santa fe coffee

To be honest, we don't go out to coffee shops all that often in Santa Fe (something that I regret as soon as I get to one). We usually brew ourselves French presses full of French Roast from Ohori's at home (and we love Ohori's coffee so much that we mail-order it to New Jersey ... ). If I'm out on my own, I'll tend to go to the Tea House on Canyon Road - not because I like, or even drink, tea (something that frequently puzzles people who hold stereotypes of British behavior - I singularly fail to match up in that respect) - but they do excellent coffee, including some wicked blends with chile in them. And I love the setting. But we also tend to end up every now and then at Downtown Subscription - where we were this morning - where the coffee (Allegro) is strong and good, even if the pastries are unappetizingly wrapped in cling film and seldom if ever tempting, and make one whimper to be back at Intelligentsia in Silver Lake.

But the barista service at DS is always weirdly sulky, even if their coffee is good, and their yard impeccable, full of flourishing Russian sage and fruit trees. We needed strong coffee, having just met with a couple of LA/Santa Fe based architects, who very tactfully told us that our plans for converting the LA sauna into my Site of Inspiration - aka a study - was an impossible dream, a nightmare of probable code violations. So it's back - well, back to a drawing board will be a little tough, since when one draws a ground plan of the house, there's unfortunately no spare ground.