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| - Really glad to see this place open up, as since I work right in this area, I'm constantly running to the Einstein's next door for coffee. The coffee there is fine, but it's always kind of a weird, tense shitshow in there. I was glad to see that the baristas in Hazelrock were not fronting the typical coffee-chain overhyped, aggressively sunny demeanor and just spoke like real humans. Thank you.
The interior is spacious, open, and extremely clean and polished. Great care was taken to design the menu boards and they're packed with information about their proprietary beans: tasting notes, production information, growing regions (today it was Brazil, Ethiopia and Cameroon). I personally was thrilled to see this, and excited about the prospect of choosing a bean (I went with the Ethiopian).
After ordering, I waited a few minutes and was given an iced coffee when I had wanted hot. The barista was apologetic and mentioned that she "just assumed" and I admitted that I didn't specify, either. However, I do think that if you don't specify, it should be hot. Isn't that the default? At any rate, I just ended up going with the iced coffee since I was in a hurry (and anyone who knows iced coffee knows that Ethiopian beans are the best for iced anyway.) No big deal. The coffee itself was great, by the way. Bright, vibrant notes, smooth and intense. Yes.
When it comes down to it, all the high-concept, coffee-as-the-new-wine, making-the-gourmet-the-norm is essential, and there is a market for it, and it's necessary to raise the bar and lift us from the depths of the bottom of Einstein's brown-stained coffee urn, but you also have to be able to take orders, and make drinks fast and not have your baristas short circuit and blow up when someone orders "just a decaf, please". I think the real mark of excellence in coffee comes from a certain subtlety: exceptional coffee that doesn't need to be dressed up and called out by a long list of pseudo-Italian terms. Good coffee can be served black, as-is, and stand on its own. And no matter how you market it, if it's a good roast, people will notice.
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