{"id":459,"date":"2018-04-11T04:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/04\/11\/a-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-western-massachusetts\/"},"modified":"2018-04-17T12:13:36","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T22:13:36","slug":"a-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-western-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/04\/11\/a-coffee-drinkers-guide-to-western-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Coffee Drinker\u2019s Guide To Western Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Western Massachusetts is, generally speaking, the bucolic chunk of land lying west of Worcester County\u2014an area containing the Berkshires, the Connecticut River Valley, and the city of Springfield. Here we have The Basketball Hall of Fame<\/a>. We have mountains that would be hills in any other state. We have old mill buildings converted into bookstores, artist studios, and breweries. Interstate 91 cuts through our modest region, carrying travelers south to New Haven and New York, north to Burlington and Montreal. Leaf-peepers stop over en route to Vermont\u2019s fall foliage, parents pack into hotels at graduation time, and Trump voters and Bernie die-hards avoid eye contact in the Stop N Shop parking lot. The towns are small, the farmland hugs the houses, and the river wraps up this pretty land with its rich history of classic New England Colonialism, crop cultivation, and, of course, college students. This area has long been home to craft beer, gorgeous produce, and handmade everything\u2014but in recent years good coffee has sprung up like the ever-present cornstalks that in winter here, peek out like stubble from fluctuating layers of snow. Here are some of Western Mass coffee’s very best.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The Share Coffee<\/a> roastery rolls up its door weekdays at 8:00am, as commuters thread along Route 9\u2014a stretch of chain stores bisecting the farming town of Hadley, Massachusetts. Inside, owner Ken Majka can be found Mondays and Thursdays roasting coffee on his 60-year-old Probat<\/a>. The coffee is roasted, bagged, and shipped out the same day to wholesale accounts and weekly subscribers, and delivered to his two cafes in neighboring Amherst and Northampton. Share prioritizes seasonality in its coffee, and changes the components of its two blends\u2014<\/span>Daily Driver <\/span>and <\/span>Pickup Espresso<\/span>\u2014often, maintaining a consistent flavor profile. Their single-origins are divided into <\/span>Comfort <\/span>and <\/span>Adventure<\/span> categories\u2014a way to guide customers towards a coffee that will align with their tastes. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Behind a single table and thin counter, the whole operation is laid out for locals who trickle in to buy beans, ask coffee questions, and possibly taste something just roasted and not yet in the rotation. It is common to be the only one there, and Majka is happy to pull shots on his <\/span>Kees van der Westen Mirage<\/span><\/a> while launching information across the counter about his retrofitted Probat, his newest coffee, or his partnerships with local breweries. He is enormously passionate, and very educated, and it\u2019s easy to be spat back into the parking lot head spinning.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Share Coffee Roasters is located at\u00a0220 Russell St #201, Hadley<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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\"western<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Circuit Coffee<\/a> sits at the edge of Westfield\u2019s main square, and has the shiny, particular feeling of a cafe that just opened its doors. Customers sit on couches and at repurposed wire-spool tables\u2014seeming right at home. Behind a <\/span>Kees van der Westen Spirit<\/span><\/a>, owner Ted Dobek pours maple lattes, his most popular drink. When customers order caramel lattes, accustomed to Dunkin\u2019 Donuts and Starbucks\u2014the only other coffee options in town\u2014Dobek steers them gently towards his version, made with local maple syrup, local milk, and Share Coffee\u2019s <\/span>Pickup Espresso<\/span>. Parts of the interior are also local\u2014the bar and countertop\u2019s thick maple was salvaged from a bowling alley next door.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Read more about Circuit Coffee from their 2017 Build-Outs of Summer feature<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Dobek is 25, recently married, and lives in the apartment upstairs. He spent a few years after graduating from Westfield State working in different coffee shops\u2014including Share\u2014dreaming up a way to bring good coffee to his area. With his background in graphic design he created the logo and drew plans for the interior himself, and with build-out help from family and friends, and a successful Kickstarter campaign, opened Circuit Coffee this past September. \u201cI wanted to make sure a coffee shop wasn\u2019t just what I talked about doing. I was working a job I hated and I didn\u2019t want to say, \u2018I wish I had opened a coffee shop.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Circuit Coffee is located at\u00a022 Elm St, Westfield<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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\"western<\/p>\n

Tunnel City Coffee<\/strong><\/p>\n

After encountering the colossus that is MASS MoCA<\/a>\u2014our country\u2019s largest contemporary art museum\u2014it is easy to stumble past Tunnel City Coffee<\/a> and instead find solace at Bright Ideas Brewing<\/a>, also contained within the many outbuildings of this former mill\u2019s campus, some of which hold even more art. But venturing inside Tunnel City provides a gentle anecdote to James Turrell\u2019s lightworks, which are both beautiful and exhausting. Here they have soft lighting, light and dark roast options, and the quiet space to decompress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

