World's Best Coffee

Just in time for Christmas, a holiday coffee-shop recommendation.


Observant followers of this blog will know that it takes a lot more than a neon sign to be the best coffee.

Coffees of Boulder

During the summer of 2015 the entire family (except the dog) made a journey to the Great Plains, visiting friends in Nebraska and all along the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado. It was great to see some friends we had not seen in many years, and of course to explore some coffee shops.

Two of the shops we visited are a mere 13-minute walk from each other, and share an interesting connection. Our friend -- and my former coffee student -- Sullivan Cohen has been a barista at both. More precisely, he gained experience as an expert barista at Boxcar in Boulder and was later hired to direct the coffee program at Wonder, a high-end juice bar at the other end of a very trendy retail corridor in this rapidly-evolving city.

Since visiting these two shops, we learned of a third station stop on the Sullivan Cohen Colorado Coffee Train.

He is now -- according to Coffee Daily News -- directing coffee at the Moxie Bread Company. Clearly, we need to return to Colorado, if for no other reason than to keep track of this BSU Coffee Achiever. (Of course there are other reasons, from the snow-capped mountains to the incredible art galleries and coffee-cherry beer and of course our friends throughout the Front Range. We'll be back!)

Shops to Look For

 A Coffee Maven Referral

The great thing about being Coffee Maven is that friends always share new information about coffee and cafes with me. This is the only reason that I am fairly successful in my efforts to learn something new about coffee every day.

Yesterday, that was a nice new list of cafes to explore throughout the United States, courtesy of Food & Wine. The list includes several I have heard of, and one that I visited earlier this year. I was at the Boulder outlet of Boxcar, which my friend and coffee-class alum Sullivan had recommended. He had worked there when he arrived in Boulder, and was working down the street, directing the coffee program at a high-end juice bar. The coffee scene in Boulder is so intense that he has now been hired away to improve the coffee program at a bakery in the same area -- he was recently profiled on Coffee Daily News.