Community and meeting new people. Meeting new people always provides me with new ideas, a different perspective at existing problems, or an interesting connection to a new person doing something awesome that inspires me. Today alone I met a top Skillshare teacher whose class I will now take, a sleep consultant, a publicist who offered to help with a project, and a wine consultant who recommended some bars.To make the best out of your coffee shop days, keep a few things in mind:Rotate coffee shops. Rather than going to the same coffee shop every time, switch it up, and avoid the stifling feeling of routine you were trying to avoid in the first place.Buy something. Don't be a cheapskate nursing that one coffee throughout the day. Buy some stuff throughout the day, and tip well. Coffee shop workers are awesome, and they'll be awesome to you if you are a good customer. That hidden power plug will be revealed, an extra free refill will be given, an introduction will be made.
Yes, that 6-pack of beer ($13) for 6 x 473ml of deliciousness seems cheap, $1.33/10-oz cupA pound of coffee equals 448 grams. According to convention, most brewing methods take between 1.5 and 2 grams of coffee beans per ounce of liquid, which means your 10-ounce cup might require anywhere from 15 to 20 grams of coffee to prepare, adjusted to taste. One pound of the stuff, then, has the potential to yield about 30 10-ounce cups, when brewing with the absolute minimum coffee-to-water ratio. (Note: That probably wouldn't be the best-tasting coffee, though it sure would be more cost-effective for the shop owner.) More likely, factoring in waste and other considerations, a café might squeak 23 or 24 cups out of a pound of beans."Sure," you might be thinking, "but if they charge $2 for that 10-ounce cup, they're making almost $40 profit off an $8 bag of wholesale beans!"In a vacuum that might be the case, but that money is by no means pure profit for a café. Besides the beans, there's the cost of the filter to use in the brewer (which itself costs money, plus electricity to boot); the water that passes through the grounds; the cup it gets poured into; the milk and sugar you add before your first sip; the lid you put on it to avoid spilling on your shirt; and the wad of napkins you snag before walking out, "just in case."
Mercury Espresso Bar
To being the most consistent shop, serving drinks with passion, giving us different roasters, being the perennial shop in Toronto, I give Mercury the nod for top cafe.
Te Aro Roasted
With the new Dietrich they've had more clarity in their roasts, able to handle all of their new accounts, and really keeps the cafe nice and warm. It was a struggle between the top 5 places on the list, but proximity, coffee availability and hours of operations played a bigger role.
Sam James (Coffee Bar/Coffee Pocket)
Sam James opened up shop #3 in the extremely busy labyrinth of the PATH (Toronto's underground network). He's a game changer, taking on Timmie's and other "FAST" coffee chains. Yet, the suits have embraced his cups of espresso with vigour. Even accepting his Cash Only policy (to which I agree, but given our cashless society - pushes a fraction away)
Crema - Junction
Capital Espresso
Manic Coffee
LIT Espresso Bar (College Street)
