One of my “must-do” activities when travelling is to seek out any and all specialty coffee shops around where I’m staying, and spend a good chunk of time in them.

Reasons being:

Foremost, I’m all about that third-wave, hipster, “lemme nerd out on this for a while” kinda coffee.

Fuck your burnt Starbucks swill.

Feeding off the first reason, the amount of love the baristas (often the owners) puts into their drinks is delightful, and makes for a) delicious coffee and b) a caffeination experience akin to sipping freshly brewed coffee while sitting on a pillow of clouds atop mountains in Guatemala.

And…if you hang around long enough, you usually end up getting to talk with the barista/owner, and find out more about the locale than you would blindly wandering around.

Yesterday’s cafe in particular was right up my alley, and a pleasant surprise tucked away in the old, winding streets of Valencia.

Behold, the Beat Brew Bar:

Everything from the caffeination options (Chemex, Syphon, V60, espresso, etc) to the Edison bulbs, tables made of pallets, and the glorious art hanging on the walls:

Splendid. Simply splendid.

And the owners, a beautiful couple, are awesome. He is a Peruvian who crossed paths with a Valencian (her) while both living in Australia. Talk about an unsuspecting pair who met against unlikely odds.

Anyway, the Beat Brew Bar in Valencia is bloody brilliant, and it has my coffee-stained stamp of approval should you find yourself out this way.

In a rare break from character, I have no Sorcerers Guild pre-sale link for you today. Suffice to say that it’s a’coming. Honestly, chances are you’ve made up your mind one or the other by now, and this particular email is more about exulting my joy for specialty coffee and unique cafes than it is anything else.

To that, here’s a sipping on espresso action shot:

Until tomorrow,

_A. Mullan