The Café Dispatch #12
The busiest coffee shop in LA right now, the café I loved in Encinitas opening in San Diego and gadgets you should get for home
Welcome to the Café Dispatch, a weekly letter about interesting café trends across the globe. If you enjoy it, please feel free to share it, and don’t forget to grab your favourite cup of coffee ☕️
The coffee industry is currently living two realities at once.
On one hand, Luckin, Cotti Coffee and Mixue keep dominating the conversation, three Chinese mega-chains opening locations into western markets with business models that make it hard to argue with on paper. On the other hand, we read stories like this one, where a couple converted their kitchen and backyard in LA into a café, and they’re absolutely rocking it.
This is the defining push and pull of coffee right now. The more automation, chains, and neverending drinks menus we see, the more we crave coziness, community, and coffee chosen with passion and care.
And these two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Older millennials came of age with the third wave and its devotion for origin, process, and the ritual of a well-made espresso. Gen Z, meanwhile, operates on entirely different terms: matcha lattes, customised orders, and café loyalty built around vibe and drink quality. Catering to a wider spectrum of taste isn’t a compromise anymore; for many independent operators, it’s simply how you survive.
Which brings me to this morning. I was heading to a brand-new Japanese café three minutes from home, reportedly small, adorable, with coffee and matcha to die for (reviews read so) until I got to the door and found a big sticker on the window: NO COFFEE today, SORRY ♥️
That café was packed and absolutely fine without a coffee machine for the day. Their menu, an arm’s length of matchas and chocolate-based hot drinks, meant the doors stayed open. A year ago though an espresso machine outage meant closing up shop and eating the loss. Today, for cafés that have built a deliberately multi-beverage identity, that single point of failure no longer exists and maybe, coming to think of it, that’s the smartest move a café can do nowadays.
A related thought that surfaced as I wrote all of this. What happens when the espresso machine is down and you do want to offer coffee?
Fève Coffee gifted me their Nomadics instant, and it’s delicious especially when flying and without milk. And that says a lot since I tend to order milk-based coffee drinks.
Specialty instant is making a serious comeback, powered by roasters who have finally cracked the process. Brands like Fève, Cometeer, Presto and others are proving that “instant” and “excellent” can go together.
I promise you, specialty instant coffee is not going anywhere - we’ll actually see a lot more of it!
In August 2024, we honeymooned in Encinitas. A small town in California, where most people spend their days drinking coffee, eating tacos, and surfing. The sun shines all day, people are laid-back, friendly and know how to enjoy life. They’re also very wealthy and do not need to work anymore (or so it seemed). Anyhow, as always, I google mapped the cafés to visit and one of them was Necessity Coffee. Ok can we stop right here. How good is that name?!
Tucked on a parking lot, in a small semi-industrial space, painted pink, Necessity Coffee in Encinitas is heavenly. I absolutely adored their space, their care for their coffee and their chattiness. I remembered leaving hoping I lived in Encinitas just so that I could keep going back.
As I scoured the news to find a café to visit - I stumbled upon that piece which announced the opening of a second location in San Diego. Now that’s where I’ll go next time. If you’re there and can make it - please go!
What I’ll be ordering: a cortado with their Tolima, washed Colombian beans
The Melbourne Coffee Expo ended this past Saturday, and not being able to attend - it is a little far - I did find quite a few awesome products to share with you here.
The Kimera pitcher by Slow Pour Supply looks really comfy. Like an ergonomic kind of milk pitcher I’d like to get though I’m no longer churning 100s of coffees a day
A product I had never knew existed before, this is clearly aligning design, beauty and coffee. Kloo is your Q-graded coffee concentrate.
Another well designed product, this pretty Alessi Stove Top Espresso coffee maker. Will you ditch your moka pot for this gorgeous design piece?
Oooh adding necessity coffee to my list for when I’m back in SD!