After experiencing the AeroPress, on to Valdez and Sons, a few blocks away. The special of the day was an iced latte, so I decided to sample it. The milk was poured cold into the cup with ice and then the espresso was added. The drink was quite tasty, with a natural sweetness of the coffee balanced by the milk. It didn’t need sugar, and it was quite refreshing.

The final stop on my tour: Milkbar. The menu looked suspiciously similar to that of Flat White, and when I asked about it, they told me that the two cafés were indeed owned by the same person.  I decided to try their signature drink, a flat white, and was rewarded with another small ceramic cup (despite the number of times I’ve been there, it always takes a while to get used to the small sizes of cups in the U.K.!) containing the drink with a decorated rosette on top. It too was delicious.

With that, my tour was finished. I consumed four different coffee drinks and enjoyed them all. Each of the locations was in a relatively small area of London, but my map showed about another two dozen to try. My thanks to Coffee Kids for creating the map!  (Have I mentioned lately that they are a great organization and deserve support?) I’m looking forward to my next trip to London to explore the other unique cafés on the map!

For a city so long synonymous with tea, London has become increasingly identified with coffee. It boasts three large chains of coffee shops in addition to Starbucks, which entered the London market almost 20 years ago. Caffe Nero, Costa, and Coffee Republic each have hundreds of locations, which is remarkable given the size of the market. (By comparison, the United States has about the same number of large coffee shop chains, yet with about five times the population.) And as the London market has become more sophisticated, smaller independent stores have opened, offering different drinks and more sophisticated coffees.

Jeremy Torz of Union Hand-Roasted has been roasting specialty coffee in the U.K. for almost 20 years and prides himself on offering the finest coffee he can source from around the world. At the recent Caffè Culture show, his stand included a brew bar to allow patrons to sample different coffees prepared in various ways. I selected a Hario pour-over from Japan and then chose among three different coffees from Rwanda. This level of diversity – three coffees from Rwanda! – is remarkable and shows the lengths to which Jeremy goes to procure the best beans possible.

Coffee Kids is a terrific non-profit organization devoted to helping coffee-growing families improve their quality of life. Coffee Kids connects producers with consumers to help educate people about the difficulties of growing coffee and living on that income. (I’ve written about these guys in the past; I encourage you to check out their website. Suffice it to say that they exist on donations alone, and any amount is welcome in helping them improve the lives of others.) Many of Coffee Kids’ donors are large and small coffee companies, and to help encourage the support of indie cafés, they created a map of London with nearly two dozen listed. Not knowing the local indie coffee scene well, I decided to investigate.

Armed with my map, I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and began walking up Regent Street. The first shop I found was Lj Coffee House, a tiny storefront with a few tables and some overstuffed chairs. The menu proudly proclaimed that they served Union Coffee. I asked for a “flat white,” the Australian import that’s rapidly becoming popular in London. It’s espresso with steamed and foamed milk, like a cappuccino, but quite small.  Served with a latte art rosette on top, it was delicious. The coffee was strong and smooth, and the silky texture of the milk made the entire drink creamy. A perfect start to my tour of some of London’s indie cafés!

While there, I stopped in to a new restaurant by well-known food authority and chef Rick Bayless. Called Xoco (and pronounced SHO-koh), it is adjacent to his other restaurants, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. Xoco is a casual operation, serving food quickly, but not fast food. Everything is fresh, and the attention to detail and care of preparation is evident. I loved the fact that I had chocolate in each part of my meal.

Mole is a wonderful dish, a savory sauce made from chocolate. Most people don’t think of chocolate as anything other than a sweet dessert, but for centuries cacao beans have been used to flavor meats in Mexico and Central America, notably pork and chicken.  My pork mole sandwich consisted of shredded pork and onions flavored with chocolate on a hearty, toasted roll.

Churros are a dessert that is basically fried dough dusted with flavored sugar. The churros were served with a small cup of very thick, rich chocolate. The churros are meant to be dipped in the chocolate, and the combination of the sugary churros combined with the dark, thick, unsweetened chocolate is fantastic.

I was completely satiated when I left. But I’m thinking I’ll return soon and try the house-made vanilla ice cream with homemade chocolate sauce…

The Fair Trade Café was recommended as another place to check out. Located near Arizona State University, it lived up to its name, offering a Costa Rican and Dark Blend that both were 100% Fair Trade. In addition, some of the flavored syrups used in drinks are also fair trade and are made in the café. One of the more unusual and popular flavors is clove, which imparts a unique taste to a latte.

