There it is. The longest title for a coffeehouse that we’ve had so far on this journey. This coffeehouse was a chance discovery; I wasn’t specifically on a mission to find a new coffeehouse to blog about, rather I was genuinely in need of a caffeine boost on my way home from Baltimore. I was attending a science fiction and fantasy convention called Farpoint, which draws thousands of people from around the Mid-Atlantic region each year. I had decided to make a day of it, going down early in the morning and coming home late in the afternoon. If there’s one thing you need to know about those kinds of events, it’s that they’re fueled entirely by coffee.
After a few hours on the road and a few hours of panel discussions, we were all hurting in the brain, so on my way home (after already having had a few cups in the morning), I pulled off the road and frantically Googled local coffee shops so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel on the way back north. New Freedom Restaurant and Coffee Shop came up in the search and so I set my course. Bear in mind, I’ve never been to New Freedom itself, so that was in itself an adventure. New Freedom, located near the Maryland border but still inside Pennsylvania, is one of those blink-and-you-missed-it towns that populate Appalachia, and all too often those little burgs don’t have much in the way of coffee shops. Here was a decidedly pleasant exception.
It certainly doesn’t look like the archetypal coffeehouse from the outside. The edifice it’s part of looks more like one of the multitude of family restaurants strewn throughout the hills of the Pennsylvania countryside. It looks like food is the focus, not the coffee, though the sign on the inside corrected my perceptions immediately. When I came to the busy counter, I was greeted by the busiest person in the place; the owner Vicky, who was running back and forth trying to get the mid-afternoon crowd taken care of. It’s cool when someone is still able to be as nice as she was despite being harried from all sides. I asked for whatever the house blend happened to be.
The coffee was indeed a step up from the typical diner coffee. In my condition, I wouldn’t have stopped if it wasn’t. The coffee they used was Citavo Fine Coffee; they occupy a place in the market between “common” and “craft”, with a Columbian and Arabica being the bulk of their production. This was almost certainly the Arabica that I was tasting, judging by the acidity, but it was a pleasantly balanced cup. That’s probably because the coffee is ground on site in their rickety little metal machine (in which the owner takes much pride). This is likely why the coffee tasted quite a bit fresher than average restaurant fare as well. Pride always shows.
This is a nice little stop if you’re headed north from Baltimore and can stand a five minute detour from the big highway. It’s obviously a family place, so it would make a good place to rest on the road and re-energize. Check it out if you find yourself straying off the beaten path near the Mason-Dixon line.
the entrance…
unique coffee…
the grinder…
the boast…
The Coffeehouse Journey 