Kaffeeklatsch

Espresso: Cappuccino
Espresso: Cortado
Espresso: Caffe Tinto

An old friend, Erin, came to visit me in New York this past weekend. Erin and I have many shared loves, not the least of which are shoes, opera, reading, wine, cheese, chocolate, and coffee. Not only do we love each other--and love coffee--but we also love girl talk with each other over coffee. So it was important to me to give Erin a little taste of the east coast coffee scene to take home with her to the left coast, and get in lots of girl talk while we were at it.

When I moved to New York, I quickly discovered that the coffee culture was severely lacking in comparison to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, where Erin and I met and went to college together. In New York, more often that not, your espresso beverage is burned, too sweet, and with too much milk.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't so much as drink milk with my coffee, as I drink coffee with my milk. When Jesse and I go to brunch and get drip coffee with our breakfast, he has to cream his coffee first because he knows that I will dump all of the remaining cream in my coffee. The waitstaff at our favorite brunch spot knows me as the girl who asks for extra cream two or three times in one meal. But even with that said, I still want my latte to taste like espresso, and not like something that Nestle might bottle and sell next to the chocolate and strawberry milk in the dairy case.

Lucky for me, and other coffee and espresso aficionados in New York, there is a small but growing community of coffee shops taking root around the city and I wanted to show Erin a few of my favorites.

First stop, was Red Horse, where we warmed up after a walk in Prospect Park to see the fall foliage on Friday. Hands down, Red Horse is my favorite coffee shop in New York. It has fabulous coffee and a terrific atmosphere. I don't know how they do it, but the foamed milk in the cappuccinos seems as if it's on the verge on caramelizing into dulce de leche.

The next stop on our New York coffee tour, Abraco, is the complete opposite of Red Horse. Located in the East Village, it's more of a coffee stall than a coffee shop. In the Italian tradition of espresso, people stop by the tiny store front, order their espresso, drink it standing up at the bar, and then, zoom, they're on the way. When we stopped by after a matinee show of Avenue Q on gray Saturday afternoon we were feeling a little sleeply and in need of a little zoom. We ordered cortados, which are kind of like machiato-sized lattes. A latte has a lot more steamed milk than espresso, and a machiato has only a little bit of steamed milk with espresso, but a cortado has 1:1 ratio of steamed milk to espresso. It's a lot like a cafe au lait, but a cortado is made with espresso and steamed milk, where a cafe au lait is made with drip coffe and steamed milk. Whatever the semantics, the cortados at Abraco are amazing.

On Sunday, Erin's last morning in New York, we met up at Mercury Dime before heading out for brunch at Back Forty and browsing at The Strand. Mercury Dime is quiet spot with a beautiful picture window; every time I stop by I fantasize about spending an afternoon sitting in front of the window people watching and drinking bottomless mugs of excellent coffee. But we didn't have too much time that Sunday morning, so I needed my caffiene quick in the form of a cafe tinto. A cafe tinto is in the Cuban tradition of espresso, where espresso is sweetened with sugar while it is brewing, usually called a cafe cubano. However, a cafe cubano is made by adding sugar to the espresso grounds in the basket before brewing. Whereas a cafe tinto is made by whipping sugar into a small amount of brewed espresso, and then adding it to the rest of the espresso shot. Brewing the sugar with the espresso brings out a fruitiness in the coffee that makes a straight espresso shot palatable even for milk-lover like me.

Red Horse
Open Mon-Fri, 7 am - 10 pm
Open Sat-Sun, 8 am - 10 pm

497 6th Ave
(between 11th St & 12th St)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 499-4973
Map

Abraco
Open Tues-Sat, 8 am - 6 pm
Open Sunday, 9 am - 6 pm
Closed Monday

86 E. 7th st.
(Near 1st Avenue)
(212) 388-9731
Map

Mercury Dime
Open Mon-Fri, 8 am-12 am
Open Saturday, 10 am-12 am
Open Sunday, 10 am-10 pm

246 E. 5th St.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 533-3295
Map