The next stop was Urban Market, a specialty market that had opened about four months earlier. Against the back wall of the building is a sign saying “Coffee,” under which is the door into the tiny café. As I got closer, I smelled the distinctive aroma of roasting coffee. Just outside the back door, propped against the building was a small 2-kilogram roaster, and they had just dumped a batch into the cooling tray. Every day, the coffee is freshly roasted. I was made a very nice macchiato, adorned with a tiny heart. I have to admit it was a bit unusual seeing the tiny roaster in the parking lot, but the results were certainly worth it.

Continuing up Central Avenue, the next stop was Lola, a local outpost with two locations.  Inside, in a back room, was their small 5-kilogram roaster. It was a neat little place, with the baristas paying attention to the drinks. And the fresh-squeezed lemonade was a nice change from all the coffee I had drunk. While we were sitting at Lola, friends called and told us we had to head to Lux to sample the coffee and green-frosting Guinness chocolate cake created for St. Patrick’s Day.

Off to the light rail we went, continuing further uptown. Lux is a crowded, hip place, with all the seats taken and half the clientele typing away on Macintosh laptops. In the back corner, in a tiny room, was their coffee roaster, which they too use daily to supply their store and wholesale accounts in Phoenix and elsewhere around the United States. I ordered a drink and received the most amazing latte art design I have ever gotten in a café. The scorpion on the top was terrific. I just wonder how he knew my astrological sign….

I was five-for-five. Five cafés, all of which roast their own coffee and three of which do so on site. I haven’t seen that many in-store roasting operations in a long time. And each café put its unique spin on drinks. Interesting food pairings with single-origin coffees, unusual syrup flavors, fantastic latte art, attention to hand-crafting drinks and fresh-squeezed beverages made for a fun, memorable day of touring the local scene. And all of it makes me wonder if Phoenix is currently the most coffee-crazed city in the country.

Mokah Café is a neat indy café, with amps, speakers and musical equipment stacked in the corner. Comfy sofas and mismatched tables and chairs that all fit together complete the space. Funky lamps illuminate the large room but don’t shed a lot of light. It was quiet on my visit, with only one other customer working quietly in the corner. That suited me fine since I needed to catch up on some work. I enjoyed the quiet, with no inane cell conversations next to me from people with Bluetooth headsets yelling into the air, mothers chugging nonfat lattes and pushing oversized strollers with screaming kids. This was a coffee shop as they used to be, with good coffee, a dark room and a soothing feel. It was a delightful change of pace and peace, and I enjoyed the vibe.

Murray Street Coffee has a very different feel. A two-story space that is light and airy, it also has the eclectic look of an independent café with an assortment of chairs, tables, stools and seats, but with a more contemporary feeling. It is a comfortable place to work and relax. With its split levels, there are three areas to sit, so it is quieter than cafés that are a large single room. The Sumatran coffee was strong, the cookie was fresh, and with music in the background, lots of power plugs, free Wi-Fi and a great sandwich, I could see making this a place to hang out and work on future trips to Dallas.

Café Brazil popped up in my search, so I decided to check it out. It is a loud, colorful restaurant, with a self-serve coffee bar with airpots and seven kinds of coffee, regular and flavored. Of course, I tried the namesake Brazil. Can’t say it was overwhelming, so I wouldn’t come rushing back only for the coffee. But the guacamole, chips and salsa were fantastic! And the food everyone else around me was enjoying looked equally tempting. Having a real snack was a good way to end my morning of coffee-shop visits.

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.

Tartine Coffee and Pastries

Four Barrel Roasters

Tartine was recommended as the best pastry shop in the city, and I can see why. When I arrived, the line snaked out the door. Inside, every seat was taken, with people standing at counters eating their treats. The illuminated display case was filled with cakes, tarts and cookies, while the adjacent case contained croissants, scones, quiches and sandwiches. Behind the tiny coffee bar in the corner, a barista tried to keep up with drink orders. The chocolate items all use Valrhona, a well-known, very-high-quality French chocolate that I have worked with for years.  I had to smile when I saw the Opera cake, a traditional chocolate cake with a shiny mirror finish decorated with real gold leaf. Years ago, one of the chocolates I made was called a palet d’or, a small chocolate decorated with gold leaf. Applying the paper-thin sheets of gold as decoration is difficult because the sheets are so flexible and stick to everything, so if you are not careful you end up gilding everything in sight. These cakes, however, were beautiful. My order from the pastry case included a chocolate ganache tart, meringues with cocoa nibs, shortbread and a chocolate brownie. The brownie was individually wrapped, so I knew I could save it for later!  Upon paying, I received my coffee cup and handed it to the barista, who directed me to self-serve airpots in the corner. I had to smile — the coffee was from 4 Barrel roasters. The black coffee was a great contrast to the sweet meringues and rich chocolate tart I enjoyed. As I sat at the tiny single table, enjoying my snack, the line to enter continued to expand down the block, and people continued to come and order. Everywhere, people were sitting, standing and enjoying pastries and coffee, but I had been sitting for a while, and I was sure that somebody could use my seat. It was time to go

