Cappuccino, Uva Wine Bar, Vancouver

A lot of hotels have some sort of coffee in the lobby, or in the bar/restaurant attached to the lobby. It is rarely any good. Even rarer still, is those hotels with lobby coffee so good that you would come back and visit again even if you weren't staying upstairs. I gave Uva a bit of a scout when we checked in today, and noticed the Synesso and the fact that they were using 49th Parallel beans. This place seemed to be worth checking out, and I could get there without walking outside. And that was a relief. It had been raining since we got here.


Nice. Danny tried to order a flat white. The guy hadn't heard of them. It's nice to know that the great wave of flat white* hasn't yet swept through Vancouver. The water was served in a jar too, which reminded me a bit of Greenhouse, although I later found out these jars aren't recycled. Buying brand new jars to use as water glasses seems a little strange, but the coffee was pretty happening. I came back about five times while I was in town.

* Flat whites, known and loved and consumed in Australia (ordered by me often as a safeguard against getting a too-foamy cappuccino or a too-weak latté), seem to have made people go mental in London recently. Specialty coffee in London is awash with Kiwi and Aussie baristas, they make great coffee (some of which are flat whites), and lots of punters are enjoying it. Unfortunately, some of the bigger chains have gleaned from this that the key to success is not making better coffee, but making a drink called a flat white.