Michigan || Cass Corridor

Old Miami is a bar for the misunderstood.

Its name isn't a reference to Florida...that would be weird, since the bar is located in Detroit's infamous (but rapidly gentrifying) Cass Corridor. "Miami" is an acronym standing for "missing in action Michigan," Uncle Sam's shorthand for the local boys who never made it back from Vietnam.

Old Miami is a hangout for their brothers, their friends and their favorite musicians. Actually, the bar's name could just as easily refer to the lengthy and now-legendary absence of Sixto Rodriguez, the philosophy student-turned-protest singer who got screwed over by Sussex Records and absconded from the music scene, turning up only occasionally to run for public office.

Coincidentally, Old Miami was established right about the time that Rodriguez was (unknown to him) becoming a superstar in South Africa. Four years after his second failure to get on the ballot for mayor, he found himself on the Internet, and discovered that he had been a platinum-selling rock legend for the past 18 years.

Despite a nearly nonstop touring schedule, Rodriguez hasn't lost his zeal to work on behalf of the working man. He ran again for mayor in 2013; Old Miami led the charge in collecting signatures to get him on the ballot.

(They also sold tshirts that read "Viva Sixto!" and "We Want a Philosopher King"--somebody please tell me if you know where I can get one of those shirts.)

Some might call his campaign unsuccessful. Rodriguez, as you might expect, doesn't see it that way:

"The thing is, it's a struggle, and it's continuing. But I think that we are ready to struggle."

Gerti at the Downtown Market

Gerti loved the jacket I bought from her today at the Downtown Market--it's just like one that she had in 1962, the year she left her village outside Munich to come to the US. 

The old styles are coming back, she says, and she should know. There's nowhere better in all the country to get gorgeous secondhand threads at madly affordable prices than Asheville's DTM. 

This week is, of course, the busiest in the year, with people cobbling together fabulous Halloween costumes from the miles of vintage lace, leather, sequins and silk. 

Quality Establishments || Asheville, Nc.

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina I'd heard that, since my last visit to Asheville, my heroes the Buchi Mamas had opened a taproom somewhere in town.

That didn't surprise me, but the rest of the changes to the town did.

Despite having called it last time I was there—“This place is going to be the next Portland,” I told my friends—I was sort of overwhelmed by the spruced-up appearance of the streets and the number of new businesses they were sporting. The January air is warm and fuggy with the smell of hops, thanks to all the microbreweries that have taken root here during the past year. And Lower Lexington, formerly a slow skid down into the gutter of Haywood, is now a well-groomed avenue of bookstores, ethnic restaurants, off-kilter boutiques and, of course, taprooms.

At the end of the street, just past a dive bar and a mural of Lou Reed, is the sign I was looking for.

Buchi taproom, Asheville, North Carolina

The interior has both the glow of novelty and the patina of an institution, with the bone structure of a Belle Epoque brasserie softened by earthy boheme. Drippy bromeliads splay against the wall. Stickers festoon the veiny oak panels, saying things like "Duke: Clean Up Your Coal Ash."

The zinc-topped bar is surrounded by artists, hippies with varying degrees of hygiene, homeschoolers, energetic freelancers in search of a healthy buzz, plus the usual Asheville suspects with their neo-barbaric vestments and denticulate ear jewelry. Every variety of kombucha drinker, in fact, except for the desperate housewife in full makeup and yoga pants.

If such a thing even exists in Asheville, this kombucha would not be their thing. This is true bohemian brew, made from mountain soul and native roots, spiked with quality liquor,  flavored by the contents of age-obscured brown bottles that line the back wall: Blue Blaze soda syrup, McCutcheon's preserves, Plantation molasses, mason jars of vinegar, dried chiles, powdered herbs.

Coffee shops make me antsy; bars make me lazy; this place makes me want to bring my computer and a stack of books and stay forever. And I’m not just saying that because three of my all-time favorite kombuchas are on tap.

…I’m not.

There’s just a good energy in this joint, exuberant and grounded, passionate and meditative all at once.

Then in walks Mike Numinous, and the good energy goes to eleven.

Mike, Asheville North Carolina

It was Mike who set up my interview with the Buchi Mamas last year. We talked on the phone a few months later, when he followed up to make sure I had all the information I needed.

What actually happened was that he spent a good forty-five minutes encouraging me in my work. He waxed eloquent about the greatness of living with passion and intention, carving out a way of life that was in harmony with my desires and seeking to give back to others of my true self. That, he said, made me part of the Buchi community.

...And that's how you inspire brand loyalty, folks.

By the time we got to Asheville, I was planning a visit to the Buchi taproom before I'd even set down my bags.

Buchi taproom, asheville north carolina

Mike has clear green eyes and tousled chestnut hair, and is the kind of young man that gets described as “strapping.” He moves with an easy confidence and uses phrases like “mega dank” and “weaksauce.” (NB: the first is a compliment, the other is a disparagement.)

He sits down with us and orders a kombucha flight—all five Buchi blends from the tap, arranged in tall narrow glasses around a five-point star etched into the wooden tray.

Buchi taproom, asheville north carolina

I'm trying to restrain my greed out of respect for Bryan, who is trying Buchi for the first time. As I wait for him to finish daintily sipping from his pint of Sovereign (one of Buchi's new Intentional series), I'm getting tipsy on my "free spirit" cocktail, a sort of whiskey sour made with Bulleit bourbon and Buchi Fire. Between the booze and the ginger and the kombucha's natural headiness, the drink has a dangerous grumble for which the cayenne punch acts as a merciful release valve.

Yes, I'm getting a little tipsy, and Mike is doing nothing to curb my resultant grandiloquence. A natural poet and part-time "atmosphere rapper," he flings five-dollar words into the conversation the way a day trader leaves gratuities on a Saturday night.

Buchi has always had a distinct voice wrapped around their bottles. That voice, I realize now, is Mike's. It's lofty like a cathedral ceiling and warm like hand holding out a match flame, and it's looking way farther off into the distance than most eyes are willing to reach.

This last bit--the visionary part--is the part where Mike's voice becomes inseparable from Buchi's.

"This mantra came to me recently: I'm the vibe of my tribe."

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina

The Buchi tribe embodies the original Latin sense of "cult": a place of careful and intentional nurture. Mike says that half the company's workforce lives on the 180-acre property in the hills around their brewery, which used to be a wine distribution warehouse before they turned it into the first commercial brewery in the southeast and scaled up production with the help of a low interest loan from Whole Foods Market’s Local Producer Loan Program.

All the workers fulfill specific community roles in addition to their kombucha-specific jobs. For example, Buchi's CFO Jeff Buscher also serves as the community's master builder, using his renowned green architecture expertise to plan out the larger community Buchi envisions creating in the next 5-10 years. Company co-founder Jeannine (one of the Buchi Mamas) not only oversees brewery operations but also co-directs Avonlea Learning Community, the magical little schoolhouse that stands at the foot of the property.

Buchi Avonlea, school supplies, asheville, north carolina

The property sort of sprawls against the side of a hill, with the schoolhouse at the bottom and the brewery at nearly the top. The brewery is earth-bermed on three sides...meaning built into the side of the hill so that the building is much more energy efficient, and easier to keep at constant temperature.

