A Real Coffee Roaster

In a city filled with lovely cafés, it is hard to find a great cup of coffee. More specifically, you can find good coffee, but it’s nothing like the excellent espressos of Italy. Basically, the city seems to lack coffee weenies. People get excited about cafés, but not café—it’s hard to get anyone worked up about beans or blends. Or at least that’s what I thought until I wandered into the Brulerie des Ternes on rue des Petits Champs. Due to my diminished olfactory state, I can’t tell you about the delicious aromas filling the tiny boutique, but I’ll be they are fab. I can tell you that the place seemed to be crawling with something I’ve never seen before: French coffee weenies. They were all hovering around the bar, drinking tiny cups of darkest brown coffee nectar and buying bean blends with Italian sounding names. One guy was inquiring after fill-it-yourself coffee pods, which according to the woman behind the bar, are so easy to use a child could do it. “You don’t know my daughter,” he responded. There is nothing but coffee and sugar in this store, no cookies, no biscuits, no fluorescent-colored bottled water. The coffee is French roasted, as in locally roasted in France, somewhere nearby I’ll bet, and it is really really good. I got a “carte de fidelité,” which means if I drink enough coffee there I’ll get a free bag of beans ground to my specifications, but in true French style, there is no address or website on the card. But I believe that it was 30 rue des Petits Champs, and there are other outlets where you may or may not be able to drink a cup at 10 rue Poncelet, 28 rue de la Annonciation, and one more on the bottom of rue Moufftard.

2 Responses to “A Real Coffee Roaster” »»

  1. Comment by Roger Rohrbach | 12/20/10 at 7:00 pm

    The Brûleries des Ternes on rue des Petits-Champs (which, by the way, is not the one pictured; it took over an older establishment, whose name remains on the sign above the shop) is indeed a very pleasant place to drink good coffee, and the ladies who work there are très gentil.

    Don’t omit a visit to Cafés Verlet on rue St.-Honoré, the next step up in terms of quality. It’s a lovely place to have coffee with a sweet. Try the Yemeni.

    The best-prepared coffee in Paris can be found at La Caféothèque, near the Point Louis-Philippe. Here you’ll find the sort of coffee culture that Paris generally lacks, replete with “coffee weenies” and careful baristas. Don’t miss!

  2. Comment by Brenda | 12/20/10 at 10:01 pm

    I’ve been shopping at 10 Rue Poncelet for about 15 years. I do not believe you can get brewed coffee there. But, the shop also has a full selection of teas including decaf varieties. Their cafe blend is used by a number of cafes across Paris.

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