How I Taste
Every score I give is filtered through one palate. Mine. Before you weigh any review I write, here's what's actually doing the tasting.
This isn't a credential. It's a starting point.
I lean toward roasts with body and depth, more than bright, light-roast clarity. I still try light roast regularly, because I want to be sure, and I keep landing back here.
I enjoy fruit in a cup, but I like it subtle, not loud or overly expressive. Fruit that arrives slowly holds me longer than fruit that announces itself on the first sip.
Sharp, high acidity usually reads as a detractor for me before it reads as lively. Acidity works for me when there is enough sweetness underneath it to land on.
Mostly black. No milk, no sugar. So milk drinks get judged on a different curve. Black is where I can read what is actually in the cup, which is why I judge a shop hardest on it.
This isn't a standard. It's a starting point. One person's opinions, shaped by one palate. If yours runs opposite to mine, flip my notes: what I call too bright might be exactly your sweet spot.
Where I land on roast
I drink medium and dark.
I still try light roast, regularly, because I want to be sure and because palates move. It reads to me as varying degrees of acidity. Some harsh, some softer, landing in the same place. Medium and dark is where I taste nuance, where sweetness and body show up alongside the acidity instead of behind it.
That's the reason, and I'd rather give you the reason than pretend I'm undecided. I know what I like and I know why I like it. That's the only thing I'd ask of anybody.
Why I drink it black
I drink my coffee black 80 to 90 percent of the time.
I love how clearly it reads. And I love the fullness, by which I mean the layers that keep you second-guessing what you're actually tasting. There's a lot of room in it too. Cone or flat bed, a different water, a dozen small changes that all show up in the cup. The world of pour-over is endless, and that's the part I've never gotten tired of.
There's a second reason and it's less noble. I roast coffee. So when I order a black coffee somewhere, I'm holding it up against what I make at home, seeing where theirs shines and where mine does. Sometimes I'm disappointed, sometimes I learn something.
I used to be a snob about this. I thought everyone should drink it black, because black was where I was finding everything that excited me. I've let that go. Drink yours with cream, with sugar, however you like it. It's your cup and it was never any of my business.
The long version: Black Coffee vs. Milk Drinks: The Coffee Culture Debate
Why I'm doing this at all
Here's the part I should say plainly. Coffee shops aren't really my thing.
I'm a loner. I have a setup at home I like. I can make a great cup of coffee in my own kitchen, or a terrible one, and be perfectly happy either way. So for years I mostly stayed home.
The trouble is I don't understand coffee shops, and that bothers me. Every time I walk into one it feels familiar and a little the same. Pastries, low light, a sea of people together but separate, most of them in their own world. And still, people go. They have their place, their seat, their regular order, and something keeps pulling them back.
I don't think it's the coffee doing that. Something else is, and I want to know what.
So that's what this is. Me trying to understand the allure of a coffee shop, by actually going to them, which is the one thing I've never really done. You can't work this out from your own kitchen.
The long version: What Do You REALLY Get From Coffee Shops? and Coffee Clubs: Turn Your Passion into Lasting Friendships
Why I'm telling you this first
This is the newsletter's thing and it's for the fun of it. I might geek out on this. I might get bored of it. Writing it down makes me pay attention in a way that just stopping in never has.
Telling you how I taste before I tell you what I think puts the bias where you can see it.
I also do coffee consulting work, separately from this newsletter. If a shop on this board ever becomes a client of mine, I'll say so on its review, at the top, plainly.
I'm not going to promise never to work with a shop I've written about. That would cost something real and solve a problem nobody has raised. What I will promise is that you'll always know which is which.
What I order, and what I score
Every visit is the same three drinks, plus the room.
My favorite way to have a milk-based espresso drink, and honestly a low bar. I want it to taste good. I leave the shot itself alone, because espresso is a genuinely different discipline from the one I work in and I'd rather stay honest about that. What I'm reading is whether the drink tastes good and whether the milk was handled with care.
The drink I have the most reference for, so it tells me the most. I'll admit I judge shops hardest on this one, and I'm trying to get better about that. It's usually the thing a shop has thought about least.
Their call entirely. This is the one I'm most interested in, because what a shop decides is special tells me how that shop understands special at all. That's a real window into a place.
How the inside of the place feels to sit in. A small shop can be wonderful and a big one can feel distant and cold, and that has almost nothing to do with square footage. Since I'm here to work out what people get out of coffee shops, the room has to count for something.
Each of the four gets a score out of ten, for a total out of forty.
This is still mostly about the coffee. The interior score is there to paint the picture of what the visit was actually like, not to hand a place a grade on its furniture.
What a score actually means
A score is a snapshot. It's what I got on one day, in one room, and every review carries the date and time of the visit so you know exactly what you're reading.
I might go back. I might not. If it wasn't a good morning for them, that's still the morning I got. One visit is one visit, and I'd rather say that plainly.
None of this is a dig. I'm a coffee drinker and these are coffee shops. I'm not putting them above me or beneath me, and a long line or a big reputation doesn't earn a single point before I've tasted anything. The score comes out of the visit and nowhere else.
I'll film these when I can.
Doing this at our pace
It moves when it moves. Some months that's two shops, some months one. These are supposed to be worth reading, which means sitting somewhere for a while instead of ducking in and out.
This system is going to change. How I score, what a review includes, how these pages look. I'm building it while I run it, and I'd rather do that in the open. If it looks different in six months, that means it's working.
The board
Houston and the surrounding areas. I'm not sure where I'm starting. Somewhere close, probably, since I live in Fort Bend and it would be strange to drive past everything in my own backyard.
There are more on the list. The Heights, Montrose, Washington Ave, Downtown, the East End, River Oaks. I've got them written down and I'll work outward as I go.
This is the board.
First reviews are coming. I'll add them here as they land.