Caffeinated Quals #2: Think Coffee
March 14th, 2008
Think Coffee
248 Mercer St @ 3rd St. (map)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 228-6226
Gtalk last night
Y: do we have our date tomorrow?
Y: i read reviews for think coffee
Y: apparently, you have to go early so you can go and “pretend to work”
Y: i challenge you to a 7:30 date
Me: …
Me: you’re trying to kill me
And this is how I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30AM and drank the best cappuccino I’ve ever had.
As it turns out, 6:30AM on a New York March morning means that the sun hasn’t come up yet. Which was rather unwelcome news to me (the chronic night owl). Nonetheless, we dragged our foggy heads down to Greenwich Village, found Think Coffee located on a smaller street behind the ever-busy Broadway, and discovered a very expansive yet cozy coffee house. There were corner bistro type tables and chairs up front, the baristas in the middle, and a large section in the back with tables, couches, plenty of light and plenty of outlets for plugs.
The cozy ambiance.
But, first things first. Coffee! I went with the classic cappuccino with a fruit ($4), yoghurt & granola parfait ($5), while Y decided on a chai latte with a bagel and cream cheese.
Both drinks came in attractive drinkware, my cappuccino appropriately sized, and her chai latte gargantuan sized. And wow, what a cappuccino! Almost definitely the best I’ve ever had (not that I’ve ever been a cappuccino connoisseur, like some people). The foam was perfectly placed and as crisp as foam can possibly be described while the espresso itself was smooth and awfully tasty. I found the chai latte was decent but slightly lacking in flavor. The fruit & yoghurt parfait was good, lots of chewy honey-encrusted granola at the bottom. The bagel, I assume, was a bagel (yeahyeah, I know, I’m a bad New Yorker). [Edit by Y: my bagel was delisshhh.. by the way. it was whole wheat, and didn’t taste like cardboard.]
My cappuccino perfecto after one sip.
Apparently this coffeehouse turns into a wine & cheese bar at night. There’s also a basement area that can be rented out for events and classes, etc. With the free wireless, expansive space and delicious coffee, this was almost the perfect coffeehouse to spend a day doing work in. Only two things detracted from the experience:
1) NYU students. About 29,300,938 of them. If we hadn’t come at the godforsaken time of 7:30AM, we would have been hard pressed to find a good table. Especially at around noon, the place just got completely packed.
2) ADD music. What is with trendy NYC coffee/teahouses and playing very loud, very angry music? I went back to gramstand with a friend and the rap music that was being played, even at a low volume, nearly drove her insane. Think Coffee took indie hipster-ish type stuff, and blasted it. I’m pretty decent at tuning out music, but it felt that the more people came into the coffeehouse, the higher they cranked the volume up. By the time we left for lunch, it was getting hard to concentrate.
We celebrated a productive morning with sushi & noodles in St. Mark’s place, and planned a return trip, scheduled, again, for 7:30AM. I’m already salivating, thinking of that cappuccino (and I’m typing this at midnight now…)