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The cold is finally ending, and the snow has finally melted. We hope this is the beginning of Spring, but we’ve been fooled before. To be honest, the cold has kept me inside for most of the winter and I haven’t really had the wherewithal to go coffee-house hunting. I’m sure many of you have felt the same. A few weeks ago I did finally emerge from hibernation, and was surprised to find that just last December, before the Siberian Express even began, a brand new coffee shop opened up right in my proverbial backyard.

That coffeehouse would be Note. Yes, that’s also the name of a wine bar in Midtown, but this place proffers uppers instead of downers. It’s located in a plaza near a Bass Pro; not the kind of place that makes me think of a nice, quiet cafe. I learned long ago to keep my mind open during this journey, and understand that the best coffeehouses can be found in the most unassuming places.

Note is memorable for two reasons. First of these is Linda, the owner of the shop. It took a brief conversation with her to see that she really knew her coffee. She was able to rattle off the three single-origin beans from South America and Africa that constituted the house blend with ease. Her stock of beans is visible on a counter in the back of the store and makes for some lovely viewing if, like me, you geek out over that kind of thing. Secondly, attached to Note is East Coast Vapor, a fairly lavish vaping store. Linda seems to feel that vaping culture and coffee culture mesh well. I actually agree with this. Same artsy people. I get it.

And how was the house blend itself? Really good actually. It was rather mild compared to some other house blends I’ve had recently, but it was very well-balanced. I typically go for a more robust flavor, but this was a subtly crafted coffee, consistent with what you’d expect from someone who obviously considers it her art. The three bean combination melded together well, the citrus nature of the African coffees nicely subsumed by the earthiness of the South American.

All in all, it’s a nice little place they got here. It’s tough to get to it from the main entrance; a huge amount of traffic volume and a labyrinthine plaza aren’t a good combination sometimes. It’s worth it to come though. There are apparently art events here too some nights; just informal creative jaunts. I like the sound of that, and I will definitely be making a return trip as soon as I’m convinced that no more vortexes of a polar nature will interfere with my adventures.

Outside…

Spacious interior…

Not bad for a plaza…

Coffee supply…

The side shop…

Hello readers! You’re probably wondering what happened to the blog posts these past few months. Being frozen out is what happened. If you don’t live on the East Coast, you weren’t around for the massive polar vortexes (vortices?) which engulfed the area for the past two months. February was especially bad for us, and I had to cancel a major road-trip to Baltimore that I was planning simply because the cold made travel dangerous. That weekend I woke up to single digits and a forecast of snow for the next day, so I decided that discretion would be the better part of valor this time. At least it saved me money.

Anyhow, that’s why the posts on coffeehouses have been few and far between. Between the winter blues and the fact that frigid weather warnings existed for what seemed like most mornings this month, I made most of my coffee from bags and beans that I purchased. That brings me to this special end-of-winter post. Between Christmas gifts and runs to Wegmans, I actually managed to amass quite an impressive amount of coffee. This was a good time to try some really diverse, niche flavors and see what I could brew up. Here’s a few of the coffees I sampled during these cold months. Drink up.

This is a really good Hazelnut from Wegmans. Very nice, smooth, rich coffee. I don’t know if I agree with them calling this a “light roast” since it doesn’t have the airy, breakfast-coffee feel of most archetypal lights. It’s very flavorful; don’t be afraid to slurp it with some air (like sommeliers do with wine) to make the flavor pop on your taste buds!

Now this one, the Kona, makes a pretty decent go-to coffee, but I wasn’t hugely impressed versus my usual fare. Maybe because I was expecting it to be very flavor-forward and it didn’t seem like that to me. Still, a good bread-and-butter choice. It was a little too powerful for my stomach, so I’d recommend cold-brewing it. In fact, that sounds like a good idea. I should try that…

Now this Columbian coffee I hand picked. It had to be ground from the beans right there in the store; a process I like because I think that really lets it be as fresh as possible when you drink it. No vacuum-packing is perfect, and old grounds are old grounds indeed. This is an even better go-to I think. Truly smooth and flavorful.

