Your home may no longer be where the best coffee is
New York Coffee, handing you tantalizing e-mail subject lines
⭐SCIENCE CORNER⭐
Today’s ⭐SCIENCE CORNER⭐ topic of the today is:
“Should I go outside to drink my coffee?”
This question comes from Joshua, long-time newsletter subscribee (1 week).
Going outside to drink coffee—it apparently tastes better.
Why? Is that true?
I really have to go outside in 100 degree weather?
Yes, it’s completely, 100% true. Anecdotally.
Story Time
I was on a mission today to try 3 little pigs [review and slanderous libel coming in a future newsletter], and got a salted caramel dalgona.
I did the smart thing and sat in the nice air conditioning and drank it. And, yes, it tasted like salted caramel dalgona.
HOWEVER
If I had left the cold embrace of the air conditioned shop, I could have been buffeted by
the stormy 93 degree heat
the nauseating smell of stinky tofu
a third thing to make this list seem more complete
And I can tell you this much:
when you’re outside dying from heat exhaustion and your nose is attempting a mutiny, the alternative definitely tastes better.
As for the answer to your question—
As far as I could tell in a legitimate capacity, the smell seems to be what most people focus on when answering this q.
Across answers at “Why does my coffee taste different outside?” people answer “here’s why [it makes it worse]” and “here’s why it makes it better”.
It seems it’s a different experience enough to where the expectation of the question completely flips.
They posit that being outside helps you be more connected with nature, or if you have fresh air you can have a happier experience, or something like that.
If you’re at this point with your coffee, please stop, you’ve gone too far.
It’s much, much, more likely that you’ve gone nose-blind to a set of smells within your house and you can’t taste the nose-blind notes as much indoors.
For example, if you cook food with a lot of spices or put vanilla in the oven, someone might notice immediately upon entering, but you don’t notice the change in smell at all.
If you want to test that, take a nice, long, long, [with lots of steam] shower and wash your face thoroughly, and then immediately coming out of the shower drink a fresh cup of coffee. The logistics don’t make sense without someone helping you and making the coffee, but that’s the price of good science. It should taste noticably different.
There’s something more impactful though:
Coffee tastes better when it’s cooled down a bit. This is mostly true in pourovers or simple coffee drinks; not if the texture and other components are important.
Going outside is, for your intents and purposes, cooling it down.
If you’d like to read more, here’s an anecdotal story about how “your senses are heightened when you’re outside”. If I open a window, do I get partially enhanced senses?
Here is a reddit post with commentors positing brushing teeth, lack of smell in a small opening on a travel mug, and sinus closure in cold climates can all contribute to a less flavorful coffee.
This week’s coffee shop spotlight!
I had the awesome opportunity to participate in this newsletter’s very first ⭐ influencer collaboration ⭐ with @lookingforgoodbaguettes, a great page that rates baguettes throughout the country, and takes it very seriously.
If you’re looking for good baguettes, check them out! They have a map in NYC for all the spots. We went to le Petit Parisien in UWS, and it was very mid. Thankfully, there was a coffee place next door. Here’s the review.
Cositas Café is a place that, while small, has an air of convenience and ease that is great for UWS, especially as they’re next to a lot of hospitals (and a lot of stress). Their menu, like many Colombian spots, has a lot of cinnamon in its coffee items. They also have a lot of food, despite being absolutely tiny.
You should check out their menu here. You might get some ideas :)
I got the Colombian hot chocolate, which, yes, had cinnamon. I was exhausted and it was early, so I just got whatever was first on the menu. A solid move if I do say so myself.
This is the restaurant, staffed by two. Kind of incredible to have all that food.
I wonder where it comes from.
Was it good, overall? I don’t know, these questions are too hard. If you are stressed out from hospital work all day, then anything is gonna seem good.
That’s how they get you, you know. The worse life is the better a plain sandwich with mayo is. If you like it, your life is probably in need of a change.
I think liking cinnamon in hot chocolate is a good place to be.
If you need a place to work or a quick delectable in a stressful afternoon, it’s a good pick. If you’re after high-tier coffee, maybe not.
What’s new, Jude?
Hamilton Underground, Hamilton Heights (Sugar Hill) — They serve Afficionado Coffee, colson pastries, and granola.
A new Moka & Co in UES.
Sip + Co, East Village — they’ve had a spot around Central Park since 2021, and they’ve got a spot in East Village now.
Vibrant Coffee, West Village — looks like they’re out of PA
Terminal B Mart looks like it’s got a place called Sippy Cafe in East Village
The Marquesina Coffee in The Den, NYC in SoHo
Teazzi opened a new shop in Chinatown — I like them in LIC but check the items first, you might get oats and not bubble tea.
Bánh by Lauren, Two Bridges
Tiny Tin Building, Two Bridges/FiDi
Leo’s, Prospect Heights
Break time!
And now…
Coffee news!
NextGen Consortium is currently testing reusable to-go cups at 30 coffee shops. The hope is that they will wash and accept returns of coffee cups; you get one with your drink and you return it in a bin the next time you come. Then, NGC comes and washes it for the coffee shop. Like rags at a restaurant. It’s a really stupid idea unless a lot of shops adopt this program, similar to how reusable grocery bags require you to use it a lot more times than you think for it to be worth the production cost [dozens if not thousands of times]. All of these cups will be plastic, and many people will simply throw them out. If everybody adopts these cups and very few forget them/throw them out/etc., then it can be a great thing. Otherwise this is greenwashing, and it’s funded by Starbucks.
You can analyze green coffee beans with this new thing
JOLLIBEE investing in all sorts of coffee things. They acquired a 10% stake in Botrista [Bot+barista] and a 70% stake in Compose Coffee, which has nearly 2600 stores across South Korea and Singapore
Tim Hortons is fighting for China too, with RBI and Cartesian Capital investing $50M to fuel their growth there
Nestlé being evil again; they are starting to plant “Star 4”, a variety of coffee they developed to have larger beans and coffee rust resistance
Creating a strain of coffee that can create more yield with the same input is actually not evil at all! It’s cornering the market so you can steal water from tiny villages and not sharing the variety that is
Resepecie
I like to have original recipes on here, but I saw one this week that was absolutely incredible.
A cool trend that is adapted so I can make it at home AND it’s tasty?
It comes from fillout_coffee on instagram:
Thanks for tuning in!
Enjoy your coffee!
In Italy it is quite common also drinking coffee at home. Many people still prepare it with moka.