Café Café y más café

As many of you may know, I am a regular coffee drinker. I drink it at least daily if not more than that and I absolutely love it. I don't just love it for the wake up energy boost (though that's definitely a contributing factor), but I love the flavor, the variety, and the way that it brings people together. The togetherness of it seems to span across cultures. In the United States, it's common to meet up with your friends for a piping hot cup of coffee. Whether you take it black, or prefer heaps of milk and sugar, it's a way to sit around with your friends, catch up and enjoy yourselves. The same goes for in Latin America. People drink coffee at absolutely all hours of the day: morning, afternoon or night. You meet up with a friend or your family in the middle of the day for a cafecito and in the same way, it brings people together. That's why I love coffee, that's why I spent a stint of my time working as a barista, and that's why I drink so much dang coffee.

Surprisingly enough, amazing craft coffee isn't the easiest to find in Ecuador, even though it's right next door to two of the biggest coffee producers in the world: Colombia and Brazil. Most people here buy and keep instant coffee in their homes, and if you want to find a coffee shops that serves good espresso drinks as well, it can be tricky and you'll often find yourself running into places that are reminiscent of Starbucks. Don't get me wrong, I go to these places often because they're accessible, the coffee is pretty good, and a lot of them have non-dairy milk, but the past couple of weeks, I've really been in search of somewhere small and unique, with great coffee.

Due to that, I have decided to embark on a mission and put my stuck-up Portland coffee tastebuds to the test and try to find some great coffee at small businesses around the area and give my own personal review. The hope is that this will be helpful for any coffee snobs/adventurers like me who are in search for a yummy cup of caffeine in Quito. So, first let's start with the Ecuadorian equivalent of Starbucks:

JUAN VALDEZ

You can find Juan Valdez basically everywhere around the city, so it's a super convenient stop if you need your caffeine fix, and there's a variety. You can get lattes, mochas, cappuccinos, macchiatos, cortados, nevados (frappuccinos), tea and more. Plus if you're like me and have problems with milk products, they have non lactose milk, soy milk, and almond milk. So the range of options is great. The espresso drinks, at least with almond milk like I like them, are ok. I don't love the almond milk that they use and sometimes I feel like it's not really balanced out well with the espresso. Oddly enough, I don't mind it as much when it's hot versus iced. I tend to enjoy the drinks more if I have soy milk put in them, or add a little bit of flavor.

Food wise at Juan Valdez, they have you covered too. They have plenty of pastries and breads, cakes, and a variety of empanadas. If you're feeling really hungry, they even have a couple of breakfast options like breakfast sandwiches or eggs.

The locations are pretty large as a general rule, so for me it's a great place to sit down with my coffee, empanada and laptop to do my work.

I give Juan Valdez 4/5 stars for convenience, variety, ambiance, and flavor.

CAFÉ EJECUTIVO

This tiny coffee shop is located on Eloy Alfaro in Quito, which is a pretty buzzing sector of the area, but it was out of the way enough that there weren't many people when I arrived at about 2 PM. When I first got the counter, I saw that they had cold brew and I didn't see anything that said there were non dairy milks so I asked for the plain coffee. The woman at the counter told me that they were all out of cold brew, but she could give me a latte. I asked her if there was anything that I could get that didn't have milk. She told me I could have a milk-less latte?? For those of you who don't know, latte means milk in Italian, so the whole literal point of a latte is to have milk in it. After further explanation, she basically told me that she would give me an iced americano with a little bit of sugar in it. "Yeah, I'm sure that'll be fine," is what I told myself. It was only $3 which seemed pretty reasonable and it came out in a cute milkshake type looking glass so I was excited for a second. Unfortunately, the reality was not quite as fine as I had hoped. When they set the coffee down on my table, there was about a half inch of sugar settled at the bottom. I thought to myself "oh they must have just not mixed it well enough" and I just figured I would drink the coffee and avoid the mound of sugar at the bottom. To my surprise, upon my first sip, the coffee was EXTREMELY sweet, even with not having mixed in the sugar. So, evidently they had just put a boatload of sugar into my drink, and only most of it had dissolved. So, I can't really give a fair judgement about the coffee because there was so much sugar in it.

Disclaimer: from what I have observed, Ecuadorians add sugar to everything from their coffee to their fresh juices. They like it sweet and I've seen more than one person be appalled at me when they saw me drink my coffee black.

So, although I didn't really enjoy my coffee, the café was in a nice spot and the space was nice. It was surrounded almost entirely by windows which made it feel really open, and it had a lot of comfy, modern style chairs, and benches to sit at and it was a nice space to read my book, despite the sad coffee.

