Owner & Founder Mad Lab Coffee
Los Angeles, CA
Joined March 2010
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sunday night cup and Im drinking it black like I usually do but if you come in and want cream and sugar in yours go for it, nobody on our bars is gonna give you a look for that. we spent all that time roasting it so you'd enjoy it and if thats how you enjoy it then cool lol
people ask us for a real dark french roast kinda often and Im not gonna fake one just cause it would sell. I roast for sweetness and fruit cause thats what I actually like drinking (Dark Brown is our dark one and theres no char on it) but no shade at all if thats your cup
sometimes coffee is honestly not that deep and I think we forget that. I love nerding out on this stuff as much as anybody but if you just wanna make a cup at home on a sunday without weighing anything and it tastes good to you then great, thats kinda the whole point lol
halloween saturday so every bar near our shops is packed tonight lol. I always say baristas are basically acoustic bartenders, people sit across the counter and do life with you and tell you how their week went. we just do it way earlier and nobody shows up in costume (usually)
roasting for LA was always the point for me, felt weird having people from somewhere else decide what our neighborhood should drink. so we roast for fruit and sweetness cause thats what LA coffee tastes like to me, and the folks walking in each morning are who I wanna make happy
if somebody comes in wanting a drink we just dont do Im not gonna make some sad fake version of it to keep the sale, Ill point you to a spot nearby that does it right and honestly I hope you come back and see us after. our menu can say no and we can still be stoked you walked in
friday night and Im thinking about the basement days lol. test tubes and beakers out, stuff boiling everywhere and that stupid little toaster sample roaster going. nobody was handing out roasting secrets back then so I figured it out longhand and that still shapes how we roast
people grab a dark roast cause they think its got more kick (or a light roast for the same reason lol) and this new paper out of Brazil roasted one coffee three ways and the caffeine barely moved. so just drink the roast you actually like the taste of ojs.ceres.ufv.br/ceres/artic…
somebody at the bar asks if theres mold in their coffee cause a scary ad told them so, I get it, those ads are made to freak you out lol. Im just not gonna debate it over the espresso machine, Ill send you to the actual data and make you a good cup. fear marketing is kinda dumb
people dont really talk about this part but a big chunk of my job is just making sure we stay in business so the crew can pay rent and eat lol. I love chasing great coffee as much as anybody, Im just not gonna starve the people behind our bars to look cool to other coffee people
half the gym is chugging neon pre workout and this new study had 15 guys drink coffee an hour before lifting, the stronger dose bumped their max and the smaller one did basically nothing lol. so just make a real cup before you lift, tastes way better too doi.org/10.70736/jrolss.2566
opening the Sunset shop in 2020 was kinda nuts lol, pandemic and the uprisings and everything. but the neighborhood still deserved somebody showing up with coffee so we did, and a lot of people who come in every week now are the same ones from back then. I dont take that lightly
honestly the best conversations behind the bar start super simple, somebody tells me they like coffee and Im like dude so do I, lets enjoy it together lol. nobody has to pass a quiz to get a good cup at our shops and the second it starts feeling like a test we already messed up
been doing this long enough that a bunch of stuff I used to swear was a fact just isnt anymore lol, so when someone at the bar tells me how they brew at home I try to remember I did it wrong for years too. mileage can vary, Im not gonna be the guy talking down to anybody over it
thinking tonight about how Wolf started off as just a customer lol. spring 2019 he tells me he likes what we're about and asks if he can do this with me, and he's been in it ever since. best part is I can ask him what he thinks and get a non coffee answer, I appreciate that
buying your coffee already ground is fine Im not gonna lecture you, just use it up fast lol. this new study tracked ground coffee in storage and at room temp it was already losing that fresh aroma by about day 5, so a grinder at home pays off if you can doi.org/10.3390/foods