GimmeCoffee 228 Mott St New York, NY Btwn Spring and Prince 212-226-4011 7am to 9pm Every Day Map | Web Site

The Nicest People NY Coffee.  When I met Mike White, GimmeCoffee’s NYC Manager on Twitter a few weeks ago, I hardly recognized his name from some blogs I’d read last year.  On the plane to NY I read both the profile on him in Barista Magazine (he’s got a beard now) and the manual he helped write on barista technique for GimmeCoffee.  Reading the article, I had a feeling, and came to verify that Mike and the folks at GimmeCoffee are some of the nicest people in the New York coffee world. 

A week ago, when I mentioned I was headed to NY, Mike invited me to join him and his team for a cupping at their Soho location at 228 Mott Street.  I tried to bring a selection of Colorado coffee’s but the Panama Hartmann Estate from Novo wasn’t available at any of the stores in Boulder that sell Novo or on their web site, so I showed up with a can of Conscious Coffees' Natural Processed Sidamo to share. 

Getting There.  I got to the café walking from the Broadway Lafayette subway stop.  Gimme’s café is on Mott Street, a few blocks east of Broadway.  Remember the east side is the better side of Boradway.  It’d make a great stop on the walk down from the Village to Chinatown, if you’re going.

The Cupping Lab. When I got to the coffee house, a barista pointed me down a tiny spiral staircase in the back where I scrambled down to meet Mike and a team of managers and baristas (folks forgive me, I lost the notes I took with all of your names) in their cupping lab.  After a few minutes of good conversation about getting to origin, what coffees we prefer, and how crazy cold the weather was, we got down to business with two Latin American varieties and a Sidamo from Gimme, the Conscious Coffees Sidamo, and the fabled wedding invitation coffee roasted by Intelligenstia for a couple, one of whom used to work at Gimme.  I don’t know who these folks are, but I read about a few coffee peeps receiving the coffee invitation in the mail and consider myself lucky to have had the chance to sample it.  If your marriage is as balanced and amazing as that coffee, you two are onto something good.

The coffees were great.  I liked the Gimme Las Mingas Colombian especially well.  It was roasted well into medium, had a solid body, and possessed a relatively low acidity. The wedding invitation coffee was also stellar, (I think) a natural processed Ethiopian that had solid, I mean solid melon flavors like I’ve never tasted before as well as a brighter acidity.  The Gimme team liked the Conscious Coffees Sidamo very well, saying that it was consistent, complex, and lacked the zestiness (in a good way) of many naturally processed coffees.  They also liked the new steel can with foil valve packaging. 

After we cleaned up, I hit the road but not before taking a few photos of the team, having a fist full of Gimme stickers stuffed in my bag, and purchasing a GimmeCoffee SIGG Metro Mug to replace the three I have with damaged or lost lids.  Since I was hopped up on coffee from the cupping, I (VERY) unfortunately didn’t try anything from the café. 

Judging by the solid traffic the whole time I was there, in the middle of the afternoon, they were pulling some great shots.  Mark Prince of Coffee Geek said Gimme pulls his favorite shots in NYC, so that says a lot. The café’s tiny, so be prepared to come in grab your coffee and get moving.  I reckon some people hang out, but not many.

Thanks. I can’t thank the Gimme team enough for their hospitality and a great cupping session. Folks, if you get out to Colorado, we’ll take good care of you with some mountain climbing, tubing in the creek, and the kindest beer and coffee you’ve ever had.