A Coffee Maven Review
This review of a café in the middle of the Amazon needs some context. First of all, most people in the Amazon live in urban areas -- this was the subject of my 1998 dissertation -- so we were in the middle of the rain forest but also in the middle of a city of over 2 million people. Manaus, in fact, is bigger than Phoenix and just a bit smaller than Houston, so it would be the fifth-largest city in the U.S. if it were here rather than in Brazil.
In fact, this café is so much in the center of a city that the proprietors include this fabulous map on the contact page of its website. Note that it indicates major landmarks -- such as the world-famous opera house -- along with its location inside a hotel and the directions of one-way streets nearby. This is probably the best café map I have seen.
And since there is no familiar coffee chain in the city or the airport, the nearest Dunks or Starbucks is probably at least 500 miles from here. (Someone feel free to correct me -- this is a bit of information we usually include on GeoCafes maps.
It is in Brazil, though, and the relevant context here is about Brazilian coffee. It is consistently the world's largest producer and exporter, often supplying more than one quarter of all the coffee in the world. And as Sinatra sang, they drink an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. In fact, I have had coffee for free while standing online to buy coffee, while buying groceries, or while waiting for a bus. I consider it a utility
Quantity is not the same thing as quality, of course. Brazil has a growing but still quite small number of producers in the specialty segment; in my experience, specialty cafés are even rarer than specialty producers, as the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association is focused on improving coffees from a few small zones with the appropriate soils and climate, rather than on domestic market development. When asked about Brazilian coffee in a media interview earlier in my visit, I replied that I come to Brazil with very different coffee expectations, and I do.
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| My first attempt to capture the decor in a photo was this ill-advised selfie, with the tropical sun flooding in behind me. Side note: for me every day in the Amazon is a bad hair day. |
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| This glimpse gives a better idea of the visual landscape of the café. These baskets hung throughout, with many silk flowers and a few LED icicles -- we struggled to find a word for these, unknown in the Amazon for a million years. |
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| As with cafés everywhere, wait staff are often pressed into service as photographers. Here we are demonstrating the "third space" use of a café -- a place that is neither work nor home, but good for conversation -- in this case an international one among four people from three countries. And this shows off the café decor better than my initial photo does. |
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| Colorful chalkboards updated by staff are de rigueur for trendy cafés, wherever they might be. I took this photo because I noted one English word ("ice") among the Portuguese, Italian, and Starbucks words. I then explained "frappe" to my Brazilian and Peruvian companions. |
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| The café menu was pink and included a frozen-drink section. I noticed a Barbie strawberry frappe -- presumably in homage to the movie that was opening around the time of our visit (which I watched the day after I returned). |
Lagniappe
Something we discuss often with our adult son is that it is great to include museums in any kind of outing with friends -- we are glad that our son embraces learning in this way and that most of his friends agree.
Our visit to this Casa Monsenhor was occasioned by just such an impulse. I was in Brazil with an old friend, for a journey by river that was to end in Manaus. He suggested that while there, we should meet with a former student of hers and her sister. Not knowing the city well, he asked them to suggest where to meet, and we had a marvelous tour at the Museum of the City of Manaus (also known as the Liberty Palace Museum -- see photos from our visit). We were very fortunate that both of Miguel's friends know a lot about the city, and that one of them had taken an architecture class in the museum.
The good news -- from a Coffee Maven point of view -- is that Alo K-Fe is an artsy and interesting café located just next door to that museum, and that its doors were open when we arrived at the museum. It was, however, after closing time: hence our exploration for another option. We circled much of the downtown before arriving ad Café Monsenhor -- less artsy but certainly a comfortable spot for a chat. I include a more direct map from the one to the other, in lieu of my usually-required map of nearby chain cafés. If I ever find myself in Manaus again, I will make a point of visiting both.
