21st Street Coffee and Tea

Warm cups cold streets (Taken with instagram)

Cappsucker (Taken with instagram)

We are eagerly awaiting Brunton’s return.

A sampling of some of the things posted regarding 21st Street to online review sites during 2011- offered without commentary, other than some editing for brevity.

I hate black coffee, but kept an open mind.  It was delicious.

obnoxious coffee shop baristas… I’ve worked at two indie coffee shops and know how to roast my own beans, so please skip the lecture about the sin of adding milk or sugar to my $4.50 drip coffee. 

staff was very friendly… treats coffee like a science… they take coffee seriously.

They greeted me warmly… They try to imbue their thoughts on how coffee should be drank. No need for sugar… beautifully rich and sweet in it’s natural state.

They serve really good black coffee. Thats it. No need for sugar or cream. Some may call that snobby, but I kinda feel like they are trying to get people to at least try the brew before you mask the flavor with those add-ins. 

stop-you-in-your-tracks good stuff.  Bright, citrusy, floral, complex….without a trace of bitterness.  Look no further for your serious coffee experience. 

WOW! I am so shocked that this place is still in business.  it’s coffee, not rocket science. You work in a coffee shop, not NASA… Just plain old coffee. You act as if you invented it or as if you have discovered a secret way to brew it that no one else on the globe can figure out. 

Coffee making is smart here. 

Always fresh, always scrumptious, and even though there always seems to be a line, it is always worth the wait!  The tea is yummy too- whether hot or cold.  This place can make any crazy morning at the Strip a better one!

have you had a cup of coffee that made your mouth water because it was juicy and tart, like handful of raspberries? That’s what I get here. The baristas also pull excellent espresso shots and pour perfect lattes. 

…coffee that was so carefully made specifically for me with people that are so passionate about the way they make it… knowledgeable… worth the few extra dollars. Coffee tasted real and bold and they even recommend drinking it black to capture it’s fully embodied taste. 

how does this place stay in business?  Coffee nazi tells me I should try it black first. I know what black coffee taste like. Also I’ve been to Ethiopia, you know where coffee was invented, and guess what dip sh*t? They put milk in their coffee. Avoid it like the plague.

I can hardly imagine that you can find a place that takes coffee so seriously in all of Pittsburgh… The staff are all really knowledgeable about their products and their craft. The drinks that I have ordered (typically espresso based drinks) are quite delicious. 

it is definitely worth a visit to the 21 Street Coffee and Tea shop for a delicious coffee and you’ll be treated with the fruits of labor from real coffee craftsmen.

I’m always amazed by how knowledgeable the staff is about the coffee they brew. The staff has always been incredibly friendly

The staff here is well trained and obviously cares…you have to be a little obsessed to do this as well as they do. If you normally add cream to your coffee, this is the place to try it black; you won’t miss the dairy. Espresso drinks are great here too, but I’ll always come for the coffee.

My new favorite way to experience coffee, for sure.

I usually take a bit of cream and sugar, but this was the first cup of coffee I truly enjoyed black.

The owners are friendly and are more than willing to talk shop with you about how they run things, make certain drinks etc. This will always be my favorite coffee shop in town! 

Not my choice.  This place reminds me of Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld.

a must stop.  They are serious about their coffee and it shows in the quality and taste of their products!

expecting to be disappointed… was proven otherwise… very descriptive and approachable

I love this place!

one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had. You could taste all the flavors and nuances from the bean. 

Also you have to ask for cream and sugar but you only get it after first getting a lecture on trying it black first. Listen, i just wanted a quick cup Of coffee and i dont need to be told how i should take it.  I dont need a snobby coffee guilt trip. I obviously picked the wrong place

This place is beyond pretentious. Overprices coffee drinks that they snivel about in terms of fine wine, and when you get it, really it’s still just coffee. 6 dollar coffee. 

Anywho, they’re not pretentious — just care about what they’re doing with the intensity of any other well-regarded place.

