The Best Coffee? (Circa 2015)
Who knew there could be a connection between a great coffee shop and criminal activity. One of my favorite shops in town was Caffe Aficionado (CA). They had a great rotating selection of coffee, attention to quality, and awesome baristas. In addition to great coffee, there was a tasty offering of smoothies. There were two great options: the avocado citrus smoothie and the CEB, which stands for Chocolate-Espresso-Banana. CEB also stands for the Corporate Executive Board, a tenant occupying the same building as Caffe Aficionado. Check out the cached website, Caffe Aficionado.
When I mention attention to quality, I mean it. It was extremely interesting watching their closing operation. Everything was thoroughly cleaned all the equipment used to brew coffee (i.e. grinders, espresso machine), all surfaces were wiped, and when things were not busy they would vacuum all surfaces. I never experienced "cross contamination" in an order. In some other places that pay less attention to cleanliness you can sometimes pick residual flavors developed in/on the equipment (e.g. coffee container). In addition to cleanliness, the water used for brewing coffee was tripled filter and removed most of the chlorine and strange flavors that DC water has.
Profitable or not, their coffee was amazing. The baristas were excellent and not associated to any criminal activity. Victor, now with Dolcezza, will receive eternal kudos for his attention to quality. CA continuously rotated their coffee selection. If you were a regular Victor would have recommendations ready for your preference. Additionally, if you were there on Saturdays, you could get free tastes or drinks. Saturday was they day they experimented, for example creating new drinks, finding the right ratios of water, and brew techniques (e.g. aeropress vs chemex). At CA I discovered some of my favorite coffee roasters Commonwealth in Denver, CO and Passenger Coffee in PA. Thanks for the good memories and good luck to the new shop that took over the space, Bourbon Coffee.
