{"id":1788,"date":"2019-02-25T03:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T13:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2019\/02\/25\/the-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-tijuana-mexico\/"},"modified":"2019-02-25T03:00:29","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T13:00:29","slug":"the-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-tijuana-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2019\/02\/25\/the-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-tijuana-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coffee Drinker\u2019s Guide To Tijuana, Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

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You can tell a lot about someone by how they react when you suggest going to get a cup of coffee in Tijuana. There are the old \u201cpainted donkey and pi\u00f1ata\u201d stereotypers, the \u201cisn\u2019t it dangerous?\u201d types, and the \u201cthat sounds like so much fun, when can we go?\u201d people who you want to hang out with. Baja California\u2019s gateway has been welcoming strangers for decades, and just as the USA\u2019s relationship with its neighbor has waxed and waned, so has the attitude of San Diegans to the city which is at once part of home and yet very different. However, Tijuana doesn\u2019t need to be viewed through the lens of San Diego or the United States. It stands alone as a cultural, culinary, and coffee destination. And when you view Tijuana from a chair on a plaza with a delicious cortado, it seems anything but intimidating.<\/p>\n

Entering from the US means negotiating the world\u2019s busiest land border at San Ysidro, which\u2014unlike Tijuana\u2014is not showing any signs of becoming more welcoming or interesting. But once you cross into Mexico, the town is easy to negotiate by foot, bike, or ride share. English or Spanish and dollars or pesos are equally accepted at most shops and prices for an espresso drink are in the $2 range.<\/p>\n

The Baja wine and food scene has been booming for years, with fine dining at Mision 19<\/a> and more affordable (but no less delicious) spots like the Telefonica Gastro Park<\/a> serving the city\u2019s young, growing, and unsurprisingly not-that-different-from-the US middle class. Unlike much of the wine and food, which requires a drive south, the majority of the speciality coffee shops are focused in the downtown area and serve locals as well as the tourist crowd. Recently, Mexican coffees have been more prominent on the speciality market and most Tijuana roasters tend to source from their home country, which means that a short trip around town can acquaint you with some delicious origins which might not yet have made it to your local roaster.<\/p>\n

Coffee shops in Tijuana tend to stay open late, often closing at 8:00 or 10:00pm, and are as much of a \u201cthird place\u201d coffee culture as you\u2019ll find anywhere in the US. Expect excellent customer service as the speciality coffee scene is still growing in Tijuana and people\u2014customers and staff alike\u2014are excited about it, meaning your barista or fellow customer might love to hear about your other coffee experiences. Oh and Tijuana gets hot, so don\u2019t sniff at grabbing a cold brew to-go. Most coffee houses offer bottled coffee alongside their regular drink menu.<\/p>\n

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Nativo Coffee Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

Armed border guards can be pretty intimidating, which is why I always like to follow the somewhat unwelcoming and officious border experience with a much friendlier one at Nativo<\/a>. A cold drink in one of Nativo\u2019s signature cactus-shaped Mason jars provides the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of \u201cthe line\u201d and their outdoor seating makes a great place to sit, grab some wifi, and plan a day in TJ. The shop is just a block away from the new PedWest border crossing, making it a great first stop for a Tijuana coffee crawl, so long as you don\u2019t get there before their 9:00am opening time. On weekends, you can grab a drink and wander around the farmers’ market that takes place outside.<\/p>\n

Nativo\u2019s menu mixes espresso classics with more inventive drinks that combine their own coffee with Dr Pepper and orange juice amongst other ingredients that pair surprisingly well with sunshine and succulents. The shop itself isn\u2019t large, but you\u2019re only a short walk from a beach, garden, or plaza that makes for a great setting to linger over your drink and one of their donuts, or the deliciously international avocado bagel. There\u2019s also rarely not a dog on hand for petting, along with frequent dog meet-ups, making this one of my overall favorite coffee spots to go to when I absolutely don\u2019t want to get work done.<\/p>\n

Nativo Coffee Community is located at\u00a0Larroque 271, Empleados Federales, 22010 Tijuana<\/a>. Follow them on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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Container Coffee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Situated in an old shipping container in Tijuana\u2019s busy and touristy Avenida Revoluci\u00f3n, Container<\/a>\u2019s architecture might be disposable, but the shop bucks the trend of the area by selling something customers will enjoy and come back for rather than throw away when they realize nobody needs a novelty poncho or sombrero.<\/p>\n