Overall rating: 2.5/5

HONEY COFFEE AND TEA

The first time that I went to Honey, I was very pleased. It had a cozy ambiance on the outside and a lovely little seating area outside as well where you can enjoy the sun. My first order was a hot soy latte and I was very happy with it. It had great foam, great flavor, and it didn't upset my stomach which was a win in my book. I deemed this coffee well worth the $3 that I paid.

My disappointment came later when I got the exact same drink, but iced. And then again when I reverted back to the hot version about a week later. On these instances when I ordered my soy latte, the latte had an odd taste, almost as if they soy milk had gone bad or the coffee had. I was not very pleased with the flavor and didn't even finish the iced one. I also gave the iced chai tea latte a try and it was disappointing. It wasn't strong on the spicy or the sweet flavors and it tasted a bit watery.

However, Honey does get props for it's yummy assortment of pastries (I particularly enjoyed the blueberry muffin) and sweets. From passionfruit cheesecake to giant freakshakes (and I mean those milkshakes with cookies, cotton candy and sweets piled on the top), it's a pretty safe bet if you have a sweet tooth. I have it on good authority from my friends who ordered the milkshakes that they were 100% worth it (you didn't think I would try to put one of those away myself, did you?). In addition to that, they serve full breakfasts with eggs and all of the works so it can be a good option for a simple coffee and a hearty bite in the morning.

Overall, I would give Honey better accolades for its food than for its coffee. The coffee could have been much better, but I was pretty safe if I just ordered an americano. If I was going to rate I would give honey a 3/5 for the nice space but inconsistent quality.

COFFEE AND CREAM

Today I was determined to try something new, so I did some internet searching to see if there were any hidden gems that I may have been missing out on. I found this spot on a google search and decided to give it a go because well...it said it was on a rooftop and that sounded cool. It was a little confusing to get to because as I walked to where it said it was supposed to be, there was so signage and it just looked like a regular old business building. But I was determined, so I walked inside and a nice man used his employee card to swipe me up to the 9th floor. It was a cute little space, and it was more of a sit and be served than an order and wait type of place.

I ordered an iced latte, and asked if they had any non-dairy milk. Non-lactose milk was my only option, but I would take it. The waiter suggested to me that I try a chai latte, because it was a little sweeter and he said delicious. Well, I was really here to try the coffee, but that sounded yummy so sure. They brought it out to me in this cute little glass, with a small cookie on the spoon next to my plate. The presentation was so cute, with a good chunk of foam at the top and sprinkled with a little chocolate powder. There was a plastic straw on the plate, but I passed (go mother earth) and decided to try the whole experience of potentially getting my upper lip smothered in a nice foam-stache.

I took a sip and was automatically happy that I had listened to my waiter. It was such a good balance of sweet and a little chai spice and the chocolate on top gave it a nice extra element. I will surely be coming back for a good old plain coffee in the near future to see if it lives up to the iced chai. YUM. When I was there, I didn't recieve a food/pastry menu, but I can see from their internet reviews that they do indeed have postres and waffles. So I might have to swing by next time for breakfast.

Overall rating: 4.5/5 because it was a little tough to find but I loved my drink, and the staff were super friendly.

Zabdi Cafe

I had a friend recommend Zabdi to me, and one day we decided to wander over to Eloy Alfaro to give it a try because it was brand new and had just opened about 2 weeks prior. Upon walking in, it had a very modern look to it, some fun art on the walls and cute booths for our little coffee date. It was pretty cool because the moment we sat down, the waiter came up to us and handed us menus as well as two tins full of coffee. He explained to us that they were two different beans and roasts and we could smell them and then pick one to go in our coffee.

We both picked the stronger bean to compliment our drinks. Mine was a bitter chocolate mocha, and my friend's drink was a rose and cardamom latte. They had a non-lactose milk option for me as well. My mocha was the perfect amount of sweet and it complimented the coffee really well. My friend's latte was also delicious (I would say I preffered it) with a subtle floral flavor and sweetness with the coffee still being prominent. They also had a variety of baked goods in their pastry case as well as some other cooked options. We went for a spanish omelette and toast with tomato which was very yummy and we gobbled up.

If I had been in Ecuador for longer, I definitely would have made a couple of trips back here to try some of their other goodies and coffee, but unfortunately this coffee date was just days before my departure. Overall rating 5/5. I have no complaints. The coffee was good, the staff was friendly, the food was good, they definitely made it feel like an experience and I loved getting to pick out my own bean and roast.

Obviously these coffee shops are not everything that Ecuador has to offer, but if you're around the north of Quito, this hopefully gives some guidance as to some options and/or places that you would rather not go. Doing this really forced me to go out of my comfort zone and it was fun for me to go around trying different coffee shops in random little corners of the city. This little experiment was so fun that I think I might even challenge myself to do it when I'm back home in Portland. And I'll probably blog about that too...so stay tuned.

Chao por ahora,

Claire