This was a present from my Mom. The Archer Farms Christmas blend was really good. Pretty standard medium roast, and one that made a very tasty mug on those frigid mornings. And no, it doesn’t have any special “Christmas-themed” flavors in it like nutmeg or cinnamon. My Mom knows me better than that.

My first coffeehouse visit in a long time, that’s what this is. Needless to say, the holidays are a busy time, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas, these past two months have been downright harrowing. I was lucky enough to get a whole week off of work this past week for Christmas, and so I decided to go on a few adventures of my own, in between visiting relatives and all that. I was on the trail of a new investment opportunity in Lancaster, so on the way I decided to see if there were any new cafes in the area that I hadn’t been to yet. I found this one in Elizabethtown.

Now, one must understand Elizabethtown first. This is one of the many small towns in Central PA which managed to ride out the recession with aplomb and join in the new “urban renaissance” taking place in a lot of large towns and small cities in the area. Communities are investing more and more in the arts and the local environment where possible, and Elizabethtown seems to be one of these. Just to show you how well-run the place is, it only costs 10 cents for two whole hours of parking. Contrast this to Harrisburg where it costs 75 cents for 15 minutes. Yeah, I bet they’re not half a billion dollars in debt either. I could rant on, but I’ll save that for a possible future political blog.

Anyhow, I found this place called Folklore Coffee. Cute name, and one that made me immediately think of literature, storytelling, and the arts in general…which is exactly what this place seems to welcome! Like a lot of local cafes, they have events sometimes on the weekends, which includes the music of local musicians. The artwork on the walls is local too. In fact, the interior is a really gorgeous space, with more than enough room for a band to play, and plenty of little nooks and crannies to secret yourself away into while you read. It seems they agree with my opinion that an effective coffeehouse pretty much has to have these sorts of things; there must be more to a coffeehouse than coffee. Coffee is just the fuel for the art. But again I digress.

I asked for their house blend. They told me that it’s usually a mix of Ethiopian, Brazilian, and New Guinea coffees, but that they were all out for now. I chose the Mexican instead. A really nice, smooth, slightly bitter-in-a-good-way coffee. It felt like a medium roast; a nice thing for a morning after breakfast. The only snafu to the experience was my soymilk which granulated when it hit the coffee. Fun fact: that happens when either the coffee is more acidic than average, or the coffee is very hot compared to the soy. Well, the girl at the counter was very nice about getting me a new coffee free of charge (to which I added normal milk and had no problem).  It more than sustained me for the morning trip down to Lancaster.

All in all, this is another wonderful place that doesn’t get enough publicity. Well, here’s some for free. You never hear about the Elizabethtown art scene, but I really think that it bears looking into further. This is a place with a lot of potential, and could clearly become a local artistic hub. Visit it.

The exterior.

The interior.

A bar in a coffeehouse? Wha?

Nice pottery.

Books.

Hi everybody! I haven’t been on in forever I know. That’s been a combination of the winter blues, a bad flu, and trying to work hard for Christmas money. Well, that’s all starting to clear up now, but it will be a week or two before I get to take my next coffee-related trip down to Columbia, PA, so here are a few things to tide you over. These are some brand new coffees that I’ve been trying out at home; I’ll just give a photo and a quick description of the brewed coffee itself below the picture. I got these coffees from just about everywhere; from Wegmans to Giant, to any little stop along the way that looked like it would be a good roast. If anyone has any good suggestions, just leave them in the comments section.

Brazil Bahia. A very good breakfast coffee as I found out. It is definitely a light roast (a little too light for my taste normally) but the nutty flavor it had made up for it. It wasn’t overbearingly nutty, which is something I like. Always good to have balance, especially with a breakfast blend, which is supposed to be fun and soothing.