If you’re a coffee lover you should check it out. The best coffee I’ve had. 

This really is the best coffee ever …service staff is knowledgeable but sometimes you just want your coffee and want to get out 

delicious, individually brewed coffee. a little expensive, but worth it if you’re looking for a good cup of coffee! 

Great coffee, experienced staff! Love them 

I usually begin with a clean, condiment free cup of coffee at the 21 Street Coffee Shop. This is a place for true coffee lover’s. The coffee is so outstanding because the temperature is perfect, the flavors are delightful, and the people who make your cup love coffee even more than you do.

I had commented that I didn’t like black coffee… they suggested a Pour Over would change my mind about “Black” coffee forever. Phenomenal, absolutely blew my mind. It was sweet, caramel-ly, flavorful, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. I never knew coffee was so complex and that complexity could be captured and delivered to your palate with a little effort and dedication. You will never drink coffee at big chain again… these folks are amazing.

21st Street Coffee and Tea is, in order of tenure, Jacki, Jonathan, Ana, Arynn, Frank, Kira, Shmuel, Kevin, Luke & Alexis. I am a bit biased, but this is without a doubt the hardest-working, friendliest, most committed team working in Pittsburgh coffee, and the best we’ve ever had.

Huge thanks to our friends at Intelligentsia, especially Jay and Jim because they put up with us the most but to everyone involved in sourcing, roasting, and delivering to us such delicious coffees and teas (and knowledge) for going on six years now.

Thanks to our terrific customers- we do it for you and couldn’t do it without you. Your support makes this a fun place to work. Now in 2012 if you could each bring two friends, and they’d bring two friends…

Happy New Year!

Luke & Alexis

Coffee is best when shared (Taken with instagram)

Sapsucker Espresso (Taken with instagram)

Manual brewing method plus price does not equal quality (Taken with instagram)

Strip District

We will be open on Christmas Eve for normal business hours (or until things quiet down), but will be closed Christmas Day (Sunday 12/25) as well as the day after Christmas (Monday 12/26).  The following Sunday we will be closed for New Year’s Day, otherwise we will be open our normal hours.

Downtown

We will be closed Friday 12/23 through Monday 12/26, and will reopen for normal hours on Tuesday 12/27.  The following week we will be closing Friday 12/30 for New Years and will reopen on Monday 1/2/12

Quite possibly the breast coffee shirt ever?

On sale now for $15- get one for the future coffee drinker in your life.

My best memories of the holidays have nothing to do with the gifts that I have received, but instead of the meals that I have shared with family and friends.  Let’s help to make sure that no one is without a meal this season.

We are collecting non-perishables for The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank this week.  With your generous donation you will receive 10% off of a single drink or pastry purchase (excludes bags of beans, merchandise, or special offerings)

Thank you in advance for your generosity,

Alexis and Zoe 

Sapsucker! (Taken with instagram)

Manantiales del Frontino- coming tomorrow! (Taken with instagram)

When we first opened for business in early 2006, after planning things out for about 6 months, there were two of us and zero employees (see above: Alexis, Luke).  Our shop was located in a tiny storefront tucked off the main street in the Strip District. 

Our menu- printed, decorative and hanging from the ceiling, looked something like this:

single/double: espresso, macchiato, cappuccino, con panna, cortado

small (12oz)/medium (16oz)/large (20oz): latte, mocha, chai, americano (those have an extra shot you know), house blend, coffee of the day, decaf blend, individual french press (for one or for two)

extras: add a flavored syrup, add a shot of espresso, substitute soy milk, let us know if you’d like the drink extra hot, dry, wet, half decaf, drinks available iced, etc.  We carried skim, 2% whole, milk, half and half (for breves), whipped cream, and soy milk.  We also had a pretty well stocked condiment bar (pink, yellow, blue, white, brown).