Tunnel City roasts its own coffee in yet another converted mill nearby, this town once full of water-born industry, which they pay homage to in their name\u2014a reference to the nearby Hoosac Tunnel. The construction of this four-mile tunnel\u2014at its completion in 1875 the longest in North America\u2014killed about 200 workers and created a vital economic link between Albany and points to the west. Their espresso blend, <\/span>Number 50<\/span>, is named after the first train to travel through the tunnel. They also have a single-origin espresso available, today a <\/span>Brazil Peaberry Fazenda Guariroba<\/span>, pulled on their shiny <\/span>La Marzocco Strada<\/span><\/a>. Outside the window is Natalie Jeremijenko\u2019s <\/span>Tree Logic<\/span><\/a>, in which six live trees grow suspended upside down, and if you venture a look up at the ceiling, pipes can be seen leftover from this building\u2019s industrial use\u2014long before the coffee break was invented.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tunnel City Coffee is located at\u00a0<\/span>1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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\"western<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Six Depot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inside No. Six Depot Roastery and Cafe<\/a>, architectural lamps hover above thick wooden tables, where co-owner Lisa Landry attends the bar, topped with a\u00a0<\/span>Victoria Arduino Athena Leva<\/span><\/a>. In the back, her husband Flavio Lichtenthal may be standing watch at the roaster. He worked as a chef and journalist before landing in coffee. They will soon release a line of \u201cCampesina\u201d coffee from women-owned cooperatives\u2014building on their longtime use of <\/span>Ethiopia Amaro Gayo<\/span> by Ethiopia\u2019s first female exporter, Asnakech Thomas. <\/span><\/p>\n

Landry and Lichtenthal spent years talking about starting a roastery before finding a space, \u201cthat we could make a bigger dent in, spread out, do what we wanted,\u201d says Landry. With her background in art, branding, and journalism, this meant dedicating the largest room to space for a gallery. With its white walls, farm-blue floors, and extravagantly paned windows, this space retains the elegance of its original use as a train station\u2014built in the 1830s when marble was being exported from a nearby quarry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"western<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe, at first, wanted to be strictly coffee roasters; but Flavio is Argentine and I lived in Italy for years and the idea of coffee separated from community and culture was impossible for us to envision,\u201d says Landry. They incorporate the community as thoroughly as possible, holding events all winter in appreciation of the locals\u2014the backbone of this region whose population quadruples come summer. <\/span><\/p>\n

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No. Six Depot is located at 6 Depot St., West Stockbridge<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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Iconica Social Club<\/strong><\/p>\n

The front door at Iconica<\/a> opens directly onto the bar where owners Em Withenbury and Fitzpatrick Mulvaney are usually stationed\u2014serving Ritual Coffee<\/a> on their La Marzocco GB5<\/a>\u00a0and Swings Coffee<\/a> on their rotating pour-over bar. With no batch brew available, this place is set at a sluggish pace, and as customers wait for their drinks they often explore the elaborately decorated space. Withenbury and Mulvaney spent two years renovating it themselves, filling it with family heirlooms and flea market finds. They have thought everything out to the very last detail\u2014from the screen-printed hand towels in the bathrooms to the Depression-era glassware, and a sign painted on the brick wall that politely implies the use of space, pointing customers to a lo-fi area in the back, and a Wi-Fi area upstairs. The Wi-Fi area is set up like a library\u2014complete with map wallpaper, dark-stained siding, sturdy desk lamps, and bookshelves lined with thick tomes and back issues of National Geographic. The “low-fi” area has industrial tables, chairs that swing on metal brackets, a small stage, and a wood burning fireplace that Mulvaney feeds every so often\u2014squeezing past customers sipping coffee on well-worn couches.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"western<\/span><\/p>\n

Customers come for the coffee, cold-pressed juice and almond milk, and pastries baked in-house, but at its heart, Iconica is trying for something bigger. \u201cIn creating it as social club, community was at the forefront to what we are thinking about,\u201d says Withenbury, \u201cand we wanted to create a space where everyone felt like they could come in and engage on a lot of different levels.\u201d This may mean stopping by for a movie night, attending a free weekly cupping, sitting in the public parklet outside, playing with the antique machines that sit like paperweights on every table, or picking up one of the books strewn about as if the reader is just up getting a refill. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Iconica Social Club is located at 1 Amber Ln., Northampton<\/a>. Visit their official website<\/a> and follow them on Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n

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Oona Robertson is a freelance journalist. This is Oona Robertson\u2019s first feature for Sprudge Media Network.<\/p>\n

All photos by Haley Carchio except Tunnel City images courtesy Tunnel City.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post A Coffee Drinker’s Guide To Western Massachusetts<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Western Massachusetts is, generally speaking, the bucolic chunk of land lying west of Worcester County\u2014an area containing the Berkshires, the Connecticut River Valley, and the city of Springfield. Here we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459"}],"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=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}