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My friend Nora spent three weeks in Italy three years ago and came back a different person in exactly one specific way. She discovered the macchiato. Not the American version, not the thing that’s basically a small latte with a different name, the actual traditional espresso macchiato which is a shot of espresso with just…

My friend Diane is a dessert person. Not in a casual way, in a serious committed way where she has opinions about chocolate that most people reserve for things that matter more in life. She grew up in Belgium, which she mentions approximately once per conversation, and she has a specific relationship with chocolate that…

My friend Gil orders Americanos everywhere he goes and he has for about twelve years. He switched from drip coffee to Americanos after a trip to Portugal where he had one that changed his understanding of what the drink could be and he’s been chasing that experience in San Francisco ever since with mixed results.…

My friend Owen is not a complicated person when it comes to most things but he has one area where he gets very specific and that area is cold brew. He’s been drinking it since before it was everywhere, back when you had to actually know where to look in San Francisco to find a…

My friend Alexis moved to San Francisco from Miami two years ago and the first summer she was here she made a mistake a lot of people make. She assumed that because San Francisco is in California it would be warm enough to justify iced coffee basically year round. She was partially right about the…

My friend Priya has a rule. She will not order a latte somewhere new without asking what coffee they use. Not because she’s being difficult, she just got burned too many times. She’d order a latte, it would come out looking beautiful, nice little leaf pattern on top, good color, and then she’d take a…

My friend Tom is the kind of person who orders a cappuccino everywhere he goes. Not because he’s trying to test the place, it just happens to be his drink. He’s been doing it for years across dozens of coffee shops in San Francisco, from little spots in Presidio Heights to bigger cafes downtown, and…

There’s a story I keep hearing from people who plan corporate events in San Francisco and it goes basically like this. They spend weeks organizing everything, the venue, the agenda, the food, the logistics, and then the coffee shows up in those big silver thermos towers that have been sitting on a burner since six…

My friend Marco works in the Financial District and for about eight months straight he ate the same sad desk lunch every single day. A wrapped sandwich from a chain place near his office that he described as “technically food.” He wasn’t even mad about it anymore, he was just numb to it. Then someone…