The front hallway has a kitchen area at one end--complete with a four-tap keg--and a warren of shelves at the other, where festival/event supplies are kept. Just beyond is the bottling room, which has allowed the brewery to scale to producing 1,900 gallons a week and bottling for over 700 retailers.  This elevated capacity came in particularly handy during the great kombucha scandal of 2006.

(Mike enlightened us about that, by the way. It wasn't Lindsay Lohan. It was a FDA inspector in Maine who had a stick up his ass...my words, not Mike's.)

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina

The first lineup of Buchi flavors was the Elements series--Air, Water and Earth (my personal favorite). A year later, they began work on their Intentional series, meant to embody the values around which their community was taking spontaneous shape.

Of these, my favorite is Seed, a flavor you can only get from Whole Foods because it was developed as part of their local producer loan program. Bryan, however, likes Avonlea, which has raised over $3,000 in its first year to help add enrichment programs for the school. We compromise on taking home a case of Sovereign, a ginger-peach-molasses brew that has a little bit of cream soda flavor deepened by spices and extracts native to the Katuah bioregion.

This brings up another part of Buchi's signature ethos: disdaining flavors that bear simple description. You'll never find a Buchi "Grape" or "Super Greens." Each flavor has a familiar anchor--they like to let people be able to say "it kind of tastes like elderberry soda" or "it's similar to an old-fashioned root beer"--but it's important that it not taste quite like anything else out there.

This is particularly important as kombucha is the fastest growing segment of the US beverage industry, with an artisanal cachet that rivals craft beer and a health value quickly surpassing that of cold-pressed juice. The market is getting swamped with carpetbagging brewers whose business practices are as inferior as their product.

This makes it a delicate time for Buchi's own growth--it's their opportunity to set the pace for other brewers. Jeff the master builder said it this way: "We don't want to be the biggest; we just want to be the best." To stay true to their kombucha, Buchi has to become a lot more than just something to drink.

Fortunately, that's something they were already working on.

Buchi taproom, asheville, north carolina

We stand on the side of the hill at the top of a switchback trail, looking out over the roof the brewery into the rose-tinged skeletal treeline that hedges the land. Lights are coming on in the houses below. The air is thick and still, the cold warmed by the pulse of surrounding life.

These are some of the oldest mountains in the world. They are said to generate the kind of vibration normally only found in the Amazon wilds. And at this time of day, watching the hills' tawny blondes and greens fade to rose, brown and black as lights appear, one by one, in the houses below, it's as easy to feel these vibrations as it is to believe in the mountain legends of "little folk" and the healing powers of vortices.

We all fall quiet, and I fear it's going to get awkward. But it doesn't. What falls is the feeling you get from passing a bowl of food in a foreign country; you might not all taste the same thing, but what lingers is the warm sensation of shared abundance.

Mike at Buchi Compound, asheville, north carolina

We all know that when it comes to brand-building, sharing and social profit is so hot right now. For Buchi, it's been a cornerstone of their business ever since it outgrew the Buchi Mamas' kitchens. The company is committed to providing both seed money and guidance to their employees' outside ventures. They go the extra mile to support like-minded producers around the country (Numi tea, Gaia herbs and Mountain Rose herbs are essential components in every bottle of Buchi). They work tirelessly to achieve B Corporation certification. And each flavor in their Intentional series shares profits with a paired social cause, from food security to protecting the rights of artisanal food producers.

And then there's the on-the-ground ethic of sharing. Things like choosing local and independent distributors, developing an on-site food pantry for employees, and buying or giving away product whenever possible. Mike himself was roped into the tribe by one of these "Random Acts of Buchi"--he left a health fair in Knoxville, Tn. with a 24-pack of kombucha and an invitation to visit the farm in Asheville.

Ever since college, Mike had crossed the country looking for an organization where his talents and ambitions aligned. That visit to the Buchi farm sealed his conviction--it felt like something between Narnia and summer camp. He immediately came home and penned an impassioned application letter to the Buchi Mamas.

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina

In a brand so focused on sharing, Mike is definitely the guy you want on the front line. From buying Buchis for the people behind him in line at the co-op, to filling us a growler with the last of the Holiday keg (this year's was particularly good), to performing a spoken word poem inspired by his tenure as part of the Buchi tribe, he communicates a message that goes way beyond the bottle.

"Most people want a cohesive integrated life, and they haven't quite figured out how to do that in combination with capitalism. If somebody asked what the beating heart of Buchi is, it's an experiment to see how we can train compassion and commerce to work together. Our community is mach 1 of that. And it's a pretty damn good start."

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina

It's rare to find a company, let alone a person, whose ideals truly transcend their product.

It's equally rare to find a community where members are held together less by what they do than why they do it.

I don't know when we'll end up in Asheville again--I hope it's soon--but until we get there, we'll be spreading the Buchi love everywhere we go, and joining them in the quest to make life a little more delicious.

Buchi brewery, asheville north carolina

Find Buchi in a store near you. (Or else get them there.) Keep up with the Buchi blog. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

See more.

Quality Establishments || Carved

Remember how Facebook was supposed to usurp the Internet? Few things occasion me such unadulterated schadenfreude as the failure of that scheme. Especially when I find platforms built for goals far less lofty taking precedence over even Facebook's primary uses. Instagram, for instance, which has led me to not just new friends but chance meetings with old ones, work collaborations, couches to sleep on, new favorites in music, coffee, and cocktails, and now...and now...

THIS^.

Oh, and this...

Tribal phone case, Carved, elkhart indiana

And this!

Wild West phone case, Carved, elkhart indiana

If you haven't already, meet Carved.

They are a woodworking outfit based in Elkhart, Indiana, a modest little burg of about 51,000 souls, situated near the Michigan border, named for a Shawnee Indian chief who was cousin of Tecumseh.

They make smartphone skins and cases out of sustainably sourced wood, hand-finished and souped up with precision laser cut graphics.

I stumbled across them through Instagram; seduced by the goods, charmed by their hometown pride, I sent them an admiring email and heard back almost right away from Alex, who was the company's very first hire (back in 2011) and now gets to draw and doodle for a living. (He also handles retail and wholesale sales.)

Alex studied art a little in high school and college, but his hustle to get married dictated his career choice toward the most expedient option:

"I made dentures before this. I had heard that dentures was a good job for artists, that there's a lot of art involved." [diplomatic pause] "There's...some? Not a lot of room for creativity."

Three years into his oral beautification career, Alex was attending a friend's bachelor party and fell into conversation with the bride-to-be's brother, a guy named Grant Sassaman. They hit it off over their taste in music, and started hanging out. Then Grant got involved with Elkhart native and inveterate entrepreneur John Webber, to start this business making solid wood smartphone cases...at that point, a market with very little competition. They approached Alex to join them; to his father-in-law's chagrin, he said yes.

That was three years ago. Since then, Alex's father-in-law has fully embraced the career change, which Alex speaks of with a certain dazed bliss in his voice:

"It's a huge change: from stress to the can't-wait-to-come-in-on-Monday-morning kind of idea."

