something else! Would have love to try that!
Will have to try the Balboa location!
Had coffee three ways at the Washington St location the other day on a quick trip into the city
Some Nestor Lasso roasted by Manhattan. Loved the espresso the most, to me like an orange creamsicle with some bite.
Had to grab an espresso tonic for the road. I’m gonna ask them about doing an espresso flight next time I get out there
Also stopped by Coffee & Water Lab in San Jose. They had a Sumatra grown on Mount Kerinci on offer. Sumatran beans are always my go to when I see them available.
nestor lasso also in the same exceptional level of producer as diego bermudez (i am very columbia/process-heavy biased…)
i posted this in the sf thread, but a tip for visiting the chinatown-adjacent coffee movement: pick up an eggtart to go with the coffee!
if you’re making the trek to SF for coffee, a parking tip for Golden Goat: park on 3rd st (coming from Oracle Park), across from Jack London’s birthplace/Ubisoft. usually ample parking
Funny enough looking at the tasting notes I’m wondering if I had the Wilder Lasso from Dak and just forgot 
It lines up with my impressions. Hopefully still because I didn’t pay, gotta make sure those gifts add up 
But I agree Nestor and Diego both produce sick beans. And I’m pretty positive I had the Nestor 
I remember your eggtart post lol! but my friend chose breakfast and we headed over to Plow. I’ll have to do that next time. It was fun watching the odd cable car tho
Thanks for the Golden Goat tip! I haven’t been over there yet.
How much was that pourover?
Edit: Oh Wow … “Daniel, manager from Klatch Coffee Redondo, has won 3rd place overall in the highly competitive US Brewers Cup”. Didn’t expect the dude is from Redondo. Need to pay a visit soon.
$9
I know I know but I don’t drink coffee everyday
Price is fair. It’ll cost you about $4 to make it yourself.
Also I rather have a talented barista do the pour over with such good beans. My cup will probably like dirt
I never knew klatch was so highly regarded. I got an ice coffee there once and thought it was good but I guess I’ll have to go again.
That seriously was one of the best coffee’s I ever had. I like fruity though.
Yeah. I believe JKB, but when I went there a couple years ago it seemed like it was from the Philz mold. Maybe something changed? Or just a really talented barista?
Another Manhattan Roasters day at Highlight in Altadena - picked up another bag of Diego Bermudez thermal shock anaerobic castillo beans, and a Nestor Lasso pour over for good measure. Lovely stuff.
Klatch Coffee was one of the early 3rd wave places in SoCal I remember hearing about them way back in the coffee newsgroup days! The daughter of the owner was a US Barista champion way back in 2003 and the family was pretty involved in the Specialty Coffee Association
Maybe they are less well known because were based in the IE for the longest time for me they are one of the OG’s of specialty coffee in SoCal
seems like manhattan has become broadly popular in the small niche of specialty coffee, usually in the form of its process-emphasized beans e.g. from diego bermudez…
the next innovation looks like its gonna be coferments, where producers are chucking in [usually] fruits with the beans during the drying/processing stage, e.g. Jairo Arcila Peach | Colombia | Black & White Coffee – Black & White Coffee . personally, i think these coffees are inferior to the process-heavy non-coferments as although they often taste fun initially (usually of the fruit used in the co-ferment), the numerous ones i have tried have more or less all lacked the subsequent complexity of non-coferments. will be interesting to see what yall’s reactions are to this type of coffee…
I just saw this recently from Luminous Coffee. Seemed like a gimmick, and something that maybe dilutes the purpose of 3rd wave coffee to begin with, but I’m open minded and would at least give it a try. I think the dude from Aquarela posted some IG stories about it recently.
I was really happy to see a coffee from luminous that used koji during the fermentation process. It is pretty cool! I think experimentation with coffee is great. Keeps things interesting! But I would be concerned if there was some considerable wave of fruit coferment coffees that wiped out other good coffee processes, kind of like hazy IPAs in beer.
I’m new to this thread – has anyone suggested Mocha Joe’s bean source, Stern Brothers in West Hollywood? 
