The Cappuccino Moment in San Francisco

I just came back from a trip swing­ing by Mon­terey, San Fran­cisco and Napa. But the eight cof­fee shops my friends and I vis­ited within 24 hours are really excit­ing and inspiring.

And I think I had one of the great­est cof­fee moments of my life in San Francisco. It hap­pened in a sunny after­noon in Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee on Mint Street.

I was wait­ing for my cap­puc­cino at the waist-level counter. The barista started pour­ing milk foam into the cup. His move was shrewd, pre­cise, and stead­fast. No hes­i­ta­tion, no jig­gling. That was a breath­tak­ing per­for­mance. When it’s done, with three fin­gers of both of his hands, he push for­ward the cap­puc­cino across the desk­top of the counter. The moment the cap­puc­cino stopped in the front of the counter I think I missed a heartbeat.

That’s art, ded­i­ca­tion, crafts­man­ship, and cor­dial­ity. The com­bi­na­tion of all of the above.

Cap­puc­cino on the counter, Blue Bot­tle Mint St

For all the cof­fee shops we hit, they all stand out in dif­fer­ent aspects: crafts­man­ship, procla­ma­tions made through the inte­rior and ser­vice, and, of course, the cof­fee. Except for two shops, all these local cof­fee estab­lish­ments roast the beans they serve there — this is some­thing the fre­netic New York cof­fee scene is short of. These cof­fee shops are: Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee, Sight­glass, Four Bar­rel, Rit­ual, Philz Coffee.