The French Press – Santa Barbra, CA
By: Dave
Now pay attention, coffee fans, and see if you can’t spot the hidden lesson. One day, the crew was walking around in downtown Santa Barbara, near Figueroa. We came across a shop, Coffee Cat, which was brightly painted, packed full of happy looking customers, and seemed to exude delicious coffee aroma. A cursory glance at the menu shows a wide variety of options, ranging from various kinds of sandwiches to breakfast items.
So with all of this apparent green light happening, what did the brew do? We walked right past Coffee Cat, down to Figueroa and State, and went into the much less brightly painted (and, that day, less crowded) French Press coffee shop. The lesson? Looks can be deceiving. And trust me, one sip of Coffee Cat’s espresso and you would taste deceit in bitter, dark, stomach-churning, mouth burning, acrid tasting liquid form.
Alright, so maybe you didn’t have to look so hard for that lesson, but if you find yourself in Santa Barbara, you need look no further than the French Press for some great coffee! They serve up Verve coffee, and pull their shots from a La Marzocco (the GB5, I believe). Milk is steamed perfectly, shots are delicious and hardly bitter, and the folks behind the counter are very awesome indeed.
My personal favorite part is how their “regular” brewed coffee is prepared. At Starbucks, you get giant thermal carafes filled with paper filter drip coffee. At Element, you get fresh ground pour-over. At the French Press, you get, well, just that! They brew up all of their drip coffee in french presses, which is immediately poured into a thermal container and changed frequently. The cost, effort, and care involved in such a brewing process should be evidence of how much this place cares about their coffee!
As for the shop, there is covered patio space opening right out into gorgeous downtown Santa Barbara, a second larger raised patio out behind the shop, some seating space inside, neat artwork all over the place, and an interesting loft area (inaccessible) with further cool decorations. Besides the regular seating and décor, there is an entire separate store component to the place that is quite neat, a fair-trade market! They sell all kinds of neat nick-knacks like wind-chimes, bowls, decorative cloth objects, and way more!
If you are hungry, they offer your regular café fare – cinnamon rolls, bagles, and what seems to be their trademark, the blueberry buckle (which is delicious)! Other non-coffee items involve a very wide variety of teas, which may all be viewed and/or smelled in display containers that they have on the counter. Last, but far from least, they offer up amazing fresh-squeezed lemonade. Overall, we recommend that you stop by the French Press if you are in, near, or passing through Santa Barbara - you will leave satisfied regardless of what you order!