Cafe Talk, September 23, 2003

Exerpted from "Bellingham Coffee, Ottawa Coffee, and Coffee can Suck"

by Mark Prince


"Yesterday, Aaron De Lazzer and I went down to Bellingham (a nice 45 min drive from Vancouver) to check out a cafe owned by a CoffeeGeek member, Alexarc. It is the The Black Drop Cafe, and highly worth a visit. Why? Because the owners have serious passion about coffee and espresso, and providing a casual and cool place to socialize at.

Alexarc was kinda nervous at me and Aaron dropping by - it was evident in the time he took to build our drinks, and the way he served them, but he need not be nervous - he runs a first rate shop along with his partner Teri. We had his signature drink, something called a Marquis, which is sweet, milky and spicy, I highly recommend that too.

Bronwen Serna, a maestro of Baristi, also joined us at Black Drop, driving up the 1.5 hours from Seattle. It's always extremely cool to hang with Bronwen, even though she rides my case all the time, and never seems to like any shots I pour (grin).

Alexarc and Teri were both kinda freaked by our visit. Teri wrote in her blog, " Me, I’m just nervous as hell and scared to death I’m not even the one going to be behind the counter. I mean, I just rearranged the shop furniture this afternoon and marveled at how rickety the chairs are becoming! We’re just a tiny little shop on a tiny little budget. We don’t have plaques of recognition and photos of our baristi wrapped in American flags on the walls! We don’t even pour consistent pictures in our foam!"

She wrote this prior to our visit. I wish I'd seen that before we headed down, but this kinda freaks me out too. I've never wanted to be in a position where people were nervous about serving me coffee, but it happens all the time now. I don't mind it when people try to delve out a good shot, but folks like Alex and Teri already pour the good shots. When folks get nervous about serving me coffee, or worse, refuse to serve me coffee because they're afraid it won't meet my expectations, it puts me on a level that a) I don't deserve, and b) I don't really want. I know some are worried I'll talk about their coffee here if it was crap, and on occasion, I do, but lemme tell you a few things.

First, I usually reserve the "their coffee was disappointing" stuff (where its warranted) for a) larger companies that should be doing better, or b) for those who specifically asked me to review and post on their coffee, shop, or service.

I've had plenty of "okay, or worse" coffee at a few shops I've never talked about here - and I don’t talk about it because either a) the shops were trying their best, b) they maybe had an off day, c) they didn't expect me to review their coffee, or d) it was a purely social visit, and the last thing I want to do is hurt their business.

You gotta remember - coffee for me is as much a social thing as it is a taste and science and art thing. When folks are wary or freaked about serving me espresso, I lose that social thing because I get put on a false pedestal.

Back to my rambling point about what I post and don't post in regards to the espresso and coffee I sample out there in the wild, in The Black Drop's case, I'm doing the other thing I do - I rave about a shop that goes above and beyond, even if they did know we were coming. I sat in observance of things for a while, and lemme tell you, they have nothing to worry about. I loved the cafe, loved the interaction with all the customers (Teri or Alexarc addressed most customers by name as they came into the shop!), and the espresso was the tops. They're a small shop, they're a cozy shop, and they're a shop I highly recommend a visit to."