My week of coffee experimentation and enlightenment has concluded. I have to say that I am kind of sad to see it come and go. I have thoroughly enjoyed my journey into DC every morning to try out some of DC's best coffee houses. This adventure not only introduced me properly to the DC coffee house world, but perhaps more importantly to DC in general. This was by far the most time I have spent in the city not going to see the Nationals, visiting museums or running with J-Bird. It really gave me a nice sense of the flavor, so to speak, of the city and has even made me re-think my position on living in the city. More on that to come in future blog posts. So without further ado, lets get into my final thoughts for the six coffee houses I managed to visit over the last five days. I know everyone is on the edge of their seats all jittery from being over caffeinated. My thought here is to provide a ranking of each coffee house compared against each other based on the three main categories I blogged about on the first day. I will rank them in order from worst to best to keep the suspense high!
Ambiance
This category is meant to provide some context for comparing the various aspects of each coffee house that make it a unique or enjoyable coffee house experience. There turned out to be a nice variety among the establishments that I selected. This was perhaps the best part about the journey. No two coffee houses were alike and as such it made each day its own special experience. This category however turns out to be the easiest for me purely based on subjective preference. To me a good coffee house experience must provide a level of comfort while sipping a nice hot caffeinated beverage. Think about when you are at home in the morning with that first cup of coffee. You typically hunker down in your favorite spot in your most comfortable chair and curl up with a book or perhaps grab the phone a give a friend a call to discuss current events. Whatever the activity, your high level of comfort and the enjoyment of the coffee make the experience relaxing and a positive venture for the soul. This is what I was hoping to find while visiting the various coffee houses this week. It turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined. Kind of like Donald Drumph searching for humility and reason. Lets get to the rankings.
#6 - Compass
#5 - Dolcezza
#4 - Peregrine Espresso
#3 - The Wydown
#2 - Maketto
#1 - Tryst
The winner hands down is Tryst. This wasn't really all that close for me. While Maketto offered a nice atmosphere in which to enjoy their coffee offerings, no other coffee house came close to Tryst. They simply provide that genuine inviting and comfortable environment to accentuate coffee and yes even some good food. After Maketto, there is no other contender. All of the other coffee houses seemed to pride themselves on making the act of sitting a painful and short lived desire. Making the customer feel uncomfortable enough to not want to spend more time than necessary in the establishment seems counter intuitive to me, but perhaps the smaller coffee houses need the turn over to justify their existence. There is only so much caffeine that a human needs to consume in a sitting. Right? Maybe. Whatever the reason, Tryst provided the end all be all experience any coffee consumer would want while enjoying a nice book, doing some work or striking up conversation with a neighbor.
Coffee
I have given some thought to this being the trump category. No not building a wall around it. By trump I mean, that the winner of this category would be the presumptive winner of the comparison. However, if I just wanted to rank coffee and nothing else then I should have just ordered my coffee to go and wandered around the city while drinking it. No. I set out to measure the complete experience so I will leave the coffee category as equal in stature to the other categories. However, it goes without saying that if your coffee sucks then you have no business owning a coffee house. Fortunately, I had zero terrible coffee tasting experiences on my week long foray in the wilds of DC. Other than J-Bird's rather awful experience with a can of Stumptown cold brew, I have to say that each establishment offered something a little different and delicious. This made me the big winner, because I love coffee almost as much as I love J-Bird and Lil C. Here are the rankings.
#6 - Peregrine Espresso
#5 - Dolcezza
#4 - Compass
#3 - Tryst
#2 - Maketto
#1 - The Wydown
This was a very difficult category to distinguish the contestants. You would be hard pressed to not enjoy the coffee from each of these places. Also, keep in mind that I tried a limited sampling of coffee from each. I will likely revisit some of these locations to try some additional coffees and I plan to update my blog posts to reflect my thoughts on each of those experiences. The winner here was The Wydown. Perhaps it was because it was the first taste of DC coffee of the week. There was something really good about the Thunderdome drip though that would have stood regardless. The presentation in a single serve coffee pot with a nice ceramic mug gave me the impression this level of service would be the norm. That was not the case. They were the only coffee shop to present their coffee in such a way. I loved it like Lil C and J-Bird loves their ice cream. I have heard it said that smell and visual stimulation impact the way people taste food. I think that is applicable here and the additional devotion to the coffee experience mattered. Maketto finished a close second primarily based on the innovative siphon bar. What I tried was really unique, but I don't think one small taste gets to the heart of it. I would like to explore this more the next time I visit. I also enjoyed their flat white which was simply amazing. I want to reiterate that I would visit any one of these coffee shops again. Some of them I would only run in to grab a coffee or espresso, but they are all worthy coffee brewers each with something unique to add to your coffee tasting portfolio.