The coffees were brewed in three liter batches, and we tossed what we didn’t sell every half hour (sometimes we let it slide a bit longer if it tasted good).  Because we weren’t super busy and we wanted to maintain freshness, we tossed a lot of coffee down the drain.  The coffee was sourced and roasted by Intelligentsia of Chicago, same as today.  It cost quite a bit more than the local roasters but it tasted better to us, so we charged a little bit more than the other shops.  The coffees we served were mostly blends and different roasts, but we also would rotate some medium roast single origin coffees.  My favorite was the El Salvador Los Inmortales.  There was something special and tasty about that coffee and it was one of the reasons (aside from the people) we decided to purchase our coffees from Intelligentsia.

Since coffee brewing was “easy” we focused heavily on the more difficult espresso bar.  Sometimes the shots didn’t taste right- sometimes sour, sometimes burned, and sometimes it didn’t even want to come out!  Espresso was a pain in the ass. We wasted quite a bit of coffee when we ground it, and our grinders seemed to change on us with every drink we made.  When we made a really tasty shot I’d say “the espresso’s really good today”.  Coffee making was an art but could be very frustrating at times.

We tasted a lot of black coffee as we worked on developing our palates, but we drank quite a few lattes.  The fact that I could enjoy the coffee black was a big deal for me.  We would occasionally put milk in the brewed coffee to see how it tasted.  Dark roasts seemed to taste better with milk.  We never liked putting syrups or sugar or sweetener in the drinks we made for ourselves- it changed the flavor too much.  We sold a lot of flavored drinks though.  There was one customer that would come in several times per week for a 20oz rasberry cappuccino with two shots of raspberry.  It was a $5 sale and he seemed to really like it, and we were glad that he enjoyed his drink.  We had to use the really big steaming pitcher to make it.  We had heard about latte art so we started to try to do it… with mixed results.

We served locally baked pastries and made fresh fruit smoothies.  There was a lady that always wanted mango smoothies so we went across the street every couple days and bought mango from the produce vendor.  Some days she didn’t want one.  We received many suggestions from our original regulars- mainly that we should serve sandwiches & salads… so we started doing that.  Some days we ate sandwiches for lunch and dinner.  We were happy to try to make just about any drink you’d like- no matter how complicated. Some of the drinks required us to look at the ticket a few times before we could finish it.  We wanted to create a business that focused on quality but would appeal to everyone. 

2006 was a “simpler” time.

Combining father & daughter time with after-hours espresso machine repairs is both fun and productive!

I didn’t really throw the old blog away, but probably will soon since much of what was written there has little bearing on the business that exists today.  When you come into our stores it is the 2011 edition, and it couldn’t be any more different than the 2006 edition.  But since this is a new blog it does seem appropriate to take a look back at our business and how we arrived here.  

This coffee business has undergone many big and little changes since we opened in March of 2006.  If you have followed us since those early days, it has been a couple of years since we blogged with regularity.  During that time, mostly between 2007-2009, we were still figuring out what our place was in the coffee industry as well as our place as a small business in Pittsburgh.  It was (and remains) a husband and wife (now proud new parents of a lovely girl named Zoe) learning how to build something that was genuine, something of quality that we could be proud of, and something that would bring a little happiness into the lives of our customers.

We took a break from blogging for many reasons.  First, so many coffee professionals we respect were already saying and writing the things that we felt to be true and it seemed silly to rehash the same concepts.  Second, it seemed better as a business to not write anything (controversial) because we didn’t want to turn away potential customers that may not understand what we were trying to say.  Believe it or not, people take coffee pretty personally and the Internet is a great place for taking things out of context.  The biggest reason, though, is that things have gotten so much busier at the shops these last few years.  After five plus years of doing this, we also have a very clear idea of what we want this place to be.  Over the next few posts I think I will try to do justice to how we started out, what that was like, and how things evolved into the business you see today.  Looking back I realize I used to think I knew just about everything.  Today I know so much more, but feel like we’re just beginning to understand this black beverage we drink for enjoyment, and the people that enjoy it!

dissecting nyabumera