Though, he adds, the best days are Friday, when the company goes out for lunch or takes the opportunity afforded by the approaching weekend to play pranks on each other.

"One of my favorite pranks: we were going to start recycling cardboard...and to launch that, we were going to pull a prank on Bryan. He's really nice, soft-spoken, keeps to himself. So we were going to have him take out the cardboard--he didn't know about the switchover. I was waiting in the dumpster, and of course, you can kind of fill in the blank. He throws it in, I pop up, and I say 'Recycle!' I just yell it really loud. He freaks out a little bit. The next punch line...there's two...I point him over to the next bin, 'you recycle over there,' he walks over there, and there's another guy hiding in the cardboard container and he jumps out and says 'Thanks for recycling!'"

Not all the pranks, he adds, are that creative. A chestnut was putting tape over the water faucet, in anticipation of Grant's entrance:"He eats oatmeal on his way in, every morning, and rinses his bowl in the sink. We were all just hiding out in the building, like little girls. He doesn't react very much, but we started busting up really hardcore.

"More recently, we've gotten into long-range rubber band shooting."

Along with designs by resident artists among the company's 9 full-time employees, Carved combines forces with independent artists to offer cases with a wider range of art and story. One of these artists is Alex's wife, the lovely Emily Jane, who reworks modern technology into old-fashioned objets d'art as sweet and stylish as her vintage name:

Emily Jane phone case, Carved, elkhart, indiana

In its three short years, Carved has been assailed with press, from indie blogger types to bands to Esquire, Gizmodo, and others of that ilk. As you might expect, it's brought the big money calling.

"We've had some opportunities to grow the business  really big, really fast," Alex acknowledges. "But they were a little too demanding. If we decide to go that route, we'd have to lose a lot of personal touch with our customers. We want to be smaller, sort of local, that niche product that's really something special."

Something really special like, say, a bespoke design inspired by life on the road. Mm hm--that's happening. I sent Carved a whole heap o' thoughts and ideas today, and I'll keep you posted on its progress. And, you better believe, will brag like hell when it's finished.

(In reality, I'm not that special...you can have a custom Carved case, too. All you have to do is ask for one.)

Skateboard phone case, Carved, elkhart indiana

Along with being sleek, streamlined, and remarkably durable (Alex says they've had multiple reports of phones dropped on concrete and picked up with both phone and case intact...including his own phone dropping out of his bike caddy), the artistry on a Carved case is attracting the attention of veteran woodworkers, who stop by to peruse the merchandise and talk shop.

"The age range of our audience is really big. People that don't even know how to use computers are into our stuff. It's not just teenagers trying to dress up their phone; it's a lot of wood enthusiasts. And just people who want something unique."

Alex comes originally from Goshen, one town over, notable mainly as one of the first towns in the region that buffed out the suburban corporate culture of the '90s, and made an effort to "bring downtown back," as he puts it.

"Downtowns are so cool. I really like them," he muses, smiling audibly. "I feel like with this business, it's pushing Elkhart in that similar direction. It's just been incredible, working here."

wood map, Carved, elkhart indiana

Carved makes solid wood skins and cases for all manner of smartphones and other devices. 

You can order directly through their website or their Etsy shop. Also, follow their Twitter, Facebook and...OBviously...Instagram for product updates, contests and giveaways.

 

Best and Worst || Phoenix, Az.

Dominick, phoenix, arizona

Dominick, like most people you meet in Phoenix, is not from here. But he's even more not from here than average. He was born in the UK and spent enough of his childhood there that he retains an accent...when he's not masking it--expertly, I might add--in order to avoid having to tell every customer at the Public Market Cafe bar where he comes from, how long he's been here, etc.

For a moment, he went ahead and gave his British accent the leash, for my benefit, and suddenly his whole pale, buttoned-up, bespectacled thing took on an arresting exoticism.

But then he swerved back into an untraceable American accent, one that he learned pretty quickly after moving to Kalamazoo, Mi. when he was 10. In addition to sharing my familiar loathing of the city of Flint (where he went to play "basement venues" during his musical adolescence, and enjoyed both his first 40 and his first fistfight) and my affinity for whiskeys sour, he agreed with me that Phoenix's greatest virtue is the way it makes lemonade from its 125°F lemons.

Public Market Cafe, whiskey sour, phoenix, arizona

What's the best thing about living in Phoenix?

"You have this gentle rebellion that's happening currently: we are victims of urban sprawl; let's just try not to participate in it any longer.

"Currently, at the present moment, there are a bunch of people, ranging in age from 13 to 58, living in the shadow of their grandparents (because Phoenix is the retirement capital of the world). Everyone here had to suffer the infrastructure of old people. A CVS and Walgreens on every corner, block housing, you're worried about breaking a hip (that's why there is no pedestrian lifestyle).

"And also, as far as legislation and politics, this was a very old person's state. It was a red state. But when grandma and grandpa live close to them, mom and dad had babies, and babies discovered the internet and were like 'You know what? Bike sharing!' they started wearing funny clothes, girls got short haircuts and boys got long haircuts…shit got weird."

dominick, public market cafe, phoenix, arizona

What's the worst thing about living in Phoenix?

"One of the hardest things about being here is that there's like an identity problem. Assume Phoenix to be a 15- or 14-year-old in high school, at career day. Phoenix has no idea what it wants to be. Everyone's on the same team to make Phoenix better, but everyone has an opinion about what that is. There's not really like a cohesive movement. It's like the Occupy thing, but for cultural identity. 'This is totally happening!' [He raises a power fist.] '...What is it, though?'"

"Whatever it is you want to do, you'll pull it off. Like if you're a musician, you'll have no problem getting a band together or booking shows. You have the Lost Leaf, the Rhythm Room, and the Crescent Ballroom--those are the three venues for live music. If I started a band, I guarantee the first show my band played would be at the Crescent Ballroom. The ladder to the top is really short. But after that... If you put the time in to get something done, you're going to get the reward, but there's no longevity to it."

Macaron, public market cafe, phoenix, arizona

Visit Phoenix's Public Market Cafe for astonishingly worthwhile riffs on classic cocktails, and a number of my other favorite things, including French macaron cookies and sparkling water on tap. Come say hi...odds are good that I'll be there.

Quality Establishments // Morristown, New Jersey

Woodworker Mickey McCann has learned that exquisite craftsmanship lies within a balance between taking your time, and knowing when to stop.

mickey's workshop [24]

The Leavenworth, KS suburb where Mickey grew up was still under construction for much of his boyhood. He and his friends used to scavenge the area for plywood and scraps--"we were always finding things to build things out of."

After spending four years of extracurricular hours at the St. John's College woodshop, Mickey and his wife Ettie moved to Fort Bragg to attend College of the Redwoods, which has an offshoot program for cabinetry and furniture making. It was started by James Krenov

"In the 70s, this guy--James Krenov--started it under the umbrella of the community college so he could get funding and accreditation. It's technically part of the community college, but it's separate. Separate building, separate application."

The woodworking program is very small, only accepting 25 people per year. An invitation to attend for a second year is offered to only five of the best students.

