New Space Being Built

I caught wind recently that Healthy Essentials will be opening a newer larger retail space next door to their current location, and they will be serving coffee, tea, and smoothies.

Rumor is that their espresso set up is the old Stein's Coffee and Sandwiches(closed) gear. If this is true, then Healthy Essentials will be pulling shots on a La Marzocco Linea with a Nuova Simonelli MDX grinder. I assume that they will also continue using Dazbog unless they've done some homework of their own to source better (read: fresher and better) coffee.

I would keep an eye out for this logo to pop up on Abbeville at 82nd in the near future.

News in the Coffee Retail World for Lubbock

Aroma's Therapy Coffee House (previously known as Aroma's Coffee House) has closed its doors. It was up for sale for a few months, and although a few people had considered buying it, no-one did, and the retailer is no more.

The retail division of Day Break Coffee Roasters was purchased by the owner of J&B Coffee at 26th and Boston (who happens to also be the owner of Roly Poly Sandwiches at 4th and Frankford). If you don't know by now, it seems pretty clear that the "Arriba!" coffee line sold by United/Market Street/Amigos is Day Break coffee in other badging. The coffees look the same, taste the same, and the offerings match up.

Lubbock Coffee legend Sugar Brown's Coffee is planning to move into their new roasting outfit somewhere on the NE side of town with a Probat L12 roaster that came from Coffee Eiland in Dallas. (or so I heard from a reliable Sugar Brown's representative)

Coffee Haus seems to have dwindling traffic, and Koffee Kup on Slide has been closed for quite some time. This blogger suspects that this is a company that is not self-supporting, and the money is bound to dry up sooner or later.

Mangia Bevanda was sold, and renamed P&L's Cafe. It was bought as a gift, from what I've been told, and it remains to be seen how it will fare, although it was seen for sale on several business listings.

We've added a link to our list: http://tx-coffee.com
It seems to be a great resource for all things coffee in Texas, as well as general news, updates, and opinions.

A national recession is in full swing, and it seems Lubbock is not immune to the effects, no matter what your favorite local news anchor tells you. It is the opinion of this blog that the only guaranteed way to make sure a coffee retailer will survive, is if they focus on the quality of their products. It seems folks are paying more attention to the value of what they are purchasing, and businesses built on being "local", or built on personality may not survive.

If you know of a business in the area that could use some help in the quality department, there is an independent trainer in Lubbock that advertises on tx-coffee.com called EspressoTrainer.com. It has been said by lots of people that the best investment is an investment in yourself. The same just might be true for businesses as well.

There was a gathering of enthusiasts who called their meetings the Lubbock Coffee Club for awhile, but it seems to have been a few months since the last gathering, as most of the members are students, and a few have either moved away, or have left the coffee business.

If you have never seen latte art, Sugar Brown's is making it a regular habit these days, so drop in and ask about it if you want to see this art form in person.

Red Baron Car Wash in Idalou built a small coffee bar into their business, and it seems to be a Day Break carbon copy menu. It figures, I guess, since they're using Day Break coffee.

Java J in Levelland opened about a year or so ago, I hear, also serving Day Break Coffee as well as ice cream, located very near the South Plains College levelland campus.

That's all for now. If you know of any new shops, new happenings, or news you'd like to see in these pages, let us know at lubbockcoffee@gmail.com.

Happy sipping.

New Feature: Reader Requested Review

If you would like Lubbock Coffee and Tea to review a local Lubbock coffee and/or tea establishment, please send an email to lubbockcoffee@gmail.com with "Requested Review" in the title, and the name and address of the establishment in the body.

The review will follow probably within two weeks of having received the email.

Thank you for your interest.

Coffee Haus (University & 15th) Avg. 2.0

Word has it that this business was recently acquired by the owners of Koffee Kup, for better or for worse.
Coffee Haus has a rather stripped-down feeling atmosphere, but it's quite cozy nonetheless.
There is a Brasilia Portofino 2-group machine, with a Mazzer SuperJolly (that I could see.. there might be more). This shop uses a Melitta cup-at-a-time brew system for drip coffee, unfortunately, all of the coffee is ground hours before use and stored in tupperware containers. Coffee is scooped out of the tupperware container, and into the filter prior to brewing. While the coffee is BREWED fresh, it is not ground fresh, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the cup-at-a-time concept for quality and freshness of product.

Drink Ordered:

Traditional Cappuccino

Grind per shot: no
Tamped: yes
Extraction time: about 20 seconds

The PBTC dosed ground coffee from a VERY full doser into the double filterbasket. The filterbasket was not entirely full, and no distribution method was used, when the too-small tamper was pressed down onto the "mound" (it was more of an unorganized pile, really) of ground coffee in a not-so-vertical manner. There was a significant angle on the top of the puck before locking into the group-head.

The espresso was pulled into a rather large (3oz, or so) metal recepticle, and not directly into the for-here cappuccino cup. Why, I will never understand.

The espresso was then poured into the cup, which was just under half full (meaning, the espresso was about 2.75oz in volume.. far too much liquid for a double shot).

