la.foodblogging

When I started my first office job, as an intern, I developed a huge addiction to coffee. It may have been a symptom of packing my day with work and school, having commitments from 8:00 am to midnight. After I was out of school and working full time, I kicked the coffee habit and switched to a cup of tea or two to start my morning.

Now I have made the switch back to morning coffe. It started last September when I was in Kauai and our family breakfast on the patio each morning was initiated by the aroma of Kona coffe. I decided that I enjoy the ritual of the morning brew and what makes my morning pop is a quality cup of Joe.

In my mind, the best local supplier of quality coffee beans is Groundwork You may recognize them as the main drink stand supplying the Sunday Santa Monica Farmers Market (where, I admit, I get their iced tea). They also have five stores sprinkled around town.

All of Groundwork’s coffee beans are fair trade organic and they also have a variety of teas to choose from. I like to have a selection of beans at home so that I can brew different kinds depending on my mood. Right now my coffee drawer is full of roasts from Bolivia, Sumatra and a nice House Blend. One of my favorites is their Costa Rican, which has a mild sweetness to it. Silly as it sounds, sometimes it feels like I’m taking a brief trip to the source as I grind the beans.

I can’t comment on any of the other stores, but the skinny shop on Main in Santa Monica is staffed by some of the friendlier people you will meet and I don’t think they know the word “barrista”.

Groundwork Coffee
2908 Main Street
Santa Monica, California 90405

Tel: (310) 392-9243

Hours:
Weekdays: 6:00 am – 6:00 pm
Weekends: 7:00 am – 6:30 pm

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.