"coffee shop" news and stories

The trend in gourmet food trucks may still be going strong, with mobile units serving everything from tapas to dim sum. But wait! What do we spy? Is it the next generation in the mobilization of food?Get ready for BikeCaffe. That's right; as Mother Nature Network reports, the U.K.-based company is looking to unleash an army of its pedaling baristas on U.S. shores, with at least one BikeCaffe operating in Denver already and others planned for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and (of all places) Phoenix. (Not sure we'd want to commit to trying to hawk hot coffee in the desert from the seat of a bike, but okay.)

The fancy, three-wheeled contraptions are outfitted with a full-service coffee bar in front, which serves 100-percent fair-trade coffee, Italian-style espresso, and most other coffeehouse staples. And as the fact that the story was picked up by MNN suggests, the company is billing itself as ultra-eco-friendly. (After all, this is a bike we're talking about -- no worries about global-warming emissions here.)

There would seem to be another side benefit of operating a BikeCaffe: after a few months of pedaling that thing uphill, you're pretty much guaranteed to be able to eat all the biscotti you can manage and never pack on a pound.

What if walking into a coffee shop were more like stepping into your local wine store? Imagine if you could peruse brews from different regions, processed and prepared by different growers and roasters -- just as you can scan the bottles for a spicy Spanish red or a crisp French Riesling. Would you feel empowered or overwhelmed?

Some boutique coffee shops are banking on the idea that more is more, with cafe owners adopting almost a curator's eye toward the caffeinated offerings. But is this a passing fad or the next wave in coffee connoisseurship?

Read on after the jump to hear what some coffee people think.

While visitors to Richard Charlton's Coffeehouse, the first major reconstruction on Colonial Williamsburg's Main Street in nearly half a century, will be treated to 3-ounce servings of coffee, tea or hot chocolate, spokesman Jim Bradley says it's unlikely the restaurant's first patrons would have been satisfied with such dainty samples.

"Outside one of the rooms, which was probably a private dining room, we found just piles and piles and piles of broken wine bottles," says Bradley.

As it turns out, taverns weren't the only places where sociable Colonists could enjoy stiff drinks and politically charged conversations. Contrary to standard American histories, taverns functioned more like highway rest stops, complete with government-controlled prices, lackluster food and a sketchy clientele. Locals typically preferred to do their drinking in coffeehouses, which were all the rage in England when King George III was in charge.

Alex Clark and Aaron Hagegorn of New York's Ost Café. Photo: Erin Meister

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.

Sometimes it seems like owning a coffee shop is on everybody's bucket list: Travel around the world, write the great American novel, retire and open a top-notch café. Last year, Alex Clark, 26, and Aaron Hagedorn, 33, checked that last one off, abandoning their steady (if somewhat boring) financial-sector 9-to-5s in midtown Manhattan for predawn mornings and late, overcaffeinated nights helming Ost Café in Gotham's Alphabet City neighborhood.

The friends traded in their office desks for Ost's beautiful corner location in an ever up-and-coming part of town -- complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and plenty of sunlight -- in order to live the proverbial dream as small-business owners... but do they think it was worth it? Leave it to the CoffeeMeister to find out.

Some proper-looking espresso. Photo: Erin Meister

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is the eighth in a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.

It can seem like the only thing harder than navigating the labyrinthine menu at a coffee shop is finding one that's worth the hassle. Decoding the signals of a great café isn't always as hard as it may seem: click through for five easy things to look for when trying to determine if unfamiliar territory is the caffeinated friend or foe.

Five signs of a great café -- from silent lattes to barista interrogation -- after the jump.