Locomotoring

Four Barrel Espresso Station

Four Barrel on Valencia is a well reviewed coffee mecca in Mission District of San Francisco. The queues are long but is a good opportunity to watch city fashions. The space has a modern warehouse look with a coffee bar at the entrance, the main coffee station in the middle and stock at the back. Seating is somewhat minimal but if you hang out long enough, you are bound to find a table. The coffee bar is akin to a wine bar where you pay to sample their brews. My husband was very excited about the coffee after having sampled 4 varietals! The music is played in an old fashioned way where a real person selects a record out of the collection and plays it on a record player. Unless you want a caffeine kick that makes you want to dance a jitterbug, I recommend picking their brew of the day, grabbing a seat and watching the  extensive and non-hurried ritual the baristas follow.

Our brew of the day was a varietal from Burundi. The brew style had heightened the acidity of our double espresso which made every sip like the first one. We picked up half pound of beans on our way out but couldn’t quite reproduce the acidity on our home espresso machine. Unfortunately, they have no chocolate but I happened to have some Tcho bites on me.

Other coffee/chocolate shops of interest in Bay Area:

• Chocolatier Blue in Berkeley (more)
• Fog City News on Market (more)
• Recchiuti at Ferry Building (more)
• Tcho at Pier 17 (more)
• XoX in North Beach (more)