
Highlight Coffee
A small Pasadena bar under a twenty-foot mural, pouring coffee it doesn't roast.
Curator’s note
The list here is deliberately short — espresso, batch, pour-over, cold brew, nothing roasted on Lincoln Avenue — so the buying has to carry it: Sweet Bloom out of Colorado, Ethiopian single origins listed by lot on the pour-over board. The one flourish on the whole menu is an espresso tonic made with Jeju Island matcha and tonic water shipped from London, and leaving that much off a menu takes more nerve than adding to it.
The coffee
Nothing is roasted on site: this is a multi-roaster program, with Sweet Bloom, Turning Point and Demitasse attached to the brand, though Sweet Bloom is the only one tied to this specific address. Retail bags sell at the counter.
The interior is sparse and elegant, closer to an Italian espresso bar than a lounge, and since 2021 the outside wall has carried a twelve-by-twenty-foot mural by Victor Ving and Lisa Beggs of Greetings Tour. Frank Kim commissioned it for this address specifically, which is a lot of wall to hand over for a shop that keeps the inside this bare.
The room
The vibe
Photos
People
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