I am kind of a coffee snob. I mean, I can’t drink Folgers or Maxwell House. On the other hand, I think it’s kind of ridiculous how much some people are willing to pay for a cup of coffee. So, I guess I like to reside in the middle, sneering at everyone else. What’s got me worried is that it took me forever to realize that Apple is infinitely superior to Microsoft, but I eventually got it. So, maybe I am destined to be a Blue Bottle coffee drinker.
The question investors are asking now is: Can coffee’s “third wave” produce a Starbucks of its own? A group of big-name Bay Area techies—including Kevin Systrom of Instagram, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, and venture capital firms like Google Ventures and True Ventures—believes it can. Over the past two years, they’ve been pouring tens of millions into a San Francisco favorite that just might be the Apple to Starbucks’ Microsoft.
It’s called Blue Bottle, and it’s the creation of a former freelance clarinetist named James Freeman. As a coffee enthusiast in San Francisco a decade ago, Freeman recalls, it was nigh impossible to find a cup roasted the way he wanted it—which is to say, with a light touch, to set free the beans’ natural flavors. Instead the city’s sippers were in thrall to the dark, oily, French-press style purveyed by Peet’s, a contemporary of Starbucks. Inspired by traditional Japanese siphon bars, where baristas brew each painstaking cup by hand, Freeman opened a tiny Blue Bottle kiosk in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood in 2005.
It quickly found a cult following, and by 2009 Freeman had opened a larger café in Mint Plaza and a booth at the Ferry Building, San Francisco’s answer to Seattle’s Pike Place Market. He expanded to New York in 2010 and now has 13 cafés and counting.
I guess I am damned to hate pretentiousness while being somewhat pretentious myself.
I promise to hold out as long as I can.
12-18 hours with cold water. Makes a delicious concentrate that you can then reconstitute with hot water or pour over ice. Specifically Larry’s Beans cold brew concentrate if you can’t make your own. https://www.larrysbeans.com/coffee/concentrate-16oz-3-btls-organic-969
I think coffee tastes gross so I don’t get the appeal.
Do you consume caffeine?
I consume caffeine – both in teas and sodas – but I’m with Calvin. I find coffee repellant. Living in Seattle, this is a distinctly minority opinion, lol.
I used to. Once upon a time I drank Mountain Dew, specifically Code Red, by the gallon it seemed. The only caffeine I drink now is chocolate milk. And even that is maybe a once a week thing at most. I stick to regular milk, juice and water these days.
It’s odd how many times the SF Bay Area and Seattle become the poles for these sorts of things. It used to be Boeing and Lockheed; now it’s Apple/Microsoft and, potentially, this.
The difference, of course, is that San Francisco has a much more diverse economy outside its most visible industries. But there’s a reason that when both teams are good – like they are now – the 49ers/Seahawks make such good rivals. As with the Dodgers/Giants, the two cities involved really don’t like each other.
I think the cultural divide between SF and LA is much greater than between SF and Seattle. As an SF native all I can say is most of my friends and family like Seattle. Most lists show Seattle and SF closely aligned on the political spectrum, tech culture, music, coffee and more.
I also want to give a shout out to Philz in SF which is slowly adding more locations and always has a line out the door.
I’ll let Ann Killion get the last word:
“Oops. I must have missed the “Now we hate Seattle” memo…”
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Cities-of-S-F-Seattle-more-twins-than-enemies-5150654.php
The word “snob” implies a certain elitism. I prefer “connoisseur”.
Appreciation of life’s finer things does not make one a snob.
I genuinely love coffee and have been drinking it since I was sixteen. I like good coffee, too, and I like a variety of it. I never cared for Starbucks, which is so oily and dark that the beans gummed up my grinder. I do drink my coffee dark and robust, but not burnt-tasting.
We are fortunate to have a really great coffee company here in Dayton, and occasionally I splurge and buy a pound of one of their blends. The company is called Boston Stoker, and they have a website where you can order from their varieties.
What I’ve noticed about grocery store coffee is that the bags are getting smaller and smaller. One pound bags are rare, twelve ounces are now giving way to ten ounces. Pretty soon the k-cups will take over the entire market. I won’t use those because the plastic cups are not degradeable, and I drink too many cups a day to make them affordable.
So coffee snob or not, I’ll drink it every day.
With the K-cup, bought at the store, coffee is about $50/lb. If you have one of those machines (and I do), use a refillable k-cup and the coffee is the same price.
Got addicted as a college student in the 70s, late nights hitting the books, the alleged coffee being dispensed from self-serve machines.
Pretty awful, but not much different than what was served up regularly in the ubiquitous pre-Starbucks coffee shops — just dreadful stuff, but not many of us who hadn’t yet traveled to Europe — air travel pre-1978 was mainly for the rich and business travelers — knew any better. If it was hot and dark, and hadn’t spent too many hours on the burner, it passed muster.
Years later when I sought a different experience from Starbucks, I tried Peet’s and Seattle’s Best, but never liked the taste.
Starbucks pretty much has saturated my area outside the big city, with very few independent alternatives. Frankly, it’s still good enough for me, it’s so convenient as to be nearly in walking distance, and the price isn’t outrageous for my drinks. I’d be embarrassed to reveal how much hard-earned $ I give that company in a given year.
But I’d still like an alternative. Put some Blue Bottle within reach and I will gladly give it a try.
I’m a strong French Roast fan. When the budget gets extra tight, Eight O’Clock French Roast is OK. That is much harder to find since A&P went under. For an outing, there are several local coffee bars that roast their own in different ways. So we get to feel like snobby latte liberals once every six months or so.
I am not a coffee drinker, but I grew up with two parents who drank coffee and two sisters to fight with about who got to open the brand new 3-lb. can of Folgers.
If the smell of freshly ground coffee beans was a drug, I fear I would be living on the streets and stealing from people to get the money for my fix.
There’s nothing like it.
In SF no less? Graffeo since 1935. That was decades before Peet’s and Starbucks. Dark roast or light roast.