Cosmic Bloom Coffee

The house line here is that authenticity cannot be replicated or purchased, and the chess nights are the shop making good on it rather than just printing it. The espresso board names no origin at all, so the curiosity sits on the brew side of the counter.

Everything is roasted in house on a Diedrich, and the shelf runs six bags, five of them titled by origin, varietal or process: a washed Tolima Geisha and a washed Caturra-Chiroso at $60 each, a Chiapas washed from $20, and a La Esmeralda Pink Bourbon from producer Norbey Quimbayo that the shop tastes as papaya, lychee, orange and Assam tea. The shop page sells an $85 Barista Fundamentals class next to the bags, though no listing prints a roast date.

Cosmic Bloom points its cameras at the coffee and not the walls, staging bags against an old-fashioned television playing a scene, with a skateboard and a few alien figures in shot. The skate, music and art community the founders came out of is stamped on the branding and the merch, and that is where this shop's personality is easiest to read.