“Any good music must be an innovation.”

70% of the world’s coffee is from the plant of Arabica Coffea. The second most produced is from the plant Canephora Coffea.

At Humphrey Slocombe ice cream, it is all about interesting flavors and unusual combinations.  Tucked in a corner of the Mission, they make all of their ice cream in the small store. In the dipping cabinet were tubs with such pairings as Bourbon and Cornflakes, Guinness and Gingerbread, Chocolate and Ancho Chile, and Vietnamese Coffee, using coffee from Blue Bottle, a local coffee roaster. After I had walked around the city all morning and consumed four cups of coffee at different cafés, a dish of their ice cream was the perfect way to relax.

Smooth and creamy, the flavors worked well. Spicy chocolate can be overpowering if too much chile is added, but this one had enough flavor to give added zip to the chocolate but not so much heat as to overwhelm the taste buds. The Vietnamese Coffee was creamy and mild, making me think about iced Vietnamese coffee I had tried in Ho Chi Minh City.

The store is small, with about a half dozen stools at a counter in the window. When I walked in, I was the only customer. While I was seated at the counter, finishing my cup, the store became suddenly packed, with a line extending out the door onto the sidewalk, like all of the other places I visited this morning. I wanted to try the Limoncello sorbet to cleanse my palate before I left, but I didn’t want to stand in line again. But now I have an excuse to return and try some more interesting combinations.

“An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.”

1,200 different chemical components are in coffee. More than half of these make up the distinguished flavor of coffee.