"I got lucky," Mickey insists. "Everybody that goes there is pretty good."

mickey's workshop [9]

After two years in California, Mickey and Ettie moved back to Morristown, New Jersey, to be closer to her family. After a few years of working side jobs, he's gone into partnership with another College of the Redwoods grad. They inhabit a space on Speedwell Avenue, behind the doctor's office where his wife Ettie works. From the outside, it looks like a garage or storage unit--white clapboard walls, flat roof.

Inside, it's something between Santa's workshop and a robber's cave, but with a steampunk flair from the numerous machines of formidable size and utilitarian contours, with a pink patina and logos that speak to their venerable age.

"People always wander in and they're like 'What is this place?' I think people are sort of intimidated by all the machinery and stuff around--they're freaked out when they open the door and a roaring table saw is going. I try to make it a warm environment--I want people to be sort of pleasantly surprised when they walk in."

To that end, most of the machines are set back against the walls or abutting the room's stone columns, creating a sort of sight tunnel toward the back, where Mickey and his colleague John work on their projects' finer details. When I show up, Mickey is staining a round table base with a flannel cloth, while John is hammering hardware of his own invention to fit a bureau drawer.

john's keyhole, mickey's workshop [27]

They get a fair amount of work from New York City--in particular, there is a furniture shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn that sends a lot of projects their way. Mickey also contracts with the cobbler up the street, refinishing shoe heels and purse handles. (Ettie confides to me that he works with a lot of Gucci.)

"It's a good neighbor situation. They're happy to have me down there because sometimes there are jobs they just wouldn't be able to do."

The biggest service he can provide, that really makes a difference to people, is restoring the shine to their well-used.

"Wood finishing is this big mystery to a lot of people. If you can make it shiny, about 90% of your problems are solved."

He chuckles.

"Shiny shit sells."

marquetry box, mickey's workshop [23]

For his own projects, he specializes in marquetry. He made Ettie a cherrywood box for their anniversary with a magnolia tree inlaid on the lid in walnut, rosewood, holly, and maple. Shiny it is, and exquisite.

"I notice little details that I really think are cool. A lot of the time, it's some tiny part of some little, old thing--the shape of a handle on something...I like to think I sort of tuck that away and don't forget about it."

virgil, mickey's workshop [5]

He and Ettie, and their son Virgil, live in an old carriage house in the Mount Tabor, just outside Morristown, where the old Methodist camps used to be. Underneath their living quarters is a garage occupied by an immense round dining table from Bali, with an octagonal base carved in relief with dancing figures and vines.

"It's weird," he says, his words betrayed by a fond smile. "Totally impractical and unorthodox."

In the process of refinishing it, he's found all different types of glue, which suggests that it was damaged in transit and inexpertly refinished here.

"I wouldn't be surprised if somebody sanded it, filled in cracks, and put a bunch of finish on it."

That's the kind of thing that Mickey won't allow.

mickey's workshop [21]

"There's this guy named David Pye--he was an Englishman and he wrote this book called 'The Nature and Aesthetics of Design.' He talks about this property called diversity, that objects have. It's like seeing a ship on the ocean from far away. You see the general shape of it; maybe it's beautiful in that way. Then you get closer and you see what type of ship it is, and it's still beautiful, has nice proportions. Then you get closer and you see a little bit more... Basically, as you get closer and closer, you become conscious of new things.

"I really like that."

His ambition is that people would find new things to love and appreciate, the closer they get to his work...that there would never be a point where, drawing closer to examine it, the beauty of the work breaks down to something like patches of glue.

"I want it to be nice, as close as you can possibly get to it."

mickey's workshop [19]

But, he adds, this isn't the same as technical perfection. It's a hard line to divide between exquisite work and demanding so much that the piece "loses its liveliness."

"If a piece is just too uniform, it doesn't look right, it's not charming anymore. A good solid glue joint is important--two pieces have to be butted up to each other pretty tightly--but it can be taken to ridiculous extremes."

He measures his hands against each other.

"'Should I line up the grain with it here? Or here?' It becomes silly."

virgil, mickey's workshop [6]

His favorite projects are things he can take time on.

"I just don't like being rushed, having something leave and I cross my fingers--'That looks okay, hopefully it will hold together.' Things can always be nicer; things can always be more carefully made."

It's not hard, he says, to convince clients to let him take his time. Whether he starts from a chunk of wood, or somebody's beat-up but priceless heirloom, there's an assumption starting out that a beautiful product needs lingering, thoughtful care, and the clients seem to intuit that their patience is a way of participating in the work.

"It's always a struggle--when you work for so long on something, you just don't want to mess it up at the very end. You don't want to put all this time and care into something, and then sort of sloppily do the very last little bits to it."

materials, mickey's workshop [7]

I ask if putting in that much time and care makes it hard to let a piece go. He gives me a simultaneous yes and no; on one hand, "deadlines, and the fact that I'm getting paid, sort of solve that problem." On the other hand, if it's his own design, or something he's making for himself, it's hard to call it finished.

"Sometimes, when you're under the gun, you just know it's okay, good enough.

"It leaves, and you see it a year later, and you're like 'Oh, that's nice!' You'll see a little mistake that only you would notice and you're like, 'Oh, that wasn't so bad.'"

marquetry box, mickey's workshop [14]

---

McCann Woodworking can be found at 144 Speedwell Avenue in Morristown, NJ Have a look at his original furniture designs...I like the elm coffee table.

See more.

Quality Establishments // Portsmouth, Nh.

In a world of smug overstimulation, White Heron is the perfect place to warm up.

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

It takes a while inside White Heron before you can identify what's missing: that thick, dirty fug native to coffee shops. Despite the weather outside--clear and cold as a chilled bottle--you don't miss it. Wintry sunlight, the color of well-washed linen, falls in blocks on the blonde hardwood floor.

I have a cat-like weakness for these blocks of sunlight; I'd move to sit in one, but that would mean moving closer to the guy working with a hammer on the metal base of the front door. He swings his hammer with the gusto of John Henry, but the airy space absorbs the obtrusive sound, floats it up to the lofty white ceiling, where red and yellow crepe paper globes hang.

The expansive picture windows yield a glimpse of the building's bright turquoise exterior, saving the space from a touch of Scandinavian austerity. The color limns the room with a sense of humor, along with the early Johnny Cash tunes playing over the stereo...and, of course, the all-important ambient flavor of the patrons themselves. The ladies sitting beside me take aggressive care of each other--"You tell me when ... You need a little milk?"

Jonathan, White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

Jonathan stands behind the counter, dispensing water into a rust-orange ceramic teapot. He wafts his hand over it and his head twitches slightly, inhaling the steam judiciously. Then he fills up the rest of it and brings it over to the counter, for me to see.

"This isn't technically an oolong tea.It's a Pouchong style, that's more on the green side. This tea will take a few minutes for the leaves to unfold. So this wants pretty hot water. That's a lot of it...thinking about what does the tea want, to bring out the best flavor? Each one is an individual leaf. It smells great. Each leaf will open up, and that's where the flavor comes from."

Teapot, and two handleless cups that are about the size of egg-cups, are placed on an oblong block of polished wood. He carries it to our table, assesses the leaves' progress, and replaces the lid, suddenly apologetic.