Creme de Noisette Hazelnut. This one I had to grind from the beans themselves because it’s not sold in processed form apparently. Now this one is not a breakfast blend. It’s a rich, deep Hazelnut that has a very creamy, silky feel to it, especially if you add real milk to it. Beware though, the Hazelnut is very pronounced, so if you don’t like that flavor, you’ll get overloaded with it here. If you do like that flavor though, this is the best I’ve had yet.

Peet’s Coffee. The Major Dickason’s Blend is my standby. They mean what they say when they say it’s rich and complex. Not as creamy as the Hazelnut, this one is good for morning and afternoon I think. It’s very much the “jeep” of coffees. Nothing too fancy, but able to handle pretty much any situation. Still tastes good after a few hours in a metal Thermos bottle!

Ah, Green Mountain. I’ve always loved Vermont on principle, but they also make great coffee up there. This is another standby for me, though I rarely drink it in the morning because, although it’s light, it’s also a bit strong I think. I like strong coffee in general, and this is a nice, well-rounded one.

Well, that’s all for this time folks. Be on the lookout for my new coffeehouse reviews coming soon, now that I finally have the money and the means to travel around a bit. Interesting things happening in my world. Stay tuned.

Hello again everybody. It’s been a while since my last post, I know. Two things happened. First, we started busy season at the bookstore where I work, so that cut down on both my free time and my free energy. Second, I’ve been putting more energy into my poetry writing over the summer while it’s actually still nice enough out to go running around to readings every week.

This coffeehouse I actually found by accident while I was driving across the river into Camp Hill. It’s a fairly new place apparently, and it certainly looks new! I have honestly never seen a coffeehouse this clean and polished. It’s in a nice little plaza right off the highway. Not exactly my idea of bohemian, but I thought I’d give it a try anyhow.

It was as clean and polished on the inside as it was on the outside; there are even offices visible from the seating area. But the seating area is very comfortable, which made up for it. I must say I’m biased because sometimes I like that streamlined, modern design. The Feng Shui of it just has a way of setting me at ease. It seems like a place with a whole lot of potential, especially if they have music nights here; in fact it was odd just how much potential this little coffee shop seemed to have. It doesn’t have the atmosphere of a place that’s stuck in a west shore plaza.

The new house blend was the real takeaway from the experience though. It’s something I never had before called “California Gold.” It had this really odd-but-great flavor that was really memorable. There was a distinct fruitiness to it that I just couldn’t place in terms of specifics. I remember that citrus-spiciness well, and also the overall lightness of the blend.This one gets an ‘A’ for true originality.

All in all, this seems like the kind of place I’d hang out with before a day at the office, or where I would make some business plans while on the go. I will be back!

The snazzy outside…

Just inside…

Nice chairage…

the innovative houseblend…

Oh, I thought this would be a good time to let all my regular readers in on a secret plan that has been in the works for some time. I’m planning on branching out and starting a new blog that will combine coffee…and politics! I haven’t yet settled on a name for the new blog, but it will be an independently liberal sort of weblog, from a Progressive, Modernist perspective. Wait, what does that mean? Well, most liberal blogs seem to have a very new-left, 1960s, hippie outlook on life, focusing mostly on issues of social liberalism. Mine will be more reminiscent of old-fashioned, Roosevelt-style Progressivism, focusing on working-class issues and how science and new technologies are being used to solve the worst crises of our day. True progress in other words. Indeed, I believe that true progress must represent an evolution beyond ideology.

What does all this have to do with coffee? Well, think about it. During the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, when things like reason and empathy were being used to fight back against feudalism and fundamentalism, a lot of these ideas were formulated and discussed in the great salons and coffeehouses of Europe. Coffeehouses and intellectualism have gone together for well over 300 years now, so I figured that there will be no problem combining my coffeehouse journey with some revolutionary thought! After all, revolution still happens in coffeehouses every time there’s an open mic night, and some poet drops radical words on the gathered crowd.

