Coffee Shops

Brewing Memories:

A Coffee Lover's Diary

I rate the coffee shops I visited

Coffee Quality (Taste, variety, presentation)

Pastry (Taste, variety, presentation)

Staff (Friendliness & knowledge)

Ambiance (Coziness, nerdiness)

Pricing & Value

and I'm gonna enjoy

every sip of that coffee.

Historically Listed, The Last New Coffee Shop I Visited On The Top

I update my regulars if I try something new.

Buna - Café Rico, Mexico City, Mexico | March 21, 2025 - (10/10)

Buna - Café Rico is one of the roasteries suggested on Reddit. Before the coffee shop, they used to have only a roastery, then they opened this coffee shop. Even this implies that, you will get a good coffee. On top of the taste, they have very green outside seating together with a very modern inside design.

Me, woke up at 7:00 am to visit 2 different coffee shops before my friends woke up. Super happy with my ladder visit! Their pastry seemed very appealing as well, but I wanted to get breakfast with friends so I could not try. Still, they have many different kinds of Mexican and French pastries.

Overall, I left Buna super pleasant with both taste, vibes, and service. If I lived in Mexico City, they would be one of the coffee shops I go to, when I need to think, write, or read, especially on the outside.

After a long time, I ordered a coffee with sugar from Cafe de Olla. I am not sure this counts because they use "piloncillo" which is unrefined, whole cane. It reminded me of Korean "Yuja Tea," since Buna used orange peels in the coffee. Usually, this cinnamon coffee drink is consumed hot in cold climates - according to Google. However, it was nice, hot weather in Mexico City already. So, I asked for an iced one. It was excellent. Sweet, very filling. Definitely, something will come to my mind later. Who knows? I might try to make it by myself. I am not sure if my coffee will taste as much as Buna's coffee beans though.

Right before Buna, I went "Café La Habana" which was 25 minutes away from Buna. It was one of the places suggested by Arial Rubinstein "Atlas of Cafes where one can think." As he already warned, coffee quality was not good. I got Americano, as usual. But, this time, unlike San Francisco Caffe Trieste, I preferred finding real roastary for my Yong Seok Oppa to sustain our whenever we visit another city sending coffee beans tradition. The smell of the batch was amazing, and baristas helped me to find his taste "maple, mild" touches.

They serve mixed alcoholic drinks as well. I am unsure about the afternoon situation of this coffee shop in terms of staying long and working.

Yes, my thing for restroom art keeps going.

Café La Habana, Mexico City, Mexico | March 21, 2025 ( Ariel Rubinstein's Atlas of Cafes where one can think special)

When we start to plan our Spring Break Mexico trip with friends, I have nothing but one condition for Airbnb: being close to "Café La Habana." As the only morning person in the group, I should be able to walk by myself before everyone wakes up in Mexico City and see Ariel Rubinstein's suggestion. We ended up in a very historical (!) Airbnb in Mexico City, which is 23 minutes walking away from this cafe. This means a 15-minute walk with my walking speed :).

The cafe was huge. Even though it was super, tourists were coming, a very historical place. It has its own taste, you can tell. They decorated accordingly. Even large, old trees in front of it scream I am old (and proud!).

Unfortunately, this was not one of those "Coffee Shops" where you can sit and work with your computer. Despite the place's historical beauty, I was dissatisfied with the coffee, the pressure to order breakfast from a limited selection of pastry items, and the very fulfilling breakfast options.

My dissatisfaction ended while looking for whether I ended up in the right place or not on Rubinstein's website. The place was nominated by Andrei Gomberg, and he noted, "The Cafe is where Castro and Che Guevara met to plan the revolution. Certainly a place where one can think.."

When I am travelling next time, for sure, I will continue to visit Rubinstein's suggestions. Just this time, I will take nothing but maybe an empty paper and a pen.

So that I can evaluate these opportunities to force myself to only think. Who knows? Maybe I will come up with my job market paper idea in one of those trips... (That would be an awesome story to tell!)

I do not know whether I will visit Mexico City again, but if I ever visit, I will sit down in Café La Habana, in spite of amazing smells coming from streets of Mexico City, I will order one of those very fulfilling Mexican Breakfast whether with myself or friends, or family; and I will force everybody to think...

COZ Coffee Roasting Company, Cozumel, Mexico | March 19, 2025 (10/10)

My dear friend Eli dives every country he visits, a pretty cool guy. When you travel with him, even though you never dived before, you might sign up for "discover dive" all by yourself because your trip groups are separated into three groups: those ones cannot swim, ones with a diving certificate, ones swim every week but never dived before. The third bin contains the following members: me, myself, and I!

