Cafecito Organico - Atwater Village

The roasting has been Orozco's own since he taught himself on a home machine in 2004, and this pale-blue corner pours it Latin — the panela-sweetened Cafecito and a four-shot SoCal flat white, with no pour-over on the board. The house espresso is called Clandestino, which is a fair name for a company that spent its first six years without a storefront.

• sidewalk sitting
• beans to take home
• quiet reading
• early mornings

They roast their own and keep it to five blends: Espresso Clandestino on the bar, retail bags naming Finca El Vergel in Guatemala and Hacienda Sonora in Costa Rica down to the process, with no roast date on either product page.

The room is a pale-blue corner storefront on Glendale Boulevard, where the sidewalk tables under umbrellas do as much work as anything inside. It is the second of the company's two cafes and keeps short hours, 7 to 4, which is a corner-shop schedule rather than a destination one.