A gigantic (I want to say much bigger than 32oz, but I have no idea how much bigger.. far too large for a cappuccino, regardless) milk pitcher was 1/3 filled with milk, and the milk-coated steam-wand was sunk into the pitcher. The steam was activated, and the end product was poured into the cup with the froth being held back. the cup was filled nearly to the brim before the PBTC stopped pouring liquid, and, at which point, began to spoon some foam ontop of the contents of the cup.

The foam was possibly some of the worst I have ever seen in Lubbock. It did not appear that the barista had been adequately trained.

The espresso was watery, diluted, and over-extracted. I detected about a 15% robusta in the blend, which didn't help matters outside of crema-production.. there was a thin layer, thanks to the robusta.

The taste was surprisingly not overly bitter. I was able to drink the whole thing without the addition of sugar or other sweeteners.

I get the impression that the blend is very forgiving, but that the skills of the staff are not up to par.

Total Score:
2 out of 10

MudHen Espresso (19th & Frankford) Avg. 0.25

MudHen Espresso just opened maybe two or three weeks ago. It is a drive-through operation in the Lowe's grocery parking lot.

I was unable to time the shot, or check for tamping, or see how full the doser was due to the nature of the "building".

Drinks Ordered:

Double small cappuccino (8oz)
16oz. Iced mocha

The reviews:


Double Cappuccino

The foam was not very dense. It very much resembled dirty dish-soap bubbles in a cup.

The espresso was bitter. Extremely bitter, and very astringent. No amount of sugar could have salvaged this drink. As soon as I arrived at my destination, the cup and all of its contents went directly into the garabage.

There were fairly coarse-looking coffee grounds on the inner wall of the cup. This leads me to believe that the grind setting was much too coarse, and that the work-space is littered with stale coffee grounds. These coffee particles were much too large to have squeezed through the filterbasket perforations.

Overall, I give this drink a score of:

0 out of 10


Iced Mocha

The espresso in this drink was every bit as horrible as the cappuccino, but the Hershey's syrup used helped to cut the astringency, so only the bitterness was noticable. There was no sign or visual of a Hershey's chocolate syrup bottle, but the tart twang and synthetic mouthfeel of the product is unmistakeable.

The appearance of the slightly-mixed drink was very unique, and visually entertaining. It's a shame that the actual drink quality did not match the appearance.

Total score:

.5 out of 10 (for the nifty appearance)

Starbucks Coffee (University) Avg. 6.8

Walking in, it's your standard typical Starbucks. Everything is cookie-cutter fabulous and exactly as it would be at some other location over 1K miles away.

The equipment is the ever-depressing Saeco Verisimo 440 Superautomatic.

The drip coffee is in the last ten minutes of however long the timer was set for.

Drink ordered:

Double Short Cappuccino (that's 8oz.)

The attendant begins by frothing the milk. I can hear the pitcher being raised and lowered, creating large bubbles rather than the desireably sweet silky microfroth found in high quality establishments.

Upon finish, the milk pitcher is tapped against the counter to break up the larger bubbles, and swirled to help incorporate the froth back into the milk mixture. Both are a good sign.

The espresso shot is pulled by pressing a button. the shot is a bit quick, and blonds very early on.

The milk is then poured into the cup by holding back the froth with a spoon, and then spooning on the froth once the cup is a little over half full.

This practice, for a cappuccino, is against quality standards in general, as well as Starbucks standards for drink preparation.

Still, the result is not the worst thing I have ever tasted in Lubbock.

The espresso is thin and weak, with a dominant roasty flavor lacking in complexity and origin flavors.

The froth, while not very good, is some of the best I've seen in Lubbock.

All in all, The cappuccino is drinkable, if not a little enjoyable.

It's not what I would consider to be high quality, but it's not necessarily bad. I would put this somewhere between mediocre to good.

Final score
6.8 out of 10

Brother Martin's Coffee Haus (2615 19th St.) Avg. 0

Located in the Lutheran Student Center across the street from Texas Tech University.

The room adjacent to the "coffee bar" is fairly comfortable, with high tables and chairs, and a relaxing atmosphere.

The coffee bar itself appears to be a transformed establishment kitchen. A 1-group Rio machine, and a Rio flat-burr commercial grinder. The true manufacturers of the respective machines is anyone's guess.

Drink ordered:

Double Cappuccino

The doser was full of ground (who knows when) Daybreak coffee (not a good sign).

The filterbasket was well under-dosed and not tamped at all, meaning extremely week coffee (I dare not call it espresso).

I shrug it off, as I have become quite accustomed to below-average coffee from most establishments in Lubbock.

The milk is steaming, and I listen as I hear it pushed far beyond the point of scalding.

With less foam than my companion's latte (very very little, if any), burned milk, and possibly the weakest excuse for espresso I have ever tasted, this was one of the worst cappuccinos I believe I have ever tasted.

Served in a 12oz. to-go cup. There was no ceramic cup in sight.

Grind per shot: no
Tamped: no
Shot time: NA
Milk froth: terrible(hardly existent)

Overall score: 0 out of 10

Don't waste your time.