Container invites customers to take a moment to enjoy their cup of coffee in a part of town that feels like it stops for nobody. Customers pick from several coffees, all sourced from Mexico, and then select a brewing method in consultation with the knowledgeable and friendly baristas. Then it\u2019s time to take the cup on the shop\u2019s patio and while away half an hour watching the carnival of enthusiastic hawkers engaged in their timeless pursuit of relieving hopelessly clueless tourists of a few dollars as local teenagers strut their stuff and sneer at the whole spectacle. Container has plenty of power outlets, but it isn\u2019t the place to bring your laptop\u2014\u201cAv Rev\u201d provides entertainment enough. If you\u2019re on the go, or a manually brewed coffee isn\u2019t for you, there are delicious single origin espresso and milk drinks from a national level competition barista and bottled cold coffee to keep the post-lunch slump at bay if you\u2019re on your way to, or from, the nearby Telefonica Gastro Park.<\/p>\n

Container Coffee is located at\u00a0Av. Revoluci\u00f3n 1348, Zona Centro, 22000 Tijuana<\/a>. Follow them on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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Electric Coffee Roasters<\/strong><\/p>\n

A little further from the hustle of the middle of the city is Electric Coffee Roasters<\/a>, where everything from the clientele to the Instagram account<\/a> lets you know that you\u2019re in for a curated speciality coffee experience that merits a short Lyft ride or a longer walk. Situated just across from the Estadio Caliente Xoloitzcuintles, the Electric\u2019s Nuova Simonelli<\/a> machines, scales, Chemexes<\/a> and bare wood countertops set the scene for the sort of coffee shop anyone would be glad to have in their neighborhood and a great spot to grab a pick-me-up before a game or concert. It\u2019s definitely a local hangout and not a tourist trap, especially in the afternoons when the small shop\u2019s tables can be hard to lock down while local freelancers and students take advantage of the quiet space and curated soundtrack to work. If you find yourself down by the beach in Playas, there\u2019s a branch there as well and the friendly locals are more than happy to offer coffee, dinner or beach tips (or, at least they were to a Spanish-speaking Englishman with a ridiculously large camera).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a full espresso menu as well as several manual brew options for hot and cold drinks. The baristas also craft custom drinks, combining honey, cinnamon, chocolate, and other local ingredients with their espresso, which is roasted right in house. If you\u2019re grabbing something to go, don\u2019t overlook the delicious bottled cold brew, which has fueled many a drive south to Baja\u2019s incredible surf breaks.<\/p>\n

Electric Coffee Roasters is located at\u00a0Av. Hip\u00f3dromo 9- A, Hipodromo, 22020 Tijuana<\/a>. Follow them on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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Caffe Sospeso<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sospeso<\/a> isn\u2019t a shop you\u2019re likely to bump into on your way to or from the border; it\u2019s in the part of town where suits are more common than sangria-swilling tourists. The shop is more spacious, and local professionals frequently meet here for a coffee and a chat. Meanwhile, local coffee aficionados stop by to sample the variety of roasts, chat with baristas and take home one of the many coffees on offer.<\/p>\n

Sospeso is a bigger setup than anything else on this list, complete with TV screens, point-of-sale displays explaining the roasting and harvesting process, and a Kickstarter page to fund their aims to expand north of the border. It\u2019s an operation that turns out phenomenal coffee and really deserves a greater recognition outside of the immediate area. Their online sales program means that even if you\u2019re a long way from TJ, you can now sample their national and international roasts.<\/p>\n

This was the only cafe we visited that roasts an international selection of beans. Indeed, the shop\u2019s owner, Alberto Song, is a certified Q grader and a judge at the Cup of Excellence. Sospeso offers Kyoto-style cold brew and bottles of concentrate to-go that look more like the Tequila that you\u2019ll see tourists clutching as they nervously transit US customs. There\u2019s also a brew bar and to-go cups with sleeves that describe the processing method of the coffee you\u2019re drinking.<\/p>\n

Caffe Sopreso is located at\u00a0Joaqu\u00edn Clausel 10312, Zona Urbana Rio Tijuana<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

James Stout is a freelance journalist based in San Diego. This is James Stout’s first feature for Sprudge.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post The Coffee Drinker’s Guide To Tijuana, Mexico<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can tell a lot about someone by how they react when you suggest going to get a cup of coffee in Tijuana. There are the old \u201cpainted donkey and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[63,27,65,33,61,32,59,31,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}