BNIB and I go to Handsome Coffee Roasters

BNIB Goes with me to Handsome Coffee Roasters

Where to begin with this one.  From the beginning I guess.

I know the Handsome Coffee Roasters from being a coffee nerd myself.  I haven’t worked in coffee since my early 20’s and it wasn’t at any great coffee spot, it was at a big chain cafe so I haven’t been introduced to quality coffee until just the past few years.  Within these few years I have become friends with lots of different people who work in all different areas of the specialty coffee industry.  Three of them in particular ended up leaving one of the better specialty coffee roasters in the US to start their own roaster in Down Town LA, which is what really sparked my interest in Handsome Coffee Roasters.

Handsome Coffee Roasters to me means collaboration and progression.  When 3 people who hold positions within a company that some might call dream jobs leave these positions to start their own company it tells me that they want to start something new and different, that they want to try and progress in a way that they previously could not and the people at Handsome Coffee Roasters did exactly that.  I am always excited for people who push the possibility of what can happen next.

The night in the pictures was their opening party, as cliché as it sounds the night really was electric.  Alex and I rode our bikes from BNIB down to Handsome Coffee Roasters to be experience it for ourselves.  The atmosphere was filed thick with the anticipation everyone had at the party shared as we were waiting to see if the talk of Handsome Coffee Roasters was going to match the tastes they delivered.  As we were all experinecing what the Handsome Coffee Roaster have been doing with their beans and espresso drinks I ended up drinking easily some of the best drinks I have ever had.  I don’t know too much about how to pull flavors out of espresso but what I do know is that it is lengthy process form the growing of the beans, to the drying, to the roasting, to the brewing, so the variables are almost endless to me.  Along the way to where I am today within the world of coffee nerdiness I can honestly say I have tasted some of the best coffee and espresso drinks available.  Sometimes my drinks have been home brewed by my friends, and some times made by coffee super pros so I feel confident is saying that I am relatively well versed in the world of coffee and espresso consumption and the espresso drinks I had at the Handsome party were on another planet.  The best I have ever had.  There were flavors in them that I couldn’t imagine could possibly be pulled from espresso and steamed milk.  It was unreal.  The drink I had that made me say, “holy shit!” loudest was a cappuccino that at first tastes like chocolaty Meyers lemon and smooth ass steamed milk.  As I drank farther sip after sip, the tastes calmed down and changed to a comfortable chocolaty end.  You really need to get down there and get one.

A month or so ago when I was visiting Handsome before they opened I got a pre-tour of the interior.  What I saw was the beginnings of one of what looked like one of the more well designed cafes I have had the pleasure of being in.  What I saw at the party was a subtly spectacular industrial designed cafe with dark stone countertops and amazing copper roofing, rustic raw wood shelves that hold the apparel, whole beans, and home brewing equipment were cut perfectly to sit atop copper pipes, great flooring (I like floors a lot) and some of the best wall tiling ever.  The roaster rests behind a giant glass wall so you get to see and in a way experience the coffee beans all the way from their raw state through the roasting, all the way to your mouth.  Genius.

Get in there, get some coffee, and talk to the people making it.  To me they have always been nothing short of some of the more friendly baristas and roasters in the business and if there’s one thing Handsome proves it is their obsessive love for coffee.  The best part is that they want you to love too, so ask them anything and they will help you as well as they can with a genuine smile, the type of smile that one can only get by sharing with others what they love.

-Pat Walker

Reposted from my BNIB post HERE

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