jkirby7789's Coffee Blog

So, not sure if this should be a blog or a rant, but something lately has been bothering me. Since I live in Los Angeles, which seems to be a horrible city for coffee (believe it or not) I am having to settle with going to Starbucks. The one I frequent most often is pretty good. The baristas are really friendly, know me by name, and have my drink ready in no time when they see me come into the store. The thing lately I have been bothered by, is this particular coffee house is down the street from not only a high school, but a middle school as well.

Like hundreds of thousands of other Californians, I am in the unemployment club. I did not choose to be in this non-prestigious organization, but am a member nontheless. When you are living on the checks of unemployment, you must force yourself to make sacrifices. I have sacraficed a lot, one of which is the quality of the coffee I now drink. This is something I neither enjoy, nor do recommend it to those who have the means to buy better joe.

One would think that living in Los Angeles, it would not be very hard to find some good coffee houses. Wrong! While serving in the United States Navy, I was stationed in Bangor Washington, just across the way from Seattle. Seattle had a plethora of great coffee shops. Literally everywhere you turned, there was one waiting for you. After I was honorably discharged in 2005, I moved to Portland, Oregon. This is a region where people take their coffee seriously (even more so, in my opinion, than Seattle.) I have never seen so many coffee joints!