Food
This is a tough category to judge because I did not try food at every coffee house and some didn't even offer food. For the sake of fairness, I will only rank the coffee houses that actually offered coffee house eats. I actually only ate at two of them. Now if some of those places had offered hot breakfast, perhaps I would have eaten at more of them. It just seems to follow that breakfast and coffee go together. I wish some of these places recognized that muffins and granola aren't very exciting. Here are my thoughts.
#5 - Compass
#4 - Dolcezza
#3 - The Wydown
#2 - Maketto
#1 - Tryst
While this category is tough from an overall rating perspective, the winner is very clear. Tryst is the only coffee house that I visited to offer a full kitchen menu. Not only that, but the food is really good. Did I mention they also serve alcohol in the evenings. I am not quite sure why more coffee houses don't also offer at least some kind of lunch/dinner based menu. Look at Starbucks and their success with hot breakfast and lunch offerings. I think it is a no brainer. One could easily hit a coffee shop in the morning for the caffeine fix and stay until lunch to order a sandwich or soup. That may not be the way to go for every coffee house, but I believe Compass, Maketto, and The Wydown could pull it off. Perhaps it is a cost consideration more than anything else. I may have to do some additional investigation into this matter to find out the reasons.
Drum roll please...
So without further delay, the winner of the DC Coffee Express is Tryst! Tryst finished with the best rating in Food and Ambiance and was third in the coffee category. The very fact they were the only coffee house to offer cuban coffee really stands out to me. Tryst brings together all three aspects of a good coffee house and knocks them out of the park. Combine that with a wonderful location in Adams Morgan and you will not be disappointed. Whether you want that early morning kick in the pants, or late night pick me up, this is the place in DC to grab some coffee.
Food
This is a tough category to judge because I did not try food at every coffee house and some didn't even offer food. For the sake of fairness, I will only rank the coffee houses that actually offered coffee house eats. I actually only ate at two of them. Now if some of those places had offered hot breakfast, perhaps I would have eaten at more of them. It just seems to follow that breakfast and coffee go together. I wish some of these places recognized that muffins and granola aren't very exciting. Here are my thoughts.
#5 - Compass
#4 - Dolcezza
#3 - The Wydown
#2 - Maketto
#1 - Tryst
While this category is tough from an overall rating perspective, the winner is very clear. Tryst is the only coffee house that I visited to offer a full kitchen menu. Not only that, but the food is really good. Did I mention they also serve alcohol in the evenings. I am not quite sure why more coffee houses don't also offer at least some kind of lunch/dinner based menu. Look at Starbucks and their success with hot breakfast and lunch offerings. I think it is a no brainer. One could easily hit a coffee shop in the morning for the caffeine fix and stay until lunch to order a sandwich or soup. That may not be the way to go for every coffee house, but I believe Compass, Maketto, and The Wydown could pull it off. Perhaps it is a cost consideration more than anything else. I may have to do some additional investigation into this matter to find out the reasons.
Drum roll please...
So without further delay, the winner of the DC Coffee Express is Tryst! Tryst finished with the best rating in Food and Ambiance and was third in the coffee category. The very fact they were the only coffee house to offer cuban coffee really stands out to me. Tryst brings together all three aspects of a good coffee house and knocks them out of the park. Combine that with a wonderful location in Adams Morgan and you will not be disappointed. Whether you want that early morning kick in the pants, or late night pick me up, this is the place in DC to grab some coffee.
Let me just be clear. The real winner was me. I would like to thank J-Bird for her contributions to this week long saga. She had some great recommendations, even guest wrote a review, and joined me for some coffee. Next time no coffee in a can! I shall return with more coffee goodness as I continue to partake in DC's amazing coffee world. Cheers!
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