Because of their link with the Enlightenment, coffeehouses have a radicalism that goes beyond left and right. Let’s face it; the cultural relativists on the left, as well as the libertarians and religious people on the right share one thing in common: a lack of reason. So let’s transcend the toxic memes together by embracing some true change. Let logic and love carry the day.

This was another coffeehouse that I visited while I was on a completely unrelated mission. I needed coffee on my way to a company where I was looking to invest some money. High risk, high yield. The fun but stupid stuff that I really shouldn’t be doing. Long story short, it turns out that their headquarters is in Maryland, but at least I got hooked up with people who knew how to get to the people I needed to get to. Does that make sense?

So I was in downtown Lancaster trying to find this little coffee shop that one of my friends really talked up called Square One. They’re an independent roaster, and their reach is impressive. Their website was pretty gorgeous, and apparently they sell multiple varieties of coffee to local interests.

The actual coffeehouse storefront was much smaller than I expected, and a lot more low-key. It was pretty all right (even though traffic in the booming downtown Lancaster is utterly terrible), but kind of understated. I asked if there were any music events or poetry held there. Not a word about anything anytime soon. That was kinda sad, especially given the really nice location of the venue. And boy was it hipster-y. I mean it was the hipster-est place I’ve seen in a long while. The head guy balked at me taking his picture and was dodgy about me taking any pictures at first. I hate free advertisement too.

Anyhow, I had their house blend of the day, and I really did enjoy it. The price was even a little less than what I’ve found to be the “average.” The flavors were nice and subtle and slightly buttery, though not as strong and rich as I usually like. But that’s just me. They do obviously know what they’re doing, though on the whole I favor St. Thomas up in Linglestown. If you’re down in Lancaster, it’s a nice little cove, with plenty of space to study privately, which is definitely a pleasant thing. Check it out!

Outside…

Tables…

Good beans…

Interesting…

Hey all! Happy Solstice, or Juneteenth as it’s being called in some places. Anyhow, instead of finding a new coffeehouse this month, I revisited an old favorite to see what they were up to. This is the St. Thomas Roasters coffeehouse on Linglestown Road in Linglestown PA. It’s always been one of my favorites. Since Cafe Di Luna shut down a year ago, I think that this place has hands-down the best coffee in the Harrisburg area. One fortuitous trip reminded me of why that is.

I stopped in about a week ago, and the owner was just starting to fire up the massive coffee grinder and roaster that sits in the back of the room. The sound was very distracting, but it was worth putting up with a bit of noise to see and smell the action that fuels this gem of a cafe. Enjoy the view. I got a few good shots of the whole operation going down.

Loading coffee…

Loading coffee…

So have you ever tried very hard to find a place via online maps only to find that they know surprisingly little about the place you’re trying to get to? Did you ever have that problem compounded by  meeting the only locals who have no idea what part of town they are in? That was my experience in downtown York, PA trying to find Green Bean Roasting Company. For me, getting to a place is less than half the fun. I know, I know, bad mentality for someone going on a journey to anywhere. On the whole, I’d rather just cut to the chase and catch my quarry…the elusive little coffeehouses like this one, hiding in the nooks and crannies of the countryside.This day I was actually on a different journey entirely and just needed some coffee. I was headed down to Baltimore to attend Balticon, an annual science fiction and fantasy convention that happens every Memorial Day weekend. Oh yes,

When I finally found it, the cafe itself was very nice. It was the kind of place where you could plop yourself down on the couch and do whatever studying or other intellectual work you have to do that day. The leather couch was beckoning to me and if I didn’t have another seventy miles to drive that afternoon I might have just taken a nap right then and there. I get the feeling they might have let me too. The girl at the counter gave me their Green Bean blend to try that day; a mixture of light and dark beans. It was recommended as a breakfast blend, and that was a good assessment! It had a rather light beginning as I swirled it in my mouth, but finished with a lingering, robust “nut” flavor that I couldn’t put my finger on. Very well done Green Bean. You gave me something new.

