Mexico City is magnetic. It has this pull you can’t resist. Everyone who’s been here says the same. I am lucky enough to call this home although I don’t live here. And yet, I am back every year like clockwork. My Mexican roots are stong and I am proud to be Mexican Every time I am here, I visit new coffee places. This time, Totte para todos was at the top of my list.
I always rave about Mexico City’s specialty coffee scene because it’s unique. Few other capitals can boast such unique access to coffee producers. Many are just a short drive away. This gives roasters direct access to some of the best coffees the country has to offer. Strangely enough, the world is yet to truly discover Mexican coffee. For now, it remains a well-kept secret.
One morning, I wandered from our house in Polanco down Avernida Reforma. This gigantic street is Mexico City’s most beautiful avenue. One part has huge trees, beautiful flower arrangements, art and architecture. The other part is home to the city’s financial hub, hotels and monuments. Somewhere at the point where the two parts meet, there is Totte. Tucked away in a quiet street. I found it while doing research and was impressed by its countless 5-star reviews.
Where Japanese hospitality meets Mexican specialty coffee
Totte looks like it could be in Tokyo. It has the air of a Japense coffee shop, which is no surprise since the owner, Kento Tanaka, is Japanese. It has a small terrace and some limited seating inside. The bar is where the magic happens. Kento opened Totte in 2023 after previously brewing coffee outside his friend’s Japanese restaurant IDE in Polaco.
Then, he got the opportunity to open his own place in Anzures. Totte is cosy and welcoming. Kento extends Japanese hospitality and his love for coffee to everyone who enters. I struck up a conversation with him and he told me about his journey. After working in coffee in Japan for many years, he decided to move to Mexico. He was fascinated by the culture and the food. He even roasts his own coffee on site.
Apart from perfectly crafted espresso drinks, he also makes killer pour-overs. Many people come especially for that. There is a limited offering of pastries too. They come from his friend’s patisserie Madelaine. His ceramics were made by Caleb G L. Kento even speaks decent Spanish despite having been in Mexico only a few years.
His idea behind Totte is to create a space for everyone. That’s what Totte means in Japanese. As I sat there, I met an English drummer who was chatting to a Mexican guitarist. A Polish tourist and a Mexican regular who works down the street. It is always like this. Coffee attracts people indiscriminately of who they are and where they’re from. I love that. ありがとう、ケント。
]]>Prior to this particular trip, however, I did discover that finally there were some new openings in Polanco that seemed worth checking out, with the name La Caja del Café being mentioned a few times in different articles I scanned.
Traditionally, this part of the Mexican capital is very upmarket and rents were always out of reach for most specialty coffee shop owners, thus the need to head to Roma or Condesa to pick up some good specialty coffee when in town.
Yet, La Caja de Cristal is within easy walking distance of the apartment and some of the major hotels that line a section of Avenida Reforma in Polanco. After taking a much needed shower and grabbing some breakfast with the family, I popped out for a nice morning walk through Polanco’s leafy streets towards Avenida Newton where I found La Caja de Cristal.
The space itself is bright and airy, with lots of wooden elements and a curved bar sporting a Victoria Arduino Eagle One espresso machine alongside a plethora of filter coffee brew methods. After spotting a cake tray with some pastries I used to love as a child, I ordered an ‘oreja’ or ear and a flat white, and took a seat outside at one of the few tables that line the pavement. Great for people watching!
Despite Polance at times being quite hectic, especially around the ‘centrito’ this part of the neighbourhood feels more residential and relaxed. It really needed a good coffee bar to complement the plentiful restaurant and bar options for which Polanco is known.
The name, La Caja de Cristal stands for box of glass, which apparently carried a coffee seedling aboard a ship from Europe to Martinique as coffee first made its way across the Atlantic Ocean. The story is visualised and written out across one of the main walls inside the café, which also doubles as a small coffee roastery.
Strangly enough, the retail bags with beans are sort of hidden on a book shelf high above the roaster where one would not naturally look for them. Allegedly this had to do with the fact that the new branded bags had not yet arrived.
When it comes to the coffees they serve, many of them come from Mexican producers as you might expect, including Finca Hamburgo in Chiapas and Finca Muñeco in Puebla but also some Colombian coffees. According to head barista Rodrigo Zubieta, the owners of La Caja de Cristal had been working on the idea behind this business for just shy of seven years before they finally opened their doors in early 2021.
