Welcome back to my long-forgotten and oft-neglected blog. After posting on both Facebook and Twitter that I am a “connoisseur of cheap coffee” I figured I should share my hard-earned (and occasionally expensive) wisdom on how to maximize one’s coffee value. This series that I will likely forget about after two (or maybe three) posts will not be limited to cheap coffee; I have words of wisdom to share about expensive (aka “fancy”) coffee as well.
Last night at 3 in the morning, after being awakened by an otherwise adorable kitty nose in my ear, I mentally drafted a post about my anticipated trip to 7-eleven this morning. Unfortunately, I managed to screw up my “how does a machine make a mocha for $2?” coffee, so instead of waxing poetic about how amazing 7-eleven is and has been, I’m going to ramble about coffee more generally and what I anticipate including in this series. More about 7-eleven soon. Tomorrow maybe.
So: maximizing your coffee. This is about deals you can get, quality vs quantity (I’m the one who drinks $2 lattes from 7-eleven, so you might not want to trust me on quality), the unreasonable number of places to get coffee within a half mile of my house, and randomly sending people $5 for their fancy coffee accounts. (PS you can randomly send ME money for my Starbucks account at rak at my blog’s domain.)
That’s basically where I live, with a quarter mile and a half mile around a neighbor’s address. (I’m pretty careless with my privacy, but I can at least not tell the entire world exactly where I live.) Google Maps doesn’t make this easy; that map looks like Google Maps but was actually made with another tool that overlays on Google, so I couldn’t easily figure out a way to also label all the places where coffee can be purchased within the circles. Instead of a visualization, then, a list, in alphabetical order (where there is more than one location of a chain, I’ve listed only the closest to my house):
Coffee within a quarter mile:
- 7-eleven
- Bread Bite Bakery
- The Cakeroom
- Chicha Market and Cafe (Cafe and Mercado)
- Jolt ‘N Bolt
- Lyle’s Hotel (breakfast menu)
- McDonalds
- Starbucks
- ThreeFifty Bakery
Additional coffee within a half mile:
- Bethesda Bagels
- Bluestone Lane
- Busboys and Poets
- The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
- Colada Shop
- Dolcezza Gelato & Coffee
- Firehook Bakery
- Insomnia Cookies
- Java House
- Ted’s Bulletin
- The Wydown Coffee Bar
- Zeleno
Until the pandemic, there was as also a Peet’s, a Panera, and a Wawa in the half mile radius. The closest of each of those is now 0.9 miles (Peet’s) and 1 mile (Panera and Wawa) from my home. For Reasons, I intend to include posts about Panera and Wawa in this series, and might or might not post about Peet’s. (They just changed their rewards program, so unless Peet’s becomes more convenient–which it will if I am offered the job I’ve been interviewing for–I won’t be able to speak to its value.)
Finally, any coffee-selling-institutions within the half mile radius that are not listed here were not skipped intentionally. If there are any locations I should add to my list, please let me know in the comments or any way that you know to reach me.
Over the coming undetermined length of time, I’ll share my tips for maximizing your coffee. Stay tuned!