Cakes at Tartine

Walking to Ritual Coffee Roasters, the café that was the most highly recommended by my friends, I passed several other coffee shops. I walked into two of them and promptly walked out. After my last two experiences with places that were jammed, it felt odd walking into a café with so few people. So I kept walking. I knew I had arrived when I saw a line of people patiently waiting to enter. Ritual Coffee Roasters has a striking, simple logo and a clean, Spartan interior. The focus is on the coffee, and they are clearly passionate about sourcing and serving the best coffee. A book on the counter displays photographs and information about each single origin. When I arrived, they were serving Finca Los Andes, a Cup of Excellence coffee from El Salvador, which their literature describes as “sweet and creamy, with flavors of blackberry, orange, and maple.” With medium body and crisp acidity, it was a nice way to end my day of coffee tasting and my tour of some of San Francisco’s best independent cafés.

Ritual Coffee

The Coffee Exchange

Throughout the building are exhibits speaking to the impact of coffee on Brazil. The legend is that coffee was introduced to the country in the early 1700s, supposedly smuggled in as a few seedlings given by the lover of a French naval captain as a gift before he left French Guyana headed for South America. Whether the legend is true or not, the seedlings thrived and became a major crop. The growth of the coffee industry in Brazil helped the country develop in other ways, helping attract immigrants, establish a working class and develop a strong transportation and electrical network to ensure the rapid movement of the crop to the port.

The stained-glass ceiling

With the abolition of slavery in the 1800s, the sugar crop was diminished and the focus shifted to coffee. Brazil aggressively worked to attract immigrants from Europe to work on the coffee plantations and soon had a thriving Italian community, as well as a number of Germans, Poles, Japanese and others who chose to work in the fields. Almost 1 million Europeans came to Brazil during that period. The railway network was developed to ship loads of beans from the outlying provinces to the ports. The pace of expansion was remarkable. In 20 years, the rail network grew from 200 kilometers to more than 6,500 kilometers of track. The train station in Santos was constructed just a few blocks from the Coffee Exchange, which was the center of economic activity in Santos. Wealthy merchants who lived and traded near the building inhabited the area around the exchange. Coffee was so important that there are still mosaics of coffee beans in the streets and on the walls of buildings, and the collection box of a nearby church is even decorated with beans!

The Coffee Exchange Seats

Santos became the most important port in Brazil because of the amount of coffee that was shipped from its docks. On the docks, laborers would hoist the 60-kilogram bags on their backs, and some of them would carry as many as five sacks at a time. There is a statue of one of the dockworkers inside the exchange, showing the tremendous weight of coffee that he shouldered – almost 700 pounds at a time. And the economic impact of that coffee on Brazil was staggering. At that time, coffee passing through Santos accounted for almost 50 percent of the world’s supply and almost 60 percent of Brazil’s GDP. Today, the amount of Brazilian coffee shipped globally accounts for almost 30 percent of the world’s consumption but less than 5 percent of Brazil’s GDP, as the economy has diversified. Still, coffee remains an important crop and was the springboard that helped create Brazil’s modern economy, the eighth largest in the world. The exchange is no longer used, standing now as a museum as a testament to a time when coffee was the most important commodity in Brazil, helping modernize and develop the country and secure its place in the world.

Just off of Wenceslas Square is one of Coffee Heaven’s Prague locations, a Western-style café bar similar to the American chain Starbucks and the British company Costa. Coincidentally, those companies were both founded in 1971. Coffee Heaven is similar, with attractive locations, sleek graphics, good coffee drinks served in china or paper cups, well-trained baristas, comfortable chairs and free Wi-Fi access. They have become a favorite place to enjoy a good but expensive cappuccino and spend some free time with friends or working. Even more remarkable is that Coffee Heaven is based in Poland and has spread across Eastern Europe, operating hundreds of stores in formerly Communist-controlled countries. And imagining a Polish company competing successfully head to head with older, established brands is astonishing.

From a coffee perspective, 20 years ago Starbucks was a privately held Seattle coffee roaster with some retail stores, coffee consumption in the West was declining and coffee in Eastern Europe was not exactly renowned for its superb taste and flavor.

Thus the revolution in the coffee cup. A Polish company challenging two well-known, well-established brands, in an Eastern European city that 20 years ago could not even have imagined the concept of such a place. Locals and tourists alike walk through the streets of Prague holding cups of good coffee in their hands. And free Wi-Fi, allowing access to every possible point of view in places where information was once strictly controlled. Twenty years on, the world is a very different place, represented in part by the cup of coffee I enjoyed at Coffee Heaven in Wenceslas Square.