My one disappointment was that they never have live music or other events there. A shame, because it’s such an inviting space. It’s one of those coffeehouses that I could see making a great den for artists and poets. The conspicuous Tom Wolf sign hints that the owners or operators might have a political bent to them. That’s cool. After all, coffeehouses have always birthed political discourse since the European salons of the Age of Enlightenment.

All in all, I’d come back here if I was in York. I’d come here a lot with a coterie of poets. It’s clearly an oasis of quiet and clearly not part of the local “scene” which can be a very refreshing thing. Wherever artists are not is just one more place where artists could one day be, especially if the environment is welcoming in that subtle way. You know what I’m talking about. I get a nice little vibe from this nice little place.

From across the street…

I saw the sign…

Another good sign in my opinion…

Homey decor…

Wow. This place really brought back memories. Backdoor Cafe, you see, is located in downtown Carlisle. Why is that important to me? Well, Carlisle was always on the road between my house and Shippensburg. When I went to Shippensburg University I was constantly commuting through Carlisle, and this little coffee house was one of my favorite hangouts back in college days. I had a few friends who went to Dickinson College, so little Carlisle ended up being the hub of my social life for a while. This cafe has been a hub of the Carlisle social scene for quite some time, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it survived the recession intact.

It’s called the Backdoor Cafe because…well…you enter in the back of the building, even though it looks like there’s a perfectly good door in the front. The original door is actually still tacked up on the brick facade when you walk back to the real entrance.

Inside, the cafe is pretty dark, but I like it that way; it’s a bit cavern-like, but then again it just comes across as cozy on a rainy day. Carlisle is a college town, and the cafe’s atmosphere really fits that. It’s a place you’d come to socialize after class or sit by the windows and do homework and just relax. That’s the best way to describe the darkness of the place…chill.

The coffee was deceptively good. What do I mean by that? Well, when you come in and look at the coffee being brewed, it’s not brewed in a fancy system and put into decanters like most coffee at college-town cafes. It’s brewed in two pots, orange and brown, like you’d find at a diner or fast food restaurant. This wasn’t fast-food coffee by any means though. It was a nice, perky, mild (a bit too mild for my taste) blend that I didn’t have much time to learn about…but did take a photo of before I ran out the door to the comic book convention that was the primary mission that day. Yeah, a lot of crazy stuff happens in Carlisle.

The false front…

what’s left of the old front…

the new real front…

art…

new beans…

This was a fun place to review. I remember when this coffeehouse went by another name…the Crimson Frog! That’s what it used to be called several months ago. I knew its former incarnation well; that’s where, for a while, the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel held its readings. Crimson Frog was a perennial hangout for people from both shores, owing to both its frequent poetry and music nights and its bank of public computers.

In September of last year, all that changed as new ownership took over. Gone are the computers and the music nights as well…at least for now. In its place is a coffeehouse that seems less about art, and more about the art of coffee. Unlike Crimson Frog, M & M roasts its own beans. I spoke briefly to the owner Linda and her friend Betty about their favorite blends and their plans for the future. She said that the blend they’re particularly proud of right now is their dark roast called “Jamaican me Crazy” and as for entertainment…well, they already have bands booked for the 14th and 28th of March. Seems like after a winter of adjustment, they’re finding their niche here in Central PA.

I drank a mix of the house blend and the decaf, deciding to save the Jamaican for another day and just sample their typical fare. I really enjoyed the lightness and complexity of their breakfast coffee. If it was evening, I would have preferred something a bit richer, but this was a wonderful breakfast blend that spoke to the care that the owner obviously puts into the roasting process. I really can’t wait to see what develops here, especially if they start catering more to the music scene around here. If you’re on the west shore, check it out!

The entrance.

Start with a threat.

Funky architecture.

Beans a go-go.