Leila

• Began her day at 6 am with a hangover, a full bodum of coffee, and a French exam.
• Seems to have little awareness of her surroundings, but retains high spirits.

Sarah (narrator)

• Has ingested no coffee, and feels pretty okay.
• Has not informed the other participants that she turns into a giant bitch after too much coffee.

Dana

• Has ingested no coffee.
• Seems distracted and angry.
• Repeatedly insists on being referred to as “THE MOUTH.”
• Describes her state as “Fresh off a bender, and feeling good!”

I meet Leila and Dana at our first stop, the Elysian Room on Burrard. We have four hours and seven coffee shops to invade and conquer. No one has slept well, and sixty-six percent of us are hungover. In the upcoming afternoon, we must venture from Kits to downtown to Commercial on bicycles, ingest almost thirty shots of espresso between us, and get home intact. Can we do it? Leila looks steadily into my eyes, clutching her glass of water. “Let’s get crunk.” Dana and I don’t know what this means, but we are totally in. High fives all around.

The Elysian Room h3. Where We Discover The Kenyan Gazelle

Long ago, I worked here for one entire day. I was not allowed to touch anything coffee-related, and this angered me. I went for the steam wand once and I think they almost spanked me. Had I possessed more patience, I would now make a damn fine cup of coffee, and have developed my own extreme levels of anal retention about espresso. The high quality of the coffee in every place we will visit today is a result of one thing: obsession. Deep, neurotic obsession. Despite this, the staff at the Elysian Room are genuinely friendly and outwardly relaxed. They also play great music (Bishop Allan and Cat Power). We order a double espresso, a small latte, and a Kenyan drip coffee from the Clover machine, which we instantly label “The Kenyan Gazelle.” I am not sure why. The latte comes first, with a beautiful heart design and consistent, lofty milk. To get proper taste distribution in a latte, the milk must be steamed into a tight “micro-bubble lattice” as the coffee nerds call it. This is different from the scooping of thick steamed milk on top of the cup, and involves a lot of skill in steaming, including something called “the whirling vortex.” Good milk holds its form, tastes sweet and can be teased into art. The espresso is preceded by a glass of water, to cleanse the palate. It has good crema, a strong and bitter start, and a nice sweet finish. Dana finds it a bit too bitter, but she never drinks espresso straight, so we make fun of her and move on to the Clover coffee. Leila and I swoon, having never tasted drip so fresh and flavourful. It is fruity enough to compare to wine, smooth beyond belief, and perfectly extracted in the one-cup-at-a-time style of the Clover. If you have never seen a Clover in action, it looks like a spaceship, and turns drip coffee into a treat. Dana is a bit more reserved. “I find this inoffensive,” she says, pointing to the mug. Leila and I make fun of her again and head out.

Wicked Café h3. Where Sarah’s Cover Is Blown

We walk in to a big line-up and the sounds of Curtis Mayfield, which makes the line-up totally okay. We order an espresso and a soy latte. Leila claims she is already feeling over-caffeinated. On the way here, she slapped the bike signal at the crosswalk like twenty times, and it made that irritating bird noise over and over again, and now she is bouncing her legs up and down for no reason.† The shot of espresso is quite light and smooth—a blend from Chicago’s Intelligentsia—which the barista explains is only three days old. This means the flavours will deepen in a few days, producing a fuller shot. Still, it tastes smoother than the Elysian Room’s shot. This might have something to do with the barista, Arthur, who I have seen at competitions and coffee events. Oddly enough, he recognizes me first. “Hey, were you at the Canadian Barista Championship? I think I saw you there,” he says. I am easily flattered. Arthur scores big points for Wicked.

Caffé Artigiano h3. Where Dana Has Trouble With a Bird

The line at Artigiano makes Wicked look like an empty field. We can barely hear Fleetwood Mac under the sound of eight baristas and a zillion business executives. Everyone is caffeinated to the point of insanity. A lot of weird things happened here. The guy pouring the milk made a happy face, and a swan, and let us take pictures. A bird shat on Dana as she sat outside drinking the latte with the swan on it. It was at that point that she stopped making us refer to her as THE MOUTH, and entered the “sullen and withdrawn” stage of over-caffeination. The latte is amazing, and the espresso, pretty good. I’ve had better there, and get the sense that the insane pace sometimes gets to the baristas. Too bad, considering the perfect shots I’ve had there before. After Artigiano, we decide to soak up the caffeine at Japadog. For those of you not familiar with Japadog, it is like a hot dog stand but about a million times better. You can get miso mayonnaise and seaweed spread over a turkey dog for five bucks, and be totally full for four hours. Burrard and Seymour. Yum.

Commercial Drive h3. In Summary

We hop on our bikes and race across town, buzzing on a combined sixteen shots of espresso. I pass Leila at an insane pace on Pacific Blvd. and ride in circles around the Science World parking lot. Leila runs a total of three red lights and catches up. Dana is still sullen, and lags behind. Out of breath, we stumble into the Bump n’ Grind at Commercial and Venables. The barista pulls an amazing shot out of their spotless Synesso machine, and we swoon over its depth. It is served properly, with a glass of water—something we haven’t seen since the Elysian Room. They obviously run a tight ship around here, with the freshest beans from 49th Parallel (a Vancouver roastery), a well-kept and cleaned machine, and thoroughly trained staff. We can’t quite decide if the espresso is best described as “a kick in the pants” or “a kick in the face.” Dana steps in, claiming she doesn’t feel kicked, she feels soothed. This is the only shot of espresso THE MOUTH has liked so far. Next stop is Continental Coffee at Commercial and 2nd. This is the only stop on our tour that roasts all their own beans, and for this they get mad props. However, I am a sucker for a smooth, creamy shot, and this one tasted slightly bitter, perhaps too dark for my tastes. The others agree, although we appreciate the thick crema, friendly atmosphere, and the only good espresso so far under two dollars. We crawl into Prado for a final round. Leila is at the bar ordering our shots already, but Dana has been lost to a furniture store somewhere along the way. Our team appears to be wearing at the seams. For the record, one member of our team works here, and therefore secures preferential treatment from the barista who scoots off to prepare the most indulgent beverages we can think of––a moccha, a breve macchiato (a double shot of espresso with a dollop of steamed cream), and of course, a regular old espresso. A few minutes later, Erin, the barista, pulls out the most beautiful moccha I have ever seen. The espresso is very sweet and spicy in a way I have never tasted before—quite nice. Prado and the Bump n’ Grind, in my humble opinion, win for best espresso. Prado’s is distinctly lighter, as opposed to the Bump n’ Grind’s “kick in the pants/face.” Our task was complete. We sat, sweating involuntarily, in the corner. After 28 shots of espresso and a few cups of drip, we could barely keep our shit together long enough to string a sentence together. Leila managed to say, “I WANT MORE JAPADOG,” and then wandered down the street to her bed. I felt pretty okay until I got home and had to sit in a room by myself, which was scary.

Note: our coffee nerds debated visiting both Re-Entry (Main and 28th) and Soma (Main and 8th), but decided they were too far off the coffee trajectory. They were later visited casually, and deemed worthy. Especially Re-Entry, who serves tiny cookies.