I’m famous on the Xero blog again! To finish off the year with a nice personal post seeing as most of the rest of Xero is off on holiday in New Zealand or Australia where it’s summer I did a piece on the coffee I’ve had in the States on the trips I’ve been on for Xero in the 4 months since we’ve been here.

It was fun to write and it’s getting a few comments and suggestions which is very pleasing! Take a look – Coffee in the USA.

The one failure of a coffee spot in Austin was Hideout, attached to the Paramount Theatre. It wasn’t one that had been recommended but I’d seen a couple of positive reviews online so put it on the list. It smelled kind of musty when we stepped in so alarm bells should’ve gone off. We should’ve walked out when I saw the cappuccinos had 3 price points. But it was breakfast time and I was getting desperate having walked there from the hotel on an empty stomach.

The coffees were not good. That froth on the top almost made me run from the cafe when I saw it. And it was hotter than the sun. Which it probably needed to be because sheesh the bagels took longer than any bagel I’ve ever asked to be toasted. And then they were hot as the sun as well, with some kind of margarine, not butter. When my cinnamon bagel cooled I was only able to take one bite – it tasted like it was made of stale wholemeal flour. We looked at each other, put our bagels down and walked out. Haven’t had to do that in a while.

Hideout Coffeehouse, 617 Congress Ave, Austin

Visited Frank’s once while we in Austin on the recommendation of my Kiwi associate who used to live in Austin – when we first saw it the day before I wasn’t sure quite how it would have good coffee because it definitely seemed from the outside to be a bar – big flashing arrow signs, hotdogs and it was almost shimmering in the heat struggling to breathe after probably being open all night and was suffering the morning after – there was a rather sticky walk past an abandoned lot to get to it with food trucks shut down after feeding drinking college students the night before.

However, the time we called in for coffee was carefully planned to not coincide with when I needed something to eat so that I had the option of grabbing the coffee and going if it didn’t seem the kind of place to sit and sip coffee with eyes closed to savour the flavour and have a little pastry on the side (who am I kidding, we were in Texas, no little anything let alone pastry!) Anyway, I knew they served Intelligentsia from Chicago and Andy rated it it so in we went on a hot, late Sunday afternoon.

Just as I imagined inside – it was a bar and I’m sure down the back a gaggle of girls were still enjoying their bubbly hen’s do brunch or perhaps function from the night before! There were locals lined up at the bar with plates of eggs and sauce and a few high bar tables in the front – The Mister ordered me a cappuccino to go while I tried to prop myself cowboy style at one of the stools – not so easy when you’re short and don’t have much sense of balance anyway!

Coffee was great! It had balls and was served in the more traditional 5oz cups.

It was perfect drinking temperature so I downed it there on my stool like it was a pitcher of beer and swaggered out – ha ha I’m painting this roadside-bar-like-you’ve-seen-on-the-movies picture here but it was definitely classy if you can apply such a description to a bar. It was to be our only visit – not a suitable breakfast spot because everything was fried with biscuits i.e. savoury scones – although I haven’t yet tried one.

Franks, 4th & Colorado, Austin TX @hotdogscoldbeer

Spent many hours in Caffe Medici in Austin – it was closest to our hotel and fairly new I think. I didn’t have this one on my list of places to visit that I made before we got there but we met a friend of Jif’s on our first day in Austin and he asked if we’d been there – said it was his wife’s favorite place – I figured with them being friends of Jif’s they probably knew what type of coffee he liked. The 2 coffee machines occupying a centre island in the middle of the cafe was a sure sign they were serious about coffee! They made a really decent cappuccino and the baristas talked coffee in the island so it was a great find.

We sat up at the bar both mornings of the conference for a bagel and cappuccino then both days I stayed for a couple of hours using their wifi and doing some work before heading to the conference.

It was so great working there – no pressure to leave. One time I found myself there for a couple of hours across lunch time and they didn’t have much in the way of lunch food (yes the cabinet of pastries and giant cookies) but I did find an organic fruit bar and pot of yoghurt there for lunch – the bar was made by some local brothers (The Bearded Brothers) and tasted pretty good for mushed up dried fruit. I ended up trying 2 of their bars – the coconut mango one was pretty good but the ginger peach one left my mouth numb for a couple of hours – too much ginger!

Caffe Medici, 200 Congress Ave, Austin @caffemedici

Found this cafe after asking someone I follow on Twitter who used to live in Austin for their recommendation. As an ex-pat Kiwi I knew that he’d know what I meant when I asked for decent coffee. The cafe was attached to a huge bicycle shop and training centre, owned by Lance Armstrong I understand. It was on a corner spot, a low rise building in the downtown Austin area, sort of sitting on its own although not surprising that it had a great cafe with coffee fanatics joined to it. After all, that’s what Saturdays Surf in New York is like except replace bikes with surf boards!

There was a touch of New York about the place too with the cafe serving Stumptown coffee – I know it’s from Portland but because we went to Stumptown a lot when we lived in New York and used their beans at home it always reminds me of New York. Again the little glass cabinets of bagels, croissants and other treats and a fantastic outdoor porch area running along the side of the building. It was fairly warm on our first visit and the porch was lovely and sheltered with a gentle warm breeze so we just sat there with our coffee being entertained by a bike commercial that was being filmed out the front and listening to a moody film producer/director on a Skype call with someone – ranting into his computer about what the audience should take from certain scenes – going over how the actor should come through a door and what expressions should be on the faces of the other actors in the room and every now and then he’d break conversation to say “Noisy bird SCRAM” because there were (and all through Austin) these midnight blue birds that made a hell of a noise – a combination of a clicking machine whirring type sound building up to a couple of really loud squawks. No idea what they were.

Anyway, coffee was great and we went back a couple of times!