On the grinder they have a regularly changing offering and I was told that they roast almost every day to have a constant supply of fresh coffee. Alongside the extensive coffee menu there is also a varied food menu including some Mexican classics such as Chilaquiles.
The one thing that I always find curious in Mexican businesses is the sheer amount of waiting staff that seems to be running around with no particular purpose. I had the same feeling in La Caja de Café because at the time of my visit, it was relatively quiet and yet there were at least 6 members of staff standing around.
But, for what it’s worth, it was nice to finally find a local specialty coffee place that is within easy walking distance of my usual hangouts and that seems really keen to offer a broad spectrum of filter methods, from syph0n to Aeropress. Definitely try to swing by if you’re in Polanco.
]]>My boyfriend and I were at Quentin Café’s newish location on Amsterdam in Hipodromo Condesa, one of if not THE loveliest street in the Mexican capital. After almost three weeks of travelling around my homeland with my partner and showing him some of the most beautiful spots in the country, we had one last day in CDMX before heading back to Amsterdam.
Quentin Café is a regular caffeine-refill station for me whenever I am in Colonia Roma (where they have their original location on Calle Alvaro Obregón) and before getting on an 11-hour flight home, I asked Michal if we could pop over to their second outlet in the city.
Luckily, he loves coffee just as much as I do and is easily convinced.
The space itself blends in perfectly with its surroundings and has a lovely concrete façade with beautiful cacti acting as a natural fence towards the street. Right by the door, you’ll find some stools that offer great seating if you just want to have a quick pick-me-up and down a long corridor towards the back, there is a small space with more comfortable seating.
Admittedly, the layout is a bit odd but its unusual design adds to the experience. It was created by French architecture bureau We Are An Event who used a lot of brass, marble and upsidedown monkeys to create a steampunk-meets-planet-of-the-apes vibe that is a welcome change from the often over-used jute bag and live-laugh-love look of many cafés these days.
Quentin’s founders Menachem Gancz and Salo Askenazi set out to create a unique space that would set it apart from other specialty coffee bars in Mexico City, not just with its distinct look and fabulous staff but also with the coffees it serves.
Normally, Mexican cafés focus mostly on showcasing locally grown single-origins but at Quentin, you can also taste coffees from Ethiopia and other origins in an effort to tell a more detailed story of great coffee.
Menachem discovered his love for coffee during a longer trip to Chiapas in the south of Mexico where much of the country’s best coffee is grown. There, Cafeolo taught him a lot about what he knows and armed with that knowledge, he came back to Mexico City to open the first Quentin Café.
Much like the catch of the day in restaurants, at Quentin Café the coffees on the menu change every week according to what’s fresh and delicious and this has won them lots of fans in the city and beyond.
After finishing our coffees, I browsed the selection of beans available on the shelf and decided to take home a bag of Maricela Esperon’s natural-processed Bourbon and Typica coffee that was used during competitions recently.
It was an expensive coffee actually at around $15 for 250g and I thought its profile was a bit too developed but what’s going on in Mexico City’s coffee scene is f***ing exciting and Quentin Café is part of what is fuelling this change.
I can’t wait to go back!
Thanks for reading our review of Quentin Café.
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One of them is a personal favourite of ours; a tiny hole-in-the-wall coffee bar that quickly gained a loyal following even beyond the city’s borders. Alma Negra, Spanish for black soul, is the quirky, friendly local coffee hang out that you wish you had down your own street.
Now, founders Ari and Umberto have opened a second dependance in Roma on a quiet and leafy residential street that originates at Insurgentes Sur and later crosses Avenida Álvaro Obregón. This outlet offers a bit more seating than the original in Colonia Narvarte, but only a bit. The coffee set up is still almost identical to the first outlet, consisting of a La Marzocco GS3, a brew bar and cold drip coffee.
Alma Negra’s coffees, like most Mexican specialty coffee bars, hail from coffee plantations in other Mexican states, reinforcing Mexico’s leading position as one of the world’s most advanced seed to cup trendsetters. On the day of our visit, we decided to cool down with a delicious, refreshing cold drip coffee served ice cold in a small bottle.