"I'm not trying to be fussy about it. I just like to know what I'm drinking."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

Jonathan was 19 when he chose the Coast Guard over college. He acquitted himself well enough in boot camp that he had options for his first station assignment--passing on assignments in California and Hawaii, he ended up in Tokachibuto, a remote Japanese fishing village 45 minutes away from the nearest small city you can find on a map.

"I think National Geographic had something to do with that."

He says this as if admitting a joke at his own expense.

The world opened up to him in that village, starting with its nearness to the ocean. Jonathan was born in Portsmouth and had grown up in coastal towns (Northhampton, Nh. and South Berwick, Me.), but he'd never lived so close to the water.

"Here in New England, you go out to the coast and it's all these big houses. But there, you're looking for miles and you're seeing no houses on the water. It's just nature, and these glass fishing balls washed up on the beach."

"Something about the whole culture sort of hooked me. I learned to speak Japanese, I had a Japanese girlfriend..."

I interrupt him to clarify--he learned to speak Japanese in a year?

He shrugs.

"Well, not fluently."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

While he explored the cities and learned through conversation with locals, Jonathan didn't actually frequent many tea houses. He did, however, buy his first Japanese teapot, the kind with the single handle, along with measures of Sencha and Genmaicha. The act felt special, moved by a tide of nostalgia for the occasions when he got to make cups of tea to share with his grandmother. It wasn't fancy tea, but the small aspects of it--the colorful illustrations on the Celestial Seasonings box, the patience and care that went into a ritual as simple as boiling water--made it a departure from the everyday.

That departure took on new significance in Japan:

"I think the tea thing started for me because I started karate."

As the ennui of military life set in, Jonathan was advised by his commanding officer to look up a gentleman in town named Dr. Hanashi.

"We would go and train one-on-one with this very, very nice man, and his wife would bring out coffee or tea, and little cakes, or things like that. It was this nice, quiet setting, and then we'd go back and practice karate."

He pronounces the word in a way I'm prone to make fun of. The reason it sounds affected, he explains, is because it's correct. "Karate" is actually a combination of two words for "empty" and "hand." The American pronunciation drains the word of its poetry.

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

After two years in the coast guard, Jonathan moved to the west coast, intending to study Japenese language and culture at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The complications with being an American student at a Canadian university quashed that idea, and he settled in Seattle for the next five years. It just happened that there was a teahouse right around the corner from where he lived. He found himself there almost every day, and ended up exploring the many other places of its kind around the city.

From there, he moved to Portland, Or. (specification unsolicited, as New Englanders always do) and found the Tao of Tea, another tea house run by a native of New Delhi. After getting to know it as a customer, he ended up leaving a well-paying waiter position at a high-end restaurant to take over a teahouse kitchen position from a friend who was leaving town.

"See?"

He grins.

"At one point, it just took over. I stepped into the world of tea and have yet to escape!"

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

As one might imagine, coffee and tea are pretty well polarized in this lumbering, lobstering part of the world. Coffee is the bracing stimulant of choice, while tea is typically relegated to English-style tea rooms with stacked silver trays.

Fussy, in other words. Which may be why Jonathan feels the need to explain that that's not what he's about. That doesn't mean he's above the idea of a tea room--folks have asked him about it.

"We might do it. But we'll do it our way. And I don't even know what that means yet."

He envisions a step out of the expected tea experience, where the intensity is something to have fun with, rather than get over-serious (fussy?) about.

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

Jonathan concedes that peddling tea is a more delicate business than coffee. Leaving aside the perception of it as a thing that requires attentive appreciation, there's the greater yield that a pound of tea offers, compared to a pound of coffee. The turnover is slower. And frankly, most people are afraid of it.

"Somebody walked up to me at a market one time and said 'Oh, where do I get an egg timer for my tea?' "I said 'Why do you need an egg timer?' "They said 'Oh, I went to a shop, and they said I needed to time my tea.'

"I said 'How do they know how you like your tea?'"

Jonathan has never been to a Teavana shop; he sounds half apologetic about it, and half relieved. Certainly, he has enough to do running his own concern, to keep him from worrying about how the competition runs theirs. As engaged as he is in our conversation, his eyes flick regularly toward the counter, like a mother watching her child in a playpen. Not so much out of worry, but out of care. He says he's entirely used to coming in for office hours, only to jump behind the counter and help serve customers, find that they are running low on soup, and end up putting in a full day in the kitchen instead.

"There are a few people I know here and there that talk about working for themselves. Working for yourself, for someone else--anything is hard work. But if somebody really wants to do something, it's doable. It's just a matter of whether you are willing to do what's necessary to get there? To make it work.
"I think sometimes the difference between people that succeed at things, and people that stop short, is the former sometimes just have no fear. Even when they should.
"I wouldn't necessarily say I have no fear. I don't know...I'm stubborn?"

He laughs self-deprecatingly.

"I remember even my dad at first was saying, 'I don't know...it's kind of risky.' I said 'Well, dad, I'm going to do it, so... why don't you just wish me luck?' I just decided that failure was not an option.

"I guess I'm stubborn in that sense, if I want to do something, and believe it can be done."

I'm used to hearing this accompanied by a certain grimness of jaw, the suggestions of a harried expression around the eyes, especially in people who, having once wished to "just open a little cafe," have had their lives taken over by the fulfillment of that dream.

Jonathan says, without any irony, that the ever-changing demands of his business are one of the things that makes life interesting for him. Interesting--that's really the only word for whatever entices us away from perfectly stable jobs to juggle the elements of our desire in a state of hot, chaotic urgency, like Jonathan had to when he left his upscale server job to hustle in the kitchen at the Tao of Tea.

"It was me and Dorji, from Nepal, to do all the food for the whole week. It was crazy because we only had a three-burner electric stove. We'd be making big five-gallon pots of chana masala, also aloo burata, aloo gobi, 20 orders for chai..."

These, he says, were each made individual in their own little pot, customized to the taste of each individual order--more ginger, less cinnamon. So it was a little..."

He smiles tolerantly.

"Frustrating. However, a good exercise in..."

I suggest "making it work" as a end to his sentence, referencing his remark from a moment ago.

He answers,

"Learning patience."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

We're drinking a tea grown in Guatemala, a country known better for its coffee. This is the only certified organic tea grown there, Jonathan tells me. It has a milder taste than I'm used to, in black tea. He shows me the inside of the canister--it's fine as glitter, with a dull, tarnished golden sheen where the light hits it.

This tea, he tells me, doesn't need too much time to brew, on account of its fine cut. And the cut can vary from fine to coarse, to leaves rolled into little buds or allowed to dry into crinkly curls like wood shavings.

"The cut basically relates to the quality of the tea. Tea bag cut, or fannings, are kind of the lowest grade and cheapest teas. You can range from fannings or broken orange pekoe, to elegant long-leaf tea. The grade has a large bearing on cost but, more importantly, on flavor."

This occasions a brief side trail to correct a common misconception--one that, I imagine, he hears a lot. Orange pekoe, he tells me, refers not to the taste of the tea--"that's one of those great American myths"--but to the golden tips on the tea leaves.

