Page 46 - #48 English

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Story by Sutdrip
Photo by Coffee t&i Thailand

Cafe Hopping in the US

Continuing the tour for cafés in the US from the last issue. This issue, we move onto San Francisco and Los
Angeles after visiting Portland and Seattle. In San Francisco, the cosmopolitan not only have hills and fixed gear
bikes, they are also well-known for their coffee houses. The four cafés that we went to are; Four Barrel Coffee, Blue
Bottle, Sightglass, and Ritual. Moreover, the most serene tea café is also found at Samovar Tea! Meanwhile, Los
Angeles’s reputation as a California paradise and have grown famous for their coffee business too. The cafés that we
covered were: Dinosaur Coffee, Documents Coffee Bar, Go get em tiger, and intelligentsia. The scenes of the states
were quite different but as we observed, different cafés serve their unique cause for divergent customers serving
everyone’s needs.

San Francisco

San Francisco is a special place. Foremost is its dramatic physical beauty, created by bay and ocean surround-
ing a cluster of hills that are often illuminated by brilliant sun or silvery fog. The city is cosmopolitan and affable,
easily traversed by foot or by bus, and offers an intriguing balance of urban architecture. It is truly amazing to me
how often there are festivals, concerts, and just randomly awesome cultural events going on. The weather is virtu-
ally always nice enough to be active and go outside, may be that is why everyone here seems so fit! There are great
farmers markets all over the city and with so much agriculture in California, the produce in grocery stores is also
super fresh. Restaurant menus are also generally tailored to healthy eating

Sightglass (www.sightglasscoffee.com)

Like many of the modern cafes popping up everywhere going
for that natural/industrial/minimalist look, Sightlgass just nails it. A
great bonus is that just outside the main entrance, there is a rack for
you to hang your bicycles off the wall! The stand where you order
your drink and where it’s made is located in the center of the store
and gives you a good view of everything and how your drinks are
made. A warehouse-turned coffee shop, the place feels really open
with the high ceilings and mezzanine level seating. I liked the large
windows that looked out towards the street. The regular croissant
was delicious as well. Rich, buttery flakey goodness! This place is no
exception. It’s a nice place to watch how they roast their coffee and
also see how the baristas makes your drinks. Definitely worth making
a trip to Sightglass!

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