As opposed to nearby Buna 42 for example, this place really is all about great coffee, so don’t expect any lavish food options, except a few yummy pastries. But if your black soul needs a top up, then Alma Negra all you will ever need.
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It may seem obvious to trek all the way down here to marvel at her paintings, fashion and more, but for coffee lovers there is another reason come here. Located on a quiet side street of the zocalo, is one of the city’s most fantastic specialty coffee shops, Café Avellaneda. This cozy, coffee shop was one of the firsts in the city to pioneer third wave coffee culture and to roast its own coffees, all of which hail from Mexico.
Mexico is, in fact, one of the world’s only coffee producing countries where its finest crops down automatically get exported, but are increasingly sourced by local coffee roasters who proudly serve home-grown coffees to the local population. At Café Avellaneda, you can get a full experience of some of Mexico’s most delicious coffees, ranging from an exquisite espresso to various filter coffees and ‘tragos’, coffee based cock- and cocktails.
Staff here is an absolute joy and the welcoming bar invites you to linger, strike up a conversation and enter a friendly discussion about which coffee tastes the best. I started my tasting adventure off with a refreshing cold brew tonic served with lemon peel. This was the perfect drink to cool down my body temperature and prepare me for a cup of Café Avellaneda’s Candelara Pequeños from Veracruz state; a truly delicious and excellently roasted coffee that I immediately bought a bag of to take home.
In addition to its coffees, Café Avellaneda also offers really tasty cakes and even stocks the Commandante Grinder, made in Germany. If you happen to be in Coyoacan and you’re done gobbling up Frida’s legacy, make time to wander the streets of this charming neighbourhood, plazas and grab a coffee at Café Avellaneda.
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For a country, that despite being the 7th biggest coffee producer in the world but is only recently waking up to its own potential coffee greatness, Mexico, for the longest time, didn’t know anything other than Nescafé and Starbucks. Thank god for visionary and daring entrepreneurs like Hey! Brew Bar owner Rodrigo Moreno!
The interior is modernist in its heavy use of white and neon letters, but also highly functional. Next to the Victoria Arduino Black Eagle used for pulling espresso shots, there is an elaborate brew bar that truly lives up the coffee shop’s name. A total of four Acaia Pearl scales are built into the counter and used in combination with daily rotating slow brew methods.
Rodrigo explained: ‘The idea here is that we highlight a different brew method every day, using one of our three different single origins, thereby allowing our customers to discover three different taste sensations at a time. Right now we’re focusing on the V60.’
Before I knew it, I had a steaming cup of Hey! Brew Bar’s Nayarit coffee in front of me, waiting to be savoured. Barista Bruno Hergenreder explained: The beans from Nayarit are of the Typica variety and to make this cup we used 20.5g of coffee with 340g of water, blooming it with 25g of water for 25 sec.’
What struck me was the incredible passion and dedication with which every coffee was presented, brewed and explained. Like most other specialty coffee bars in Mexico City, Hey! Brew Bar work only with Mexican coffee growers and Café Sublime in Guadalajara who roast the coffees for them. It’s heartwarming, both philosophically and physically, to see the local coffee scene blossom as it has over the past two to three years. My prediction is that Mexico City will soon be a new coffee Mekka, but until this happens, let’s enjoy this coffee boom quietly.
Out of beans? Visit our brand new online shop and buy beans directly from some of our most favourite roasters. World wide shipping available on many products!
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Located just one street away from Mexico’s gorgeous Avenida Reforma, Chiquitito Café 2 certainly serves a different clientele than its older sibling. Surrounded by embassies, hotels, office towers and many government agencies, Chiquitito Café 2 is a refreshing alternative to omnipresent Starbucks and greasy spoon diners in an area that is heavily frequented by blue collar workers, tourists and diplomats.
Owners Jeremy Clouser and Cecilia Morales-Ojeda source their coffees from a finca in Veracruz state, where the coffees are also roasted to order. Over a cup of coffee, Jeremy shared with me: ‘Here in Mexico City, going to Starbucks is still considered, by many, a kind of status symbol. But the people who frequent our cafés consider us to be more of a status symbol based on their own personal choices; i.e. traveling, buying organic food, wearing local designers, cycling around town and so on.’
