Quat LA has mostly been doing coffee tastings somewhat reminiscent of what you’ll find in Tokyo (koffee mameya, cokuun, fuglen sanguubashi, etc) and sometimes in LA (endorffeine special tastings, coffee ahma, maybe tangible gratitude?). They’ve been doing mostly pourover. But at the recent tasting on Saturday, they noted they plan to expand the range of events they’ll offer, including stuff like this dessert course!
As for the tastings, they are a treat. Recent one was at $55 and had 3 listed geshas, a special extra pour, and a pastry. All coffees as pour over though they have an espresso machine back there too. The counter is generally being run by Esther Kim who won the US Brewers Cup this year and they use their fancy custom ozik grinder. Apparently very rare in the US and tuned for wider burr and slower speed to reduce heat andfines(?) during the grinding process. The coffees also came through wonderfully. Very delicious.
For anyone curious, the quat atelier q concept also plans to include hosting guest baristas as well as an à la carte option, which seems similar to mame coffee in Tokyo (you make a reservation and then have them help you choose their competition level rare coffees). The focus does seem to be finer coffee similar to those Japan concepts I mentioned. Really neat to see this and looking forward to more (my wallet disagrees though).
A foodie friend saw a new cafe on IG and passed this info on: Louisa Coffee in West Hollywood. Looks like they may have opened around beginning of the month.
Louisa is a chain in Taiwan (which I’ve discovered has a ton of awesome coffee/very strong coffee culture). This is their first US location. IG shows a really great space. Roasting appears to be in-house though not sure to what level. When looking around, the Taiwan stores do appear to serve light roast pour overs (which is what I like to see in a more specialty-learning shop).
The article provides some context on the relationships between the chain and the local management.
There looks to be a bit of an art aspect so some of you might enjoy that. I’m not sure if/when I’ll go so if anyone makes it please share anything you learn and what you think of the coffee!
In other news I went to a new cafe in Irvine called Commons Cafe serving pour overs featuring beans from Stereoscope, Oasis (Taiwan) and Glitch (Japan). Jeez, maybe there’s an Irvine premium but pour overs looked to be almost double other shops. I’ve also noticed a general trend of shrinkflation as pour over sizes seem to have gotten smaller (most noticeable with to go cups). Anyways, neat to have an option at least, though the crowd was predictably 95%+ lattes/fun drinks. Thanks to noddles for the heads up on Commons.