Java, the Hunt

Welcome to my hunt for the best Americano on the Westside of Los Angeles.

First, for those of you who don’t know, an Americano is a style of coffee prepared by adding hot water to espresso, giving a similar strength but different flavor from regular drip coffee.

The strength of an Americano varies with the number of shots of espresso and the amount of water added.

I enjoy everything about this drink. It has to be made fresh to order and when it’s made right, the combination of the taste and smell are everything coffee is supposed to be.

The rest of my entries will each be dedicated to local coffee shops, but I decided to use this first one as the basis for comparison by discussing my feelings about the Americano available at the coffee shops we all know. My views on Starbucks and Coffee Bean are so similar that they can be combined, though they both do a great job on blended coffee drinks — their Americanos leave much to be desired. They are bitter and require a huge amount of cream and sugar to even be tolerable. As far as chain coffee shops go, Peet’s is definitely the best of the worst and comes the closest to getting it right, I think it has something to do with the way they blend their beans.

Now that you know where to get a mediocre Americano, let the real search begin…

(this has been part one, in an on-going series about my hunt for the best Americano on the Westside of Los Angeles)