Coffee notes from abroad: In the spirit of seeking global awareness of the coffee culture, we have received the following insights from friends of The CUP who travel. The most bizarre, but thoughtful coffee note came from Jordan, the country. Enjoying a “something other than coffee” while surrounded by mummified crocodiles, they gazed on the ruins of Petra, twenty miles from the West Bank, and then they promptly left for Egypt to Cleopatra’s Coffee Cafe. Good coffee there.
Hard to top that experience. However, Slovenian lattes are considered the finest. This was researched by friends of The CUP who traveled to five or six countries surrounding Trieste or Ljubljana (Slovenia’s capital).
How was the cruise boat coffee? we wondered.
It’s hard to believe, but our former Dubai reporter has relocated to Geneva, Switzerland, and now she sends regular, but somewhat disturbing, reports praising the Swiss coffee experience. She may have a caffeine problem. More field reports are coming to us from all over: Rocky Point German coffee house, Grand Canyon – North Rim (South Rim too easy?), Kentucky Amish coffee. We will keep on this global pursuit.
Our favorite local note this month was the Award for “Arizona’s or World’s Best Chimichanga” (fried burrito) at our own Indian Village in the heart of Coffee Row. Congratulations Bart and the Kitchen! Please get an espresso machine.
Coffee found in surprising places: We would be remiss in fulfilling our mission to inform coffee drinkers about coffee in Carefree and Cave Creek if we didn’t identify places that are not ‘normal’ coffee shops, but which do in fact serve coffee on Coffee Row.
For example, the bike shop in Carefree, Grind and Gears, serves coffee, and they actually have an espresso machine (generating the “grind” in the name, of course). They also have a nice place for patrons to sit and drink their coffee out back of the store. Across the way, there’s The Hampton Inn, which must serve a ton of coffee, given all the people from California who wake up there to walk their dogs. No espresso machine there, according to a local fitness expert.
Then, around a few corners near the Conquistador of Spanish Village is the FiorraLife CBD store, upstairs in the Carefree Galleria, where the sandwich board on the sidewalk announces cold pressed coffee. Cold pressed coffee is cold brewed coffee made with a French press, which has a larger metal filter. You get a fuller bodied brew with maybe some grounds in it (this from TikTok of all places).
Onward down Coffee Row, an establishment that has history in Cave Creek is It’s a Divine Bakery.
There, you’ll want to get bread, a pie, a macaron, or strudel, and on a good day, slow down, and sit at one of the tables outside in the sun. We’ve also reported on outliers that serve coffee but which are not coffee shops: the Press Coffee at Sprouts on Pinnacle Peak; and there’s AJ’s, a long time coffee stop (but not strictly a coffee shop) for bicyclists, grocery shoppers, organic dry cleaners customers, and people who just want to get together and drink coffee. Almost a coffee shop. Like Starbucks in grocery stores, e.g., the one in Bashas’ – not strictly coffee shops. But our Bashas’ comes pretty close.
Finally, there’s a rumor that Wilhelm Automotive, almost to the western edge of Coffee Row, serves coffee.
We’ll look into it. We heard it’s free.
In conclusion, let us know how you liked your coffee: red, blue, or flat white.
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