The Café Dispatch #5
Historic price hikes, the coffee "fuel" debate, and the Peruvian café worth a flight
Welcome to the Café Dispatch, a weekly letter about our favourite cafés, and newsworthy information. If you enjoy it, please feel free to share it, and comment. And above all, remember to sip your favourite coffee while reading.
It hit me this Sunday morning, as I was walking on the seashore with a dear friend of mine, that sometimes the best way to design a career you love is to know whom you love talking most to. Listen, it sounds odd, but last week after numerous calls with Perfect Daily Grind clients, and then a couple of hours spent at Fève Torréfaction in Paris - for a Friday Founders interview - I walked out almost sad leaving because the conversation could have gone on for hours.
My friend from this morning started a blog at pretty much the same time as I pivoted into my passion for coffee- hers is about SEO - and well, since then so many incredible things happened for her. Career acceleration, but mostly the chance to interview experts in her field whom she learned tons from.
The both of us giggled thinking how horrible 2025 was, but here we were fronting the storm head first, pushing through and finally saw how tiny actions aligned with our passions got us through.
I spent the week before leaving for Málaga visiting coffee shops with built-in roasteries, and one place I am looking forward to visiting again in Málaga is Artisan Coffee. Yes, that should tell you something: roasteries are in again.
When I opened my café in 2010, before picking the name and the concept, I had visited every single coffee shop and coffee roasteries there was in town and for some reason, Cape Town was buzzing with those - Truth Coffee, Deluxe Coffeeworks, Bean there coffee, Origin Coffee… they all had a tiny roasting machine and café front and it was IN. Every coffee drinker had an opinion too eventually, and would only go to a specific café to get their favourite coffee.
I think, as most trends, and things in life, it’s finally full circle again. Good coffee is now accessible, people love subscribing to companies like The Coffeevine to taste new coffees. Their interest in roasting is growing too, with the coffee subscription market projected to grow at 15% annually as more people want that connection to where their beans come from.
With that being said, I am hoping that we’ll see a lot more cupping workshops, and places where customers are brought through the roasting experience along. Because when coffee becomes personal again, people care more about the whole journey.
Drinks menus are growing, offering matchas with all types of syrups (Starbucks just launched a dedicated matcha menu this week), tea based milky drinks, but also protein powered drinks too… It’s becoming a never-ending competition among cafés to ensure that they can please every single person walking in.
And it’s working, 72% of Gen Z try new beverages monthly, and 75% customize their drinks. The whole “coffee as fuel” thing is real now. People are treating their morning latte like a meal replacement, which explains why protein-forward coffee has moved from niche to mainstream practically overnight.
I am certainly a bit of a purist and will definitely prefer a V60 over a Matcha, but I was curious to know how many people would actually feel the same way. And it seems that, though many do love a pumpkin spice latte (sometimes I do as well!) we still enjoy our cappuccinos or our americanos. So yes - my poll is biased - mostly millenials and older, in the tech industry and living in the US, or Sweden… two countries who do and drink batch brew coffee like I speak french - fluently and daily.
So tell me, what would be your go to order?
Currently obsessed with Three Monkeys Coffee in Cusco, Peru. A tiny specialty coffee shop at 11,150 feet in the Peruvian Andes, serving coffee from Santa Teresa (close to Machu Picchu), where you sit in a patio surrounded by mountains that make you feel closer to the clouds than to sea level. Three Monkeys just ranked #23 on South America’s 100 Best Coffee Shops 2025! The idea of drinking coffee at that altitude, in a place where the beans grow practically next door, surrounded by the kind of landscape that makes you rethink everything... yeah, I’m obsessed. If you’ve been, tell me everything.
Recently visited with my honest POV:
Fève Torréfaction — their roasting lab, Paris
I mentioned this already, but spending time in their roasting lab was... different. Not just watching beans tumble in a roaster (though that’s always mesmerizing), but understanding how intentional they are about every single decision. Founded by four coffee enthusiasts in 2020, Fève practices tailor-made roasting—each bean gets treated like it has a story to tell, and they’re just trying to amplify it. I was lucky enough to drink two incredible coffees too! More on that soon.
Kofficlub — Marbella Forum, Málaga
This place is part coffee shop, part roastery, part La Marzocco showroom, and somehow it all works. You can literally watch them roast beans while sipping your flat white, and it’s also in one of the prettiest place in town.
Coffee Specialty Coffee — 40 Rue Chapon, Paris.
This tiny Brazilian specialty coffee shop and roastery tucked into the Marais is doing everything, from sourcing, importing, roasting to serving it. The dedication to Brazilian beans is total, and you can taste it. It’s owned by a couple, and it’s the kind of place that makes you appreciate how much work goes into every cup.
Looooooooooooooooove it!!!!!!