(Tryst's interior, unusually empty. Image from purpleplaylist.wordpress.com)
The snowfall that indiscriminately blanketed the District these past few days got me to thinking about hot drinks. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I love tea and cocoa – beverages easy enough to prepare on my own, but nice to occasionally order in a cozy enclave surrounded by people my age.
Even though right now I’d have to traverse what looks like some post-apocalyptic landscape from Cormack McCarthy’s psyche to get to one, this city houses some top-rate coffee shops. After all, a metropolis saturated with youngsters demands environments where they may gather, loiter and lose themselves in their laptops. The following list comprises some popular District java cafés and their finest attributes.
It bears repeating that I am not a coffee drinker. I’ve never finished a full cup in my life, so for this list I judged more on price, comfort and ambiance – factors nearly as important, for these establishments, as the coffee itself. Though I suspect the selection and quality of teas and other hot drinks might reflect the selection and quality of the eponymous product.
Big Bear Café – 1700 First St. NW – Eckington, the neighborhood next up for gentrification and currently stuck in the checkerboard phase, saw its first visibly lucrative business open in 2006. Big Bear attracts young professionals and graduate students who’ve flocked to the area, and in its three-and-a-half years in operation grew from obscure hideout to neighborhood staple.
Inside, distorted Velvet Underground guitar riffs often ooze from the PA over abstract expressionist paintings, beneath which patrons sip Counter Culture Coffee, courtesy of a Nicaraguan-based company that stresses fair trade and sustainability. The staff serves drinks quickly and organic sandwiches slowly. If the tightly-packed tables crowd up, as they’ve been doing more and more frequently, one can sit outside where a housing development across Florida Avenue reminds anyone who cares to notice of the area’s quite recent indigent past.
Sometimes the staff will set up a project to play a film on the wall (camp horror on my Halloween visit). Servers are friendly but not garrulous. Generally customers will keep to themselves, either to spend hours talking within their own groups or working on their Macbooks. Five dollars can buy a sizeable pot of Chinese tea – very tasty tea that previously I had only bought in upscale Chinese restaurants – and all the time in the world to sit around doing whatever.
When no traffic impedes the view one may look across the street at locals sitting on benches before their federal housing. They’ll look right back at the young, more elegantly-dressed people relaxing in the coffee shop. The two parties will be spending the rest of their respective afternoons in vastly different ways.
Tryst – 2459 18th St. NW – The lounge that Big Bear usurped. Dim interior, bluish rectangles glowing on the cushioned seats haphazardly arranged around low tables. Loud jazz or indie music plays from the speakers. Or, on rare occasions, from a live group of musicians. It is difficult to find an empty seat – one must get close to one’s neighbors, even if they interact not once due to the loud music, stifling crowds, or work/studies to attend to.
Which is everything one seeks in their cool coffee shops, no? Up to the beholder, I presume. From behind the counter come moderately-priced drinks and pastries. A full bar goes into operation during the evenings (I believe that, after a certain hour on weekends, the staff begins carding at the door). It fits in marvelously into the Adams Morgan environment – busy into the morning hours, attracting its share of studious loners, rowdy carousers, and with-it scenesters. An ideal place to either begin or end an eventful evening.
Mid City Caffé – 1626 14th St. NW – I couldn’t begin to speculate as to what accounts for the two f’s. Marketing tactic suggesting distinction? Anyhow, this small space tucked above a modern furniture store filled a serious void in Logan Circle – Busboys and Poets would be the only comparable business close by, and I always considered that more a restaurant than a coffee shop.
Easy to miss, Mid City lies up a flight of bare steps, inside a bare room. It always elicited a somewhat incomplete aura for me – maybe it’s the white paint, white tiled floors or unadorned seating. It appears as if the contractors just left. Anyhow, it isn’t very bothersome. If you can find a seat in the two tiny rooms that quickly fill up, things are never all that uncomfortable.
I had only a small selection of teas to choose from, and when I ordered an additional cookie my bill got out of hand. But everything tasted delicious, and I could read undistracted on a seemingly foreboding, but actually rather pleasant, wooden bench. Indie folk music on the speakers never plays hard on the ears.
Not material for a regular haunt, but a place to go when in the neighborhood and seeking coffee, especially to spend time alone.
Well, I'm dead tired. Time to get away frrom the keyboard tonight. I still have many more coffeshops to profile, however, so check back soon.
Up next: Sidamo, Soho and M.E. Swings.
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