A Quest Fulfilled

I am a coffee snob. More accurately, a coffee shop snob.

I was not aware of this fact until I moved away from the Northwest, and it took me over a month to find a good coffee shop in my new town.

The ingredients for a good coffee shop:

• The aroma of coffee gently wafting around you as you walk in (coffee must not be burnt or so faint that you have to sniff for it)
• The kind of menu that you can read and improvise on (the more chalkboards and Sharpeed-out words the better)
• Comfy chairs - at least four
• Outlets, and plenty of them
• Local art on the walls (doesn't matter if it's good art)
• Baristas who don't wear uniforms, and who actually keep up with you when you order drinks not on the menu
• Free wifi
• Good coffee

Not so hard to find, right? Wrong. The best coffee I'd found in Rochester until today was at the drive-through coffee shop that my sister works out. Good coffee, but not a good place to take my laptop and hang out with free wifi.

Today - today, at last - I found a coffee shop that effortlessly blends all these ingredients to create a coffee shop that would make the Northwest...well, if not proud, at least comfortable. Now I can relax. Now, with a cup of autumn splendor in my hand, free wifi at my fingertips, and the swirl of coffee conversations mixing up the perfect atmosphere, I am home.