The proper name of a tea is usually coded in a longish acronym, each letter referring to another layer of quality.

"Like our Nepali Black Gold is a S...SF..."

He pauses for a moment; then, like a child reciting his address to a police officer, it just rolls off his tongue:

"Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Grade One."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

This, he acknowledges, is what makes tea a more delicate business than coffee. Roasting coffee is variations on the same spectrum--someone can walk in, ask for the darkest or lightest or what have you, and leave happy. Tea has not only much greater diversity, but also has a specificity; consumers know which ones they like and if you don't have, for example, the smoky lapsang souchong they're searching for, they'll just leave with a polite thank-you.

Tea, Jonathan says, is more like a relationship. One moment, Jonathan compares it to his years as a waiter ("when you're waiting tables, you talk to different parties in a different way"), then to family ("you probably don't talk to your mom the way you talk to your sister").

"Two different teas, you can treat them the same way, you can use the same temperature water, you can brew them the same amount of time, and you can probably get a decent cup of tea.

"But if you want to take the time to get to know the tea, and just experiment with it, you can find a way to bring out... let's just say jasmine green tea. Some people don't like it because they say jasmine tea is bitter."

I cop to being one of those people.

"The question is," Jonathan says, "is jasmine tea bitter?"

He looks at me hintingly.

"I could brew some."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire
I love the idea of jasmine tea. I love the smell of it. I love watching the pearls unfurl in the cup. But the taste has always bothered me--reminiscent of cleaning fluid, in cheaper varieties, or if you spend a little more money, department store perfume. Either way, it messes with the hard-won appreciation I've developed for green tea's characteristic bitterness.

The first thing Jonathan does, after spooning the silvery buds into the filter basket, is hold the pot under the sink and run cold water over it. He waits ten seconds, maybe fifteen, then pours it out and follows it with steaming water, directly on top of the tea leaves. This is something I've always heard you're not supposed to do--according to advice I've always ignored, green tea should be gently introduced into the hot water, rather than poured directly onto.

"I don't do that with all teas, but I do that with green tea. All I did was just a short, cold soak. The rest of it will be up to the hot water and the brewing. I wasn't even fussy about measurement."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

He's pulled down six tins of green tea for me to inspect.

"A lot of guides might say all green teas should be brewed for 2-3 minutes, or they might say 3-4 minutes. They might say '1 teaspoon of tea is good for 8-10 ounces of water, to be brewed for 3-4 minutes.' But one of these would be way too strong; one might not taste like anything. I think that's what makes it kind of fun."

He compares the tea we're brewing, Jasmine Green, to another, called Jade Peaks Green. He has me smell it--it's sweet, like the first time you cut your grass in spring. Another, from the Makaibari tea estate (the last independently owned one in Darjeeling), shows little bits of green and gold and silver among its fluffy leaves.

"So it's a higher grade tea. It'll take a little bit more of this tea to make a stronger cup. Gunpowder, the same dry measurement, would bring completely different results."

He pours a drop from the teapot into each of our cups. It tastes like warm water, if you sipped it in a ladies' lounge.

The highest grade jasmine tea, he explains, is usually not made by putting dried flowers in with the tea...though that is sometimes done, and you can see the white tips rolled in among the pearls. Rather, they lay the fresh tea leaves out to dry over a blanket of blossoms, so that they absorb the fragrance as they cure.

It may be this account that changes the experience for me, as we take another sip. This time, I'm not looking for that hearty sucker-punch of earthy sourness, that heavy weight on my tongue that guarantees brighter eyes and better digestion are soon to come. It's my nose, instead, that comes alive. The sip is as much an experience of smell as of taste.

"Tea can be as simple or as complicated as you'd like. That's where the fun is for me."

He adds, again,

"It's nothing to be afraid of."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

After seven years in the northwest, Jonathan wanted to be near family, and he still wasn't interested in going to school to sniff out a possible career. He left Portland, Oregon with the money from the sale of his house and a plan to start his own business in tea, to keep doing what he loved doing.

"My only qualification for it was I know how to work hard, and I had a little bit of money to start up with, and I knew what I wanted to do. That's all I really had to start with."

Tea was a specialty business even on the west coast; in New England, he estimates, coffee drinkers outnumber tea drinkers about twenty to one.

"Here, in 2005, it felt like tea drinkers are few and far between!"

There's not a trace of weariness or cynicism in Jonathan's voice as he claims,

"It's a lot of work...but!"

He straightens his already perfect posture.

"I'm always good for a challenge."

He laughs, remembering how his ambitious opening line of 24 different teas felt doable, in comparison to other tea houses he'd visited.

"At the Tao of Tea, we had 200 varieities. I knew that was a little much for New England. But in terms of what people are looking for, I'd rather say yes to more people."

He took his teas to Scott Nelson at Portsmouth Health Food, a friend since Jonathan was a teen trying out vegetarianism.

"I didn't know anything about doing wholesale--it was just kind of well, make it happen, right? So I asked if he'd be interested in trying White Heron Tea and he said, 'Sure, how many varieties do you have?' I said '24...?'"

His voice squeaks, even in recounting the conversation.

"And he said 'Okay, I'll take all of them.' He took all the Republic of Tea cans that were on a fixture, put them somewhere else, and he put me on their fixture. A good guy."

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

Jonathan did a lot of demos, both at the store and eventually at the Portsmouth farmers' market. He'd heard that they needed a beverage vendor; nevertheless, tea was a hard sell at first.

"It was hard just to get people to come over to my booth.  I started doing some tea tasting and samples, I started selling tea by the cup,  and then selling our chai by the cup, and then our iced teas, later some food, things like that."

Whatever misgiving Jonathan felt about his business acumen, in those early years, it was anchored by what he'd learned from a brief stint working for Patagonia in the early '90s: that high-end stuff will sell when people see that it's built to last.

And the restaurants he appreciated most, both as a customer and as an employee, were those that thrived on creativity, and embraced movement and change with their local environment. Contrarily, this is the very thing that he saw kept them anchored in their neighborhood. And it was in that spirit that Jonathan finally branched into coffee.

"It started with friends, and couples--one person would want a cup of chai or tea and a breakfast wrap, the other person would just want a cup of coffee. So I thought, 'Oh, well, for the farmers' markets, it would be fun to start roasting a little coffee.'

"Now I think of us more as an equal opportunity caffeine experience. I feel like if we have the ability to make great stuff across the board, let's do it."

White Heron Chai, portsmouth, new hampshire

After their first two years next door to the broadcasting station for Portsmouth Community Radio (a lively location that sometimes drowned out customers' orders with live in-house performances), White Heron moved down the street into their current location. When Jonathan describes it as a melting pot, he's not necessarily talking about the clientele. The building's vast airiness shrinks in the perspective of all that's done there, beyond the mere hosting of customers--blending tea, roasting coffee, storing product, cooking soup, and baking everything from sandwich foccaccias to the English muffins they just began offering. These are in an entirely different category from the six-to-a-package ones I remember from childhood. They are walnut-brown and have a surprising heft, not to mention a distinctive taste that makes them more than a vehicle for butter--sort of nutty, with a salty-sweet thing that makes you more perceptive of the tea you drink alongside.

