Tierra Mia Coffee, a southern California-based coffee shop, is moving into the Mission and Valencia storefront formerly known as Caffeinated Comics and more recently the short-lived Way Out Cafe. It seems well-loved in LA, but running a cafe in that location has so far bombed. We’ll see if they can overcome that curse and San Francisco’s general coffee snobbery.

Personally, I’m not interested in any coffee beans that haven’t passed through the digestive tract of an Asian palm civet.

P.D. Bird and her morning espresso.

Four Barrel is turning 3 tomorrow and just like last year there will be free coffee all day. Unlike previous years, there will be skee ball:

To celebrate three years of being in business, Four Barrel Coffee will be throwing their annual birthday bash on Tuesday, August 23rd, from 7am to 4pm.  As they do every year, they will be giving away free coffee and espresso drinks all day long.  To add to the fun, Glass Coat Photo Booth will be setting up one of their free photo booths from 12pm-4pm, there will be two Skee Ball units in the back for people to square off against one another, and they’ll be serving free slices of Tartine Cake at noon.  Plus the Pizza Hacker and Rosamunde Sausage Grill will be posted up outside if people want to buy a some lunchtime food.  It’s going to be a doozie.

No word on whether the skee ball units will be dispensing tickets for high scores, which can then exchanged for plastic harmonicas, mini squirt guns, and rubber goblin finger puppets. We’ll check with our source.

[thanks Nicky Koch]

Update: No skee ball prizes

In case you missed my Vietnam live-blogging last month, I picked up some distinctively shitty coffee during my travels. Literally shitty. This coffee is called Kopi Luwak, and it has the unique production process of being eaten by a weasel, shat out, and roasted. It is the most expensive coffee in the world, which obviously means it’s the best. Funny, because you’d think it would be number 2.

After my post, several junkies predictably came forward and took my open invitation to try it out. In fact, most “coffee people” who hear about this crap don’t think twice about giving it a sip. What is it about coffee? I mean, I also love pizza, but if you told me the best pizza was the kind regurgitated by bears I would probably pass.

Anyway, I invited a crack-team over to sample this stuff with the condition that they write down their thoughts for the rest of you to enjoy. Read on, if you want to get the poop, err scoop:

Now before I go on, let’s get some facts straight. There’s a good chance this isn’t the real stuff. As a buzzkill volunteer who ultimately flaked out on tasting day pointed out:

Is it authentic Kopi Luwak coffee?  Since the weasel animal only eats the berries during a short period each year, and they’re completely wild animals, it’s extremely expensive to cultivate the beans.  Most of the stuff that’s sold is actually just regular coffee beans, with 5% or so of the real weasel poop beans added in.  From what I’ve read, the 100% legit stuff has it’s origin and source well documented, since the beans can literally cost more than their weight in gold.

Okay, okay, so I actually have some doubts that it’s 100% legit. It’s the brand they sell at the street markets, but those markets can be pretty sketchy in terms of authentic goods, if you know what I mean. Plus the cost of it (about $15) didn’t seem to match up with the cost of the real thing even with exporting costs factored in.

What I do know is that it is the same brand mentioned on this site and I have not seen anything on google debunking it, so there you go. There are a confirmed synthetic brand that I brought back that we tried as well. How are these made? I don’t know. Robot weasels or something.

Anyway, on to the reviews:

Erika:

Editors note: Erika doesn’t usually drink coffee, but decided to try it anyway for grins. She had three cups in a row and was last seen streaking in Dolores Park. Here is the last known picture of her before the disappearance:

Carolyn:

the “Real” Shit: chocolatey nose, standard coffee taste at the start but no tannic aftertaste. I sensed a slightly oily mouthfeel that was reinforced by the Valdez slick observable on the sides of the mug. The oily feel didn’t really adversely affect the taste but was a little off-putting. Conclusion: I’d drink it…with my eyes closed.

the Synthetic Shit: similar to the real but the smell was more intense (it filled the room really quickly when you opened the bag). Maybe they augment the aroma chemically as well. The progression of flavor was the same; coffee-forward with little to no bitter aftertaste. The flavor of the synthetic was a bit milder, didn’t really live ip to its stench. Conclusion…I’d drink it if I ran out of or was not willing to pay for the real shit.

Summary: not offensive, at no point did I feel like spewing. The defining characteristic is probably the mild/non-existent aftertaste for both weasel coffees, which I found to be pleasant. That said, I wouldn’t choose it over Blue Bottle. I kind of like the afterburn.

Mr. Eric Sir:

Kopi luwak is an oily coffee, without much acid and a mild bitterness. The synthetic stuff was less oily and tasted more like Folgers. Both didn’t taste much like they smelled, which was on the chocolatey side. And both left a gross feeling in my stomach; perhaps because of the oil, or perhaps a psychosomatic reaction to the thought of imbibing feces.

tl;dr: Fuck this shit, I’m sticking with Four Barrel.

Olivia:

I am now an avid civetarian. I will not eat anything unless it has passed through the bowels of a small mustelid.

And me? The first impression was that this stuff is oilier than any coffee I’ve ever seen. It had a hard time blending with milk and was leaving these gross beaded milk particles everywhere. The taste didn’t blow me away, but the aftertaste was smooth. It does not have the distinctive bite and aftertaste of a strong cup of brew. Later, I found that it’s best when prepared the “Vietnamese way” with condensed milk, but the sweetness probably makes any coffee decent.

So is it worth force-feeding weasels and harvesting their shit? I think not.

Smell you later!