My first dive in the ocean - all alone in another country, and seeing sharks and turtles is a pretty cool story. How come it is related to COZ Coffee? Because to go to COZ Coffee, whether you need to take a flight from Dallas to fly there directly, or take a ferry from Cancun, which we did. I complained a lot about this to Eli, "Why don't we dive in Cancun?" "Because you can tell people my first dive was in Cozumel, which is cooler..." So, we paid $30 for the ferry. Do not get me wrong, diving was awesome, but I did not know that I would have the best coffee I have had in Mexico in Cozumel as well.

I wanted to buy a bag, but we were luggage constrained because of our Cancun-Mexico City flight...

Of course, despite of hot weather, I ordered a pour-over - the real coffee brewing method you can tell about the quality. So far, having pour over in the menu was a great proxy for good quality coffee. I was super hopeful also because of Google Reviews, I discovered after coming to the coffee shop. It was a super random trip by the way, suggested by the taxi driver.

Their decorations and both outside and inside tables were super calm, and proper for studying. They try to decrease garbage on the island; therefore, they ask you twice whether it will be here or to-go. In our case, we need to go marina, so we could not stay long. Then, the barista explained to me other things they do for this aim.

Coffee was amazing with everything. Definitely suggested.

Me enjoying my pour-over, super happy, final real coffee in MX! - In the background, Eli is approaching.

Eli is trying my coffee, and complaining, "Drip coffee is never good!" "It is not the same with drip coffee." This guy was not sure about what Americano is, so do not take his words seriously.

Caffe Trieste, San Francisco, CA | January 5, 2025 - AFA Special (9/10)

Caffe Trieste is one of the top-rated coffee shops in SF. It is right after Chinatown, and right before Italian town (?). So, it was the perfect spot after trying Fusion Dumplings with other PhD friends. During my time in Caffe Trieste, I worked on my possible 2nd year paper. For me, it will have a special spot in my heart if I end up with this project.

It is looking at a very beautiful street. Three minutes walk away there is an old music record shop; very likely to see live music outside of the bars. Great district.

I really liked their roast level of coffee beans, even got beans as a gift to one of my coffee lover close friends. Still, the consistency of my Americano could be better. It was definitely above average though. They are famous for their espresso. Since it has been a long time since I had cannoli, I wanted to get theirs. Even in an Italian town, there is no place like B-town Piccolo Dolci.

I am a little bit regret I did not order their espresso. But, overall, pricing, ambiance, coziness... In Italian we trust!

Next to my table, there were two ladies, one of their name was Susan retired from the real estate industry, and Victoria who was the birthday lady. I offered to take their picture after hearing the discussion about their selfie was not good enough. Then, we had a great chat about financial industries, the homelessness problem in California, and the stock market. They got my blog address to check my review. So, Caffe Trieste was cozy this much. It would be one of my regulars if I would live in SF! Definitely gonna come back!

Cafe du Monde (Bonus), New Orleans, LA | December 26, 2024

If you ever visit New Orleans and want to have café au lait and beignets, as French people do, you should go to Café du Monde. According to Yong Seok, it is one of the tourist attractions, also locals love. Since we were lucky enough to have a local, we went to City Park one, not French Quarter one.

I am not a latte girl. For me, their café au lait was better than many lattes I have in fancy coffee shops. When we were having our beignets and coffees, I told Yong Seok, this is something time to time I would love to have as breakfast, like donuts and coffee. Plus, beignets are so similar to the Turkish dish we have with Jam and hazelnut chocolate spread "pişi." To be honest, almost every cuisine has their own dough fry desert/pastry, right? I also added it does not seem that crowded, so if you open your computer here no one would say anything.

Yong Seok told me this is exactly what he was doing whenever he wanted to have beignets for breakfast. So, if you are passionate enough, even Café du Monde is a coffee shop to do research :)

After magnets, I started to collect mugs from places that made me so happy and helped me to create memories.

Mojo Coffee House, New Orleans, LA (10/10) | December 25 & December 26, 2024

Greetings from NOLA! I am very proud to say that my close friend, mentor, and oppa Yong Seok is an assistant professor of finance at Tulane University. So, this Christmas, I visited him with my Turkish friend Ali Kaan, who is an operations management PhD.

One thing I love about Yong Seok is that he has a taste. His taste is also reflected in places he dines in or his favorite coffee shops. Even in Bloomington, our favorite coffee shops are the same. Mojo is one of them. Does it have the best breakfast or bakery? No (especially compared to other places we visited in NOLA). Does it have a pour-over? YES! Does it offer dark roast coffee with dark chocolate notes not acidic at all? YES YES YES.

It has a good number of tables and chairs which makes it proper for doing research and studying.