Other, larger innovations include customer tutorials on how to blend their own tea--plans are already underway to renovate the counter space, to accommodate it. Jonathan would like to have special after-hours events, "something to really connect with people, and find out what they're looking for.

"Everybody thinks they know what they know about something. Which is fine. But a lot of people are curious about other things. We can teach ourselves to make a perfect, more personal cup just by making small adjustments. In the end, it's all about what you like.

"I want fun and creativity to be an element in everything we're doing here. I like to think of the possibilities."

Perhaps that's where the White Heron comes by its rare amalgam of industry and serenity. It doesn't have the frantic intensity of a Starbucks or the highbrow aloofness of an Intelligentsia; it doesn't have the Zen abstruseness or the dogged folksy vibe that exist at either end of the "tea bar" spectrum. It has a little of all of these, and something else--a sense of belonging to its place in the world, while standing out in it.

Part of the traveling life is always looking for the perfect place to get my work done. I think I may have found it.

There are people chatting with each other, people reading, and people meditatively stirring and sipping in measured time. Additionally, there are people running out, as quickly as they came in, with recyclable paper cups in their hands.

"Granted, a business needs customers," says Jonathan, "but I like the feeling of thinking of..."

He pauses, whether to reflect or for emphasis, I'm not sure.

"...people coming in here. Not looking at everyone as a customer.

"It's more like, how can I meet this person where they'd like to be met?"

The guy working on the door stands up, and gives it a test swing.

"Well," he announces, "you guys can open your doors now!"

White Heron, portsmouth, new hampshire

---

White Heron Tea & Coffee is located at 601 Islington Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Their teas and coffees can be found online and in many retailers around New England.

Follow Jonathan's blog for news and education on tea and coffee...I'm studying his tutorial on how to make chai the White Heron way.

See more.

Quality Establishments // Phoenix, Ariz.

of Phoenix's many coffee shops, five of the finest

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Last spring, I realized that I had Phoenix pegged all wrong. Tract homes with gravel lawns and circular freeways there are indeed, but there's so much more. There is great street art. There are cheap organic eats. There are historic Craftsman bungalows--also cheap! Best of all, there are friendly people...best met by staying up real, real late.

My friend Vincent took me to our friend Laurel's house for a dinner party. We didn't get there until after 10pm, and people were still eating. I assumed this was an anomaly of the artsy set Vincent and Laurel hang with. But the following day, an attendant at the Welcome Diner confirmed for us that the youngish in Phoenix party like they do in Argentina: late into the night. They congregate just as the sun goes down, on patios, under misters, or as we did at Laurel's, under a spreading palo verde that dropped papery flowers into our whiskey glasses.

But it was in a coffee shop where the coin really dropped for me. It was a Saturday morning that retained a clear chill, even with the sun blazing like high noon. The coffee shop we visited was dark as a grotto, lit only by the front wall open to the street. Cool air circulated with the unhurried movement of its cool patrons. It was the kind of morning that makes you expansive, revelatory, Hemingway-esque but also happy.

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I came back to Phoenix a few months later. Which means July. Which was a bad idea. Here's a free tip: staying indoors will not protect you from dehydration. However much water you're drinking, it's not enough. You want to drink until you have a stomachache, and keep it at that level...then you're drinking enough and won't find yourself alternating between chronic fatigue and panic attacks.

Having said that, once my body chemistry righted itself, I fell readily into the downtown Phoenix summertime groove, in which coffee shops play a crucial role. After all, if you're treating 2am like it's 9pm, you're going to need an assist in the mornings, at least to get you through until your afternoon siesta.

Fortunately, along with its street art and groovy restaurants, Phoenix abounds in nifty little coffee shops where--surprise, again!--the baristas are generally quite friendly.

These are the ones I visited. I won't say they're the best, since I haven't been to the others. However, these are the ones where I was chaperoned by Laurel, who knows not only the best places but also most of the people that work at them.

Giant Coffee (1st and McDowell)

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I'll start here, because this is where I fell in love with Phoenix. We drove from Vincent's suburban house twenty minutes down the 202, got off the 10 at 3rd Street, and cruised past the Craftsman neighborhoods, the farmers' market, and the fascinating public library that opens and closes its entire wall of windowshades like a diurnal flower would.

Giant is right on McDowell, but to get there, you have to take a right off Central Avenue into the CVS parking lot, or else make a quick left on McDowell, and follow a side street around a cancer survivors memorial.

Giant is a cool, concrete-walled cave set back into its building; the outward-facing wall, depending on the weather, is all open to the elements or else guarded by an accordion of glass panels.

The menu, drinks and food, has that spare-but-enough quality you find in European bistros. Their coffee is perfect, even the drip (as opposed to the pour-over). The chalkboard menu proudly announces their exclusivity to milk from Straus Family Creamery, which somehow makes you feel proud to be there.

8675608212_152cce966d_bThey make a few breakfast things until 11am; the rest of the day, they have quiche, burritos, and a couple featured pastries. The people who work there are uniformly quiet and deferential--it's rumored that this is due to a heavy hand wielded by the management. I'm just grateful that, along with being tragically hip, they're at least friendly. The music is less so, depending on who is choosing it. I once sat through a six-hour marathon of Lana del Rey and Alt-J. That's the attendant risk of making a coffee shop your office. But the fresh flowers arranged by the barista and left on every table made up for it.

Cartel Coffee Lab (University, between Farmer and Ash)

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Laurel's friend Harlan recently left working at Giant to become a roaster at the Cartel in Tempe, which they tell me is the best one. (There are three.) It's the only one I visited, so I can't draw comparison.

Like Giant, it is walled in concrete; it's much larger of a space, with an entire area in back devoted to booths and beer taps. The clientele is less diverse; pretty much all youngish, professional-ish cool kids. I drank oolong tea, since I was just starting to feel the flutter that would eventually become a dehydration attack. It was very good tea; indeed, if its taste hadn't convinced me, its unexpectedly high price would have. (Like so many places of its ilk, Cartel disdains to divulge its prices until after you've ordered.) But again--friendly baristas! Also, there's a huge light fixture made of a conglomeration of bicycle wheels. Also, they were playing Miles Davis.

For those to whom such things are of first importance, Cartel roasts their own coffee. Their conscientiousness on that score was the reason Laurel's friend Harlan gravitated there. I respect that, though I can't appreciate it as it deserves. Case in point: I was more affected by the cups they serve it in, which were the same patterned Corelle that my granny used.

9267076310_69926e27dc_bLux (Central, between Campbell and Turney)

Billing itself as a "coffee bar" is kind of a misnomer. It's more of a Third Wave World's Fair, a wonderland of the gustatorial handmade.

It was the only place we visited that boasted a standing line. But that was fine with me. It gave me a chance to people watch, browse the array of free promotional postcards, and jealously browse the cornucopial pastry case. Even if your sweet-tooth, like mine, doesn't kick in until mid-afternoon, the display at Lux is a feast for the eyes. Their display seems lifted straight from the set of a Martha Stewart photo shoot, layered and textural and strictly abiding by the Mae West mantra that too much of a good thing is marvelous. Meanwhile, the little elves who make these things are busy at work just behind the cashiers and taking drink orders--I watched one of them shake caster sugar onto a round brown cake, her eyes leveled in meditative focus, her fingers clotted with raisin-studded dough.