You would love it. It’s 90 degrees now. There are more $2 multi-colored fake Ray Bans than you can handle. Dudes just walk up to you on the street with them. Seriously, I buy two more pairs every time I leave the hotel. The pho costs about $2.50 and is as ubiquitous as McDonald’s. Banh Mi sandwiches? Like 50 cents. And then there’s the coffee…

Did you know the most expensive coffee in the world comes from Vietnam? This particular coffee goes for hundreds of dollars per pound in the US, but it’s about 10-15 bucks here. But that cute weasel on the package is not a mascot, it’s part of the manufacturing process.

You see, these are beans that have been eaten by a weasel (technically a civet), passed through its digestive system, and roasted. It’s called Kopi Luwak. Wikipedia says:

Coffee cherries are eaten by a civet for their fruit pulp. After spending about a day and a half in the civet’s digestive tract the beans are then defecated in clumps, having kept their shape and still covered with some of the fleshy berry’s inner layers.

And what exactly does that accomplish?

Research by food scientist Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada showed that the civet’s endogenous digestive secretions seep into the beans. These secretions carry proteolytic enzymes which break down the beans’ proteins, yielding shorter peptides and more free amino acids.

Whatever you say, science dude. I can attest that the beans are the strongest, richest, most chocolatey coffee I’ve ever smelled. I have not tasted it yet, but I will be bringing some back. Is anyone curious?

Now that you mention it, I can think only of one other type of person that consumes substances that have been passed through anal cavities: a junkie.

Less to complain about at that point. How are you going to justify your excessive drinking?

[pic via @fayesvideo]

Merry Christmas to Philz!

The priciest cup in the Mission just got pricier. Starting January 1st, a cup will set you back 25 more cents, while a pound will cost an extra buck. Hey, they’ve got to offset the cost of the cocaine they sprinkle into each scoop somehow.

Jacob Jaber invites you to email him directly if you have questions or concerns at jacobjaber at philzcoffee dot com where you will likely get the autoreply of, ”It’s the economy, guys.”

Head over to anthonybrown’s Flickr for the scoop.

I actually know a couple of veterans of the Coffee Wars. Most of them switched to tea. A few defectors are said to still be in hiding at McLaren park.

[via the entire internet, and Killing My Lobster]

It’s hard to believe that our favorite warehouse-occupying, wifi-hating, coffee-snob-making coffee house is only 2 years old today. Happy Birthday, Four Barrel!

To celebrate, they are pouring free coffee until 4pm.

[Hat tip: Mission Loc@l]

Rhiannon brags:

I’ve managed, with my superior skill, to convince Alex at Rodger’s Coffee, which serves delicious coffees AS WELL AS Strauss Organic Ice Cream (none of this yogurt hooha) to make me coffee milkshakes, by pouring the hot espresso into ice cream in a plastic togo cup, then stirring it until perfect, and adding a bit of milk.

It’s called “The Rhiannon Special”.

(link)

Previously:

Your Milkshake Would Bring All the Boys to the Yard

Off-Menu Ordering in the Mission

Amber writes in with an update on Four Barrel’s business model and accompanying photo:

Four Barrel has returned to it’s roots and reopened the alley for coffee service!

In addition to the full cafe in the front, you can now get tasty espresso and coffee drinks to enjoy in one of SF’s picturesque alleyways, located around the back of the cafe/roastery on Valencia between 14th and 15th.

Enter off 15th, just east of Valencia, and walk down Caledonia alley.

Glad to hear the shop is keeping it real.  Looking forward to scoping out the new barista (or should I say BARKista, HELLO!) in person.

P.S.  If anyone can think of a pun that incorporates both dogs and coffee, PLEASE, for the love of blog, help a girl out.

Dont know if its worth a post but today is last day of stumptown coffee at 4 barrel. They start serving their own roasts tomo

You can buy the lbs of their roast now.. but they are finishing off their stumptown inventory today… So as of tomo, sf will again be stumptown free.

I’m not really a coffee drinker myself, but I’m told yes it’s worth a post. Thanks, mcas!

Update: Chris K. responds, “not so!  dynamo donuts on 24th and york uses stumptown.”

Secondary update: mcas defends his original statement: “Nope, Chris K. Dynamo has gotten their Stumptown from Four Barrel’s contract… and they will also be receiving 4 Barrel as of now.”

Who loooves coffee!? Coffee Like Wine does, and they’ve just reviewed some of the best Four Barrel Coffee has to offer:

[T]he Kocherie was a dead ringer for Darjeeling tea, with a lithe mouthfeel and astringent and spicy flavors in the mouth. On the nose I got that black tea scent as well as a candied fruit, something like those chewy, sugar coated orange slices candy that you pick up from a convenience store, two for $1.

Wow! Read a lot more here.

Photo by .chickpea.

The Coffee Pavilion was the most ridiculous area and consequently, the most educational, because you had to learn if you wanted to taste. The best part: when pouring each cup, the (very nice) barista started each time with “This farm you are tasting right now is…” We learned a lot about Ecuadorian shade patterns.

I love learning about shade patterns! Anyone else learn anything else interesting? Note that the coffee pavilion was curated in part by Eileen Hassi of Ritual Roasters. Well done, Eileen!

Previously on Mission Mission:

Barack Obama Drinks Blue Bottle

Mission Mission and Ritual Roasters

The other day I mentioned how Mission Mission is getting a lot of traffic these days, and someone responded that half of it probably comes from people at Ritual Roasters. I don’t drink coffee, so the fuss surrounding Ritual is kind of lost on me. Consequently, this remark didn’t really register.

Then last night Brittney Gilbert at Eye on Blogs published this photo (credited to hotlead) of the shop’s somewhat funny “Please, No Blogging in line” sign, which got me thinking again. Link.

So, readers, do tell. Are half of you at Ritual?

Previous Mission Mission Ritual mention here.