Coffee Shop: Intelligentsia
Specialty: Iced Coffee!
Location: Pasadena, California
Company: Skinny Kevin
Overall Experience: new favorite Intelligentsia?





This is the newest Intelligentsia to sprout up in Los Angeles. (Message to Intelligentsia: Keep 'em coming! They're in way high demand by yours truly, Joanna Yeh!) It has a bar-like atmosphere in terms of ordering and receiving coffee. From the front entrance, there an L-shaped counter that heads into the back of the room. At the beginning of the counter, you order your coffee and go through an almost museum-like, live-action demonstration of how they prepare their coffee. You know how when you are waiting in line at Disneyland, notably Star Tours, there are sights and little action-thingys that keep you entertained? It's like that. But with gorgeous siphons, fashionably-dressed baristos/as, and jaw-dropping chemex and drip coffee processes. I'd rather wait in line at Intelligentsia than Star Tours!



So, two drinks were ordered: one hot and the other cold. The iced coffee process, I'd say impressive at this Pasadena location. It is so precise and articulate. They take freshly ground beans and soak them in cool/cold water for a period of an entire day. That's 24 hours! And then they filter it and BAM! (not to steal Emeril's phrase) you've got a delicious cup of coffee! The coffee ends up tasting refreshing, lacking the bitter taste that gets so many individuals angry about coffee, particularly black. Discussing the process with a baristo, I discovered that adding heat to coffee creates that bitter taste. Therefore, he explained, since the process does not add heat at all to the coffee, there is no bitter taste. Genius! I say!