Lux in the afternoon--God help me.

Lux sizes its drinks a la européenne--by which I mean that a small is quite small. You'd be advised to spend the extra 25 cents for a drink you can actually drink. With an eye to maintaining my water balance, I ordered a chai latte. Even at Third Wave joints, it's hard to find one that's not made from a box. This one delivered. I'm no food writer, so I'll just say that it had everything in perfect proportion. I drank it slowly, and not just because the medium size is still pretty small.

9264300423_230266c704_bLux is a big place--the main room is L-shaped, paneled in thin horizontal slats, with thin horizontal windows bordering the low ceiling. There are big communal tables and tiny tables for two, flanked by bright turquoise parlor chairs. There's an alcove exclusive to migrant office workers--this room, inscrutably, was anchored by a large flatscreen TV broadcasting C-Span.

TV or not, I don't know that I'd go to Lux for work. The sensory load of food, drink, and people-watching is too seductive. The only reason we left was because they started playing Ryan Adams, and I don't like to cry in front of people.

8703236386_c6c330ce4d_zJobot (Roosevelt and 5th)

Moving right along to the other end of the style continuum...

If Lux is Manhattan, Jobot is Portland. Heavy on the mustaches, light on the social graces. The tables and chairs all have the battered look of a dollar bill that's been through the wash. The pastries are displayed, in utilitarian fashion, on a cooling rack wheeled out beside the counter.

9264263145_527236818c_bI assume that the coffee is probably good, because hipsters care about this. On account of the air conditioning situation (there was none), I ordered an iced tea, accompanied by the low expectations that disappointing experience has cultivated around this order.

In fact, however, it was really strong--as in, I could taste tea in the water.

Jobot is one of several businesses that have been built into the derelict Craftsman bungalows on the formerly residential North 5th. The front porch is always fuller of people than the inside--probably because of that whole no-air-conditioning thing. The attendants here are more surly than other places in Phoenix, but it's kind of part of the show...and you get the feeling they know it.

They're also open 24 hours a day, so at any given moment, you'll find the lights on, and throngs gathered on the porch. Vincent tells me he has frequently sat there all night, just to watch the tableaux vivantes that routinely play out during hot summer nights among Phoenix's mad ones.

8699685052_8a14443cdd_cSongbird Coffee & Tea House (Roosevelt, between 2nd and 3rd)

Across the street and down the road from Jobot, in a white brick building blazoned with a mural of silhouetted birds, is Songbird. If you're truly desperately hot, this is the place to go. Songbird has an ethereal atmosphere, fostered by its spindly rebar furniture and strings of miniature light bulbs. Rusty iron and rough wood accents guard the territory from falling into frou-frou. It's airy, but warmly sun-illumined. No matter where you sit, you feel like a cat curled up in a window.

All the coffee is made by pour-over, the water jar has cucumbers floating in it, and the girls working there speak in an ASMR whisper that makes you feel as if someone is running their fingers through your hair.

8674502943_d51f30931d_bThe west wall is lined with books, whose variety alone is entertaining. (Passion and Purity next to Life, the Big Lebowski, and What Have You.) The music is played at a meditative volume; even at its jolliest (swinging pop standards from the 1960s, one afternoon), it's undistracting.

I'd venture that this is Phoenix's best café for study, reading, and journal time; I found it a little too pacific for getting work done.

For that, I'd probably go to Lola, another fine establishment of which, since their air conditioning was broken, I never formed an opinion.

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Quality Establishments // Chicago, Il.

Three unlikely elements mix at Heritage Bicycles in Chicago's Lakewood neighborhood

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

It's about to rain, and I'm headed (on foot) for Chicago's Intelligentsia, mostly just to say I went there.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

Certain Angelenos have told me that Chicago's Intelligentsia presence, despite being the original, suffers a less-than-hip reputation; it's rumored that some Third Wave mavens even consider it backward.

I hope they're right, since my experience of Intelligentsia has always left me feeling unworthy, both of their coffee and their social scene. My favorite experience there was last September, in Pasadena, with Leslie, when I met Sumair and the coconut almond shake from JuiceMaids. But they're not carrying JuiceMaids anymore, and I haven't heard from Sumair for a while.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

Strolling down Lincoln as thunderclouds gather, I pass what appears to be a bike shop. The sign says, in fact, that it's a bike shop. There are bikes in the windows. There are also people sitting at tables.

I wonder if they are in the middle of designing, so I peer in the window. They are, in fact, lounging over coffee. There is a coffee bar, and a juice fridge, and a counter lined with glass-domed cake stands.

And, in the way back, there are also some bicycles.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

An impeccably groomed young man, whose tragic hipness is offset by his lovely smile, passes me with an inquiring look as he goes inside. I walk away, because I'm headed for Intelligentsia.

And then I turn around and come back inside.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

At least, I try to. But the door won't unlatch for me. I feel about as dumb as an out-of-towner can. Another young man comes to open it for me.

I'm so tired from last night, all I can say to the barista--aforementioned young man of impeccable grooming--is "I don't want a lot of caffeine. Will you make me whatever you think is good?"

To my surprise, he looks as if he's happy to do so.

I meander into the back room, where there's a retail alcove full of bags and clothing and helmets and some nifty wooden toys for children. Through a doorway is a bicycle workshop with two racing frames on the block. Sitting on a stool next to them is the guy who unlocked the door for me.

I ask if I can take a picture; he offers to take down the racing bikes, which aren't germane to the shop, and put up some of the vintage ones that Heritage refurbishes for sale. As he does this, the barista walks a drink over to me in a little highball glass. It tastes like the way a crocheted blanket feels.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

The barista, whose name is Cameron, calls it a cortado. I resolve to get smarter about coffee.

The mechanic's name is Arlan. He was hired a year and a half ago on the spot, when the store was having its opening party. At the time, he was working in interior design, which is what his degree is in. He remembers buying an eleven-dollar candy bar off Heritage's counter, just because he could.

"I was a baller back then," he says, with a tolerant smile.

Arlen, Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois He chatted with Mike, the owner of the place; he mentioned he worked on bicycles, and was hired on the spot to replace the previous mechanic, who had just been caught in the basement looking at porn.

Arlan's real thing, though, is making wood furniture. He also makes the wooden toys I was admiring. He designs and cuts them with a CNC computer program, then puts them together. They make me wish I did something more lucrative than writing, so I could buy them for my niece and whatever my other sister recently became pregnant with.

The rain seems to have done its thing, as has the cortado. A longing look at the tables against the plate-glass windows, haloing the patrons at work behind their laptops, makes me additionally wish that I lived here, so this could be my spot.

Three blocks around the corner, it starts raining again, even harder than before.

Heritage Bicycles, Chicago, Illinois

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Heritage Bicycles is on 2959 Lincoln Avenue in Lakeview. Check out Arlan's company, Derussy Designs.

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