Steady State Roasting

The founder wants coffee read the way a wine list is read, variety by variety, down to ones most drinkers have never heard of. Slightly obsessed is how the company puts it, and that undersells a roaster whose La Pradera Mokka took a 2020 Good Food Award.

Everything is roasted by the company itself, single origins and blends across the espresso drinks and the pour-overs, and one product page goes as far as the roast call: development time and end temperature held short and low so a fragile bean structure would not turn spicy. Retail lots publish farm, farmer, region, varietal, process and altitude, down to Diego Robelo's name on a Costa Rica lot off Aquiares Estate at 1,200 meters, though a roast date is not one of the fields.

Shelby Ling's mural covers the entire north wall, cacti and palms repeating in orange, yellow and a pastel mauve pink around a wave that never crashes, and it is the only loud thing in the room. The 2023 remodel took over the unit next door and pushed the patio out to full-size tables, bench seating around the landscaping and two-tops by the new French doors, while the inside kept the long, straight lines it opened with.