a color story: the neighborhood coffee shop in Austin

Wednesday morning. Austin, Texas. Still, no signs of my romantic views on the city or perhaps Linklater’s movies over-delivered on his Hollywood portrayal of the city. Where were the hipsters? Where were the artists? I’ve seen the vintage stores, and college campus, but where were the hopeless creators? Where were my “people” or was I not looking?

With the urgency of clean laundry, I needed to find a coin laundromat for my hygiene well-being.

On Guadalope road, north of the state university campus, Civil Goat Coffee was a plan B destination after dropping off the laundry. I thought little of it — and even considered it to be an afterthought — for coffee didn’t go well with hot temperatures. Austin couldn’t have a coffee shop scene. Who would drink a hot beverage in hot weather? The two ideas didn’t mix like adding mud to water.

I felt lost trying to find the coin laundry and Starbucks was a last resort visit before toggling on my flight mode. The car washes and commercial buildings were becoming more apparent and I started to think that I might have over-walked the destination. Maybe the coin laundry was hidden in a side plaza that I missed.

Then, I spotted an office building with large glass walls. It also had a courtyard with a cute white table and chair set. A memory of a hidden coffee shop in Cabbagetown, Toronto flashed in my mind while I entered closer to the wide doors. This must be the coffee shop. I can see its transformative neighborhood properties. In this space alone, I entered a different world or maybe it was just the air conditioning fluffing my imagination.

At the front counter, I asked for an iced americano then conveniently asked for the coin laundry. The order of the favors was necessary but she figured it out later that I didn’t come here for the drinks. I was still skeptical if an Austin coffee shop could make a beverage regardless of its minimal, industrial interior look. I’ve been over-delivered on the interior and pretty face long enough. The beverage will speak the truth. The basics were the test and it was a fair one I assumed. To my surprise, the cold beverage came out quickly and I was in shock.

What was this coffee shop called again?

I don’t know where to start. I, first, complimented the barista on the fine job without overextending on the origins of coffee beans. As Action Bronson noted in his recent coffee shop hopping visits in Brooklyn, the different varieties of coffee beans were just style points as he humbled the barista for going a little too pretentious on the commodity. Regardless, there was an art to roasting coffee beans and I just sipped the “finer” or smoother spectrums of the world in coffee making.

What was this coffee shop called again?

The oh-so-familiar taste of bitterness in convenient coffee was the last note involved in my coffee sips. I immediately tasted the acidity and an odd sweetness — may be from the ice — before hitting the layer of bitterness. Due note, that this Americano was served black — no dairy nor sugar.

Like most ice machines, ice appeared in cubes or hollowed cylinders. But, the ice here seemed almost handmade — it had an aspect of dishonesty that I admired. The ice — which filled more than a half of my cup which I’d admired in every beverage — looked like rock sugar candies with their imperfect shapes. I even had the audacity to ask whether they hand cut it. They smiled and admitted that their unique ice machine had the ability to hold such an illusion. How silly of me to think that their ice was hand-carved like one of those Japanese premium scotch bars where the bartender hand-carved a large diamond ice cube using a premium source of water. For now, my premium ice satisfaction remained in that coffee shop. Maybe, it was the rock-candy-like ice that expressed the fake sweetness of my iced americano.

What was this coffee shop called again?

Then, the color illusion prevailed on the ice. I thought they added some kind of dairy on the top but my “Karen” alert senses started to tingle. But, the diamond-like ice cubes expressed a lighter shade on the top half while the bottom half looked like the lighter end of bitter. I felt perplexed as I drank the continuous taste throughout the beverage. What was this elixir called an iced Americano?

What was this coffee shop called again?

I dropped off my laundry; it was just a plaza behind. I skirted back to see what else the coffee shop offered. What else could they make? They had in-house pastries and I asked what her favorite pastry was. She suggested the oversized cookies. I was not much of a cookie person myself but why not, they surprised me with the simple iced Americano. The tall congested cookie wasn’t heated, just simply served at room temperature. The chocolate chunks were made of real chocolate chunks, not just some whimsical drops you could find at your local grocery store. I believed these were cut up from a chocolate bar. Like the iced beverage, it hit another note in the chocolate. Of course, there was a sweetness and chewiness to the cookie. But, the salt flakes on the cookie was a nice subtle accent to the chocolate. This sweet, salty combination oddly reminded me of when Gloria in Modern Family denied the exuberant taste of adding a pinch of salt to chocolate milk in front of her son’s female friend — no mother wants to look bad in culinary knowledge in front of their own child as she admitted the amazing taste in a behind-the-scenes cut.

What was this coffee shop called again?

So what? It felt refreshing or even humbling to grab a coffee that could polarize my views on a whole scene. Civil Goat Coffee delivered great products — iced Americano and chunky cookies.

It wasn’t a healthy breakfast but the layers of brown — or inner world of the shades of brown- sure left quite the impression on me (pictured). Who knew brown monochrome pairing could leave such a colorful sensation?

Walking back to the hotel room with a clean bag of laundry, I noticed the laundry wasn’t fully dried. I should have listened to the lady at the laundromat with the medium heat setting at 32 minutes. Instead, I applied more time at a low heat setting just so I can extend my stay at the neighboring coffee shop.

The next day, I had enough sweaty laundry to make the visit “worthwhile”.