Yes, I have a thing for coffee shops' restroom arts.

They offer interesting coffee styles such as espresso with ginger sparkling water. We went there once to have breakfast and once to have a coffee and study. I wanted to try one of those drinks sounds interesting. I could not because of the amazing texture and taste of their pour-overs. Even the hotness level of it was amazing.

Yong Seok and I had their Boudin burrito with hot sauce while Ali Kaan had their Nutella croissant. Sausage and hot sauce, you cannot go wrong.

When we went there second time, it was Yong Seok and I. We worked on our separate things, he prepared teaching slides, and I did some data work. Then we talked about how to come up with a good finance research idea while having amazing coffee. Definitely amazing environment to do research...

Ali Kaan says "Magazine street... AMAZING!!"

Roots Roasting, St. Paul (8.5/10) | November 29, 2024

The street it was looking for and working environment seems nice. So, I would say it is propriate for working and studying. It was little bit small, but very light.

We visited Roots Rosting with Uğur Abi on my last day in St. Paul. It was one of the limited options opened after Thanksgiving. Even though it is a roastery, they did not ask which coffee bean we would like to have. But luckily, the current one has a dark one with chocolate notes I would say, so I like it.

They had this aeropress art in their bathroom, but do not offer any of poor over, v60 or aeropress brews...

They did not have too much pastry options, I think Thanksgiving might be the reason, but still did not seem very appealing.

I was sitting next to this Forever Ware thing in the coffee shop, and one guy who scanned its cup told me about it. If you are grabbing your coffee pretty regularly from this coffee shop, and hating washing and taking care of your thermos, then you will love Forever Ware. You can take out your coffee, and when you bring their cup bag, all you need to do is scan! To be honest, I love ceramic cups, and also the feeling of the paper cup if I am carrying it, but it is still pretty impressive.

Forever Ware

As usual, I tried Americano, not too watery. It did not have the texture as thick as Groundswell, but better than average.

Groundswell, St. Paul (9.5/10) | November 27, 2024 & August 3, 2024

From my August visit.

From my November visit.

Groundswell is the closest coffee shop to Uğur Abi's house. For me, it is Needmore of St. Paul (yes, this is my second visit only, but still, the same vibes!). In the summer, I did not realize how big they were actually. After exploring all of their corners, my ambiance score definitely 2/2.

I love big windows as much as I love coffee shops, hopeless romantic is talking! When you combine them with Christmas lights, what can I say? I have to romanticize writing fuzzy & TF-IDF string-matching code in Python...

In terms of coffee taste, I remember last time when I had an iced latte, I was not impressed. It was just a regular latte; however, today's Americano hit me. I believe there is a perfect texture for Americano, Groundswell's Americano had that texture. Sometimes, even though I got two shots of espresso I cannot feel that texture (e.g. Soma Coffee, the local coffee shop in Bloomington). Groundswell achieved that texture with one shot since I already had Aeropress in the morning. They did not ask me about the roast, it was according to my taste, though. I do not know if should I break the point. I like talking about notes of coffee! So, for the coffee, I would say 2.75/3 because of the lack of roasts.

For the staff part, it was nice to get your coffee to your table, and they were helpful. I received respect for my whatever left least order strategy for my pastry choice! (1/1 for staff).

For pricing, I will go with 0.75/1 because there is no medium-size option. I am always a large coffee girl, but thinking about my readers!

Perfect Americano texture I was talking about.

When I first time visit coffee stores, I usually prefer the one the most sold. For Groundswell, it was Sesame Honey Corn Muffin. It was a real Midwesterner pastry! Unlike many American pastries with the perfect amount of sugar. They had a good variety of pastries (3/3 for pastry).

Sovereign Grounds (9.5/10), Minneapolis | November 26, 2024 & August 2, 2024

We visited with Uğur Abi and Sibi, for the 2nd time. It is owned by another Turkish: Hakan Abi! Therefore, they have many Turkish & Mediterranian food options such as Turkish-style potato salad, dolma (Turkish dish), or Turkish pastry we call "Poğaça." I tried their no-bake biscuit cake, and I can assure you it is homemade, Turkish style! (3/3 for pastry)

They have kid play area that made me think about ambiance score, but it's quite separated from nerdy place.

I tried their drip coffee for the first time in August and their cappuccino today! As a dark roast lover, I enjoyed both. While writing this, I am having their decaf roast made with Aeropress (3/3 for coffee).

Pricing is quite shocking for both beans and individual coffees (1/1 for pricing), and also the last time Hakan Abi, and this time Jackson were so friendly (1/1 for staff)!

Unfortunately, at both of these times, we could not spend time in the shop, but I kept saying, I would love to study in this place (1.5/2 for ambiance).