Indeed, Chiquitito Café in one of a handful of Mexican specialty coffee bars that showcases what really great Mexican coffee can taste like. For a country that is the world’s 7th biggest coffee producer, Mexicans, for the longest time, only ever had the choice between Nescafé and American style coffee. And, despite the country’s proud food and drink heritage, its finest coffees were almost always exported.
In recent years however, things have started to change, for the great benefit of local coffee growers, baristas and coffee drinkers. As Mexico City continues to build its own, unique specialty coffee scene, it is places like Chiquitito Café and its fellow coffee bars that are making an impact.
Out of beans? Visit our brand new online shop and buy beans directly from some of our most favourite roasters. World wide shipping available on many products!
In fact, it looks more like some galactic surgeon performed a complex operation that resulted in a slice of San Francisco’s Valencia Street being implanted straight into the upper body of the Mexican capital.
Dosis, a welcoming and tastefully decorated coffee bar on Avenida Alvaro Obregon, is in my honest opinion, the kind of coffee bar that Mexico City’s specialty coffee scene needed to set an example for others to emulate.
Founded by Mary Entebi and Abraham Dichi, who maintain links with San Francisco (aha!), Dosis offers a nice mix of casual coffee bar, meeting place and cultural events forum.
The main part of the shop consists of a sizeable counter with top notch coffee making equipment, including a La Marzocco Strada, various filter coffee brew methods and a nitro tap, while the seating arrangement offers communal as well as individual tables, and one random hammock.
Like most other specialty coffee shops in the Mexican capital, Dosis also works exclusively with Mexican coffee growers, an element of the Mexican coffee scene that sets it far apart from other countries and, in my honest opinion, makes it one of the most exciting in the world. Their drip and cold brew coffee is a Maraogogype from Chiapas state, while the espresso is a Xilotepec from Oaxaca state.
Bar manager Asael Cortes advised me, after I spent a good five minutes contemplating what dosis to order (ha!), to try their signature cold brew with a shot of almond milk. It was both refreshing and delicious and just what I needed on a hot day like this.
At the back, there is a separate space that Dosis intends to use for cultural evenings such as movie nights with three screens, small handicraft markets and private events, making this location even more attractive to a broader spectrum of customers.
What I liked the most about it was its easy going attitude, coupled with excellent customer service and truly great coffee that shines the light on Mexico’s fast growing specialty coffee production and preparation. And, as I was told, their cronuts are the bomb!
Out of beans? Visit our brand new online shop and buy beans directly from some of our most favourite roasters. World wide shipping available on many products!
However, after some time, I got word that Lalo Perez Varona and his fellow founders wanted to focus more on the roasting and distribution part than on running a hospitality arm. Fair enough. Having a café is hard work but after the guys had already closed their first coffee shop El Tercer Lugar, Buna 42 would really leave a gap.
Luckily, they didn’t go away completely. Part of the space is now occupied by a wine bar-cum-eatery while the other section is now home to a cute Buna espresso bar.
The coffee quality here is still the same and the coffees on offer continue to shine but apart from some outdoor seating, it’s no longer the type of coffee bar that invites you to linger. It’s a take away joint and that’s it.
While in Mexico recently, I heard that Buna now served food at its roastery in Colonia Doctores. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise given that years ago Lalo gave me a tour of the rooftop where they were already growing all sorts of vegetables and herbs.
For now, this little espresso bar continues to showcase the fine coffees that Buna works and it’s a great little place to stop and refuel if you are venturing from Colonia Roma to Colonia Juarez.
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Founded by coffee fans Ari and Umberto, Alma Negra is one of the first specialty coffee spots in the south of the capital, away from Colonia Roma and Condesa. The place itself is extremely friendly and the small size of the bar invites you to watch the baristas at work while they make you one of their signature drinks. I was offered the Gibraltar, which is technically a Cortado.
Next to their own beans from Oaxaca, Guerrero and Nayarit states they also feature guest roasters like Huckleberry Coffee Roasters from Denver and they’re always looking for great new coffees to include in their offering. Interestingly I was also told that a lot of customers order filter coffees, which is a sign that people in the city are embracing great coffee in all of its beautiful ways.
The guys at Alma Negra are as passionate about coffee as you can possibly be and it’s great to see this cute coffee bar make its mark. Although the area itself is mostly residential and lacks major sights, it’s a pleasant place to wander around and feel like you’re a local too.
