That Old Time Coffee on Christopher Street

When you step into McNulty's Tea & Coffee in the West Village, you feel as though you are stepping into another era of coffee, when specialty shops like this were the main purveyors of gourmet beans from around the world. In that respect, it reminds me of Empire Coffee or Porto Rico Importing Co. These business date to a time before the Web and radical transparency about everything from the type of bean to the name of the farmer to the altitude to the date and location of the roasting. The newest culinary coffee shops have fed the obsessiveness of many coffee fans, the type of people who want to know the precise temperature and pressure used to brew a cup of espresso.

I try not to be that guy, but it's getting harder.

Coffee Organic Peruvian French Roast

Purchased June 19 at McNulty's Tea & Coffee, 109 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village

In the cup Despite its prominence in Zagat ratings and elsewhere, I was not familiar with this shop when I stumbled upon it quite by chance a couple of weeks ago, on my way with my family to hear a friend read his flash fiction at the Path Cafe (also a neat little place; Christopher Street has a lot of them). I ordered a half pound of chocolate-covered peanuts -- delicious -- and a half-pound of this coffee.

McNulty's -- a retailer, not really a place to drink coffee -- seems to have steadfastly resisted the modern trend of sharing every little secret with its customers. The Web site makes much of its history (founded in 1895), the old time feel of the shop, the exotic mystery of imported products: "Immediately upon entering the shop, one’s senses are delighted by the many aromas of coffees and teas from around the world. Sacks of coffee and chests of tea with obscure markings from far away lands are visible everywhere. Even the bins, chests, and scales, with which these products are stored and handled, date back to the previous century."

The service was polite, if a bit distracted, and my impression was that more effort was devoted to displays of tea than coffee. My beans (and the chocolate-covered nuts) were weighed in the old-fashioned scale.

I inquired about the roaster and was told with a shrug that the shop used an unnamed roaster in Long Island City, Queens. Presumably the beans had been roasted recently.

Many coffee sellers now offer tasting notes as florid and adjective-rich as wine descriptions, but there was none of that at McNulty's. The country of origin was listed, and in some cases beans were described as organic or free trade. No details were offered about the specific growers. I didn't realize how hooked I have become on knowing this information, even though I am not an expert who can make useful judgments based on it.

This is in some respects just a difference in marketing. A place like McNulty's relies on the mystery and mystique of foreign lands. A roaster like Intelligentsia and shops Stumptown andCafe Grumpy appeal to a different type of consumer.

This type of customer is obsessed -- perhaps too much so -- with authenticity. For these consumers, coffee is no longer an exotic product arriving by ship from third-world places with unusual names. Knowing the details of origin improves the taste. Coffee is also a product with a politics, a mix of foreign policy, economics and environmentalism. Knowing something about how it arrived in the cup is important to some people.

So how was the Organic Peruvian French Roast? It was merely O.K. Maybe I picked the wrong bean. I've been drinking this as a regular Americano for the most part. Light in the mouth, maybe a bit of a citrus kick at the end, some bitterness, a trace of nuts -- hard to say for sure, I'm not a coffee taster. It was not captivating, but not overpowering, either. Just coffee. I guess I'm looking for something more interesting these days. Data.

Coffee, Hot and Cold

Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village. This is a quickie coffee post, dashed off while watching the U.S.-England World Cup match and discussing the propriety of promiscuously using "tweet" in news articles. First, a word about B. Koffie's Yirgacheffe and Kenya French Mission offerings. Kudos to La Columbe, the roaster. I sampled the latter and refilled my Mason jar with the former on a May 29 visit. Both were tasty and in line with the descriptions on the boards.

Read my earlier post about this Hell's Kitchen shop, a relative newcomer to the neighborhood.

On June 6, I found myself near Washington Square Park for the Wrs. orld Science Fair and in need of coffee. It was a short walk to Third Rail Coffee, which offers beans from Intelligentsia, one of my favorite roasters.

A friend encouraged me to try the "cold brew," a form of iced coffee (Stumptown offers it too, but I haven't tried it). To brew coffee this way, you soak the beans overnight in room-temperature water. Some say cold brew -- also known as "cold press" coffee -- is less acidic and easier on the stomach, while others seem to think it offers a bigger caffeine punch.

I drink hot coffee year-round, but I'm not above switching to iced coffee at this time of year. I'll probably have to try cold brew again. It was delicious, but this one experience was not enough for me to conclude anything.

Third Rail is a cute shop, comfortable, humming with traffic (see the photo at the top of the post). This was my first visit, and I expect I'll be back.

The coffee scene is taking off in New York. (I am slowly making my way down the list of top coffee shops in that TImes article; see my post on Birch Coffee.) It's going to be a great summer.

In the Blend at Birch Coffee

It was painful to pass so close to Stumptown at the Ace Hotel without stopping, but I was glad I did, finding myself off the lobby of another boutique hotel, the Gershwin, in a different temple to caffeine -- Birch Coffee. I had been wanting to visit after noticing it on The Times's list of the best of the new coffee cafes. It was love at first visit. The decor gave me a warm feeling right away. True, you're not going to find a half-dozen varieties of obscure single origin coffees from as many countries, as you would a couple of blocks away, but there are chairs and stools, something Stumptown eschews. And food. And wine. And beer. And a lending library upstairs. Coffee Birch Blend

Purchased June 4 at Birch Coffee, 7 E. 27th St. (between Fifth and Madison Avenues), Flatiron District

Roasted Within the week by Coffee Labs Roasters of Tarrytown, N.Y.

Description "A well-balanced cup with pleasant smokey walnut undertones, and milk chocolate dipped cherries accompanied by a refined finish." A blend of Nicaraguan, Guatemalan and Indian monsooned Malabar coffees.

In the Cup Birch offered just three coffees -- the signature blend described above, "Emma's espresso" and a decaf. A simple user experience with limited choices, as if Steve Jobs had designed it.

I started with a shot of the espresso, which was served in the thick, muddy style that has become fashionable.

It was a perfectly fine, with a nutty flavor, and the advertised bittersweet chocolate, with more emphasis on the bitter than the sweet. Then I had a cup of the Birch Blend (no milk), which was a revelation.

Perhaps I had been primed at that point by the cozy atmosphere, but it was a sublime cup of coffee. It certainly delivered a smokey something, in a smooth and light package with chocolate behind it, no bitterness, and a gentle finish. I was ready to buy a T-shirt and move into the library.

As at most high-end coffee shops in New York that take service seriously, the baristas here are fast, friendly and polite, and the owner himself happened to wait on me when I asked to buy beans, telling me the details about the blend and roast. (No special treatment: On trips like this, I never identify myself as anything more than just a customer who likes coffee, which is what I am.)

Before this, I had not focused my attention on "Monsooned Malabar" coffee, one type of bean in the blend.

The name refers to a practice on the West Coast Malabar section of India, where beans are exposed to monsoon winds repeatedly during the curing process. The humidity helps to create a distinctive flavor, including a hint of chocolate, according to various sources.

These coffees are said to be more potent and pungent, sharper, than other Indian coffees, which tend to be mellow. But in this case, thanks perhaps to the Latin American beans, there's no trace of overpowering flavors in the Birch Blend.

The result is something special.

A day later, I am at home, polishing off this blog post and an Americano made from the blend, wishing Birch Coffee happened to be closer to my usual daily travels and thinking of reasons to head back to the neighborhood. (Well, it is a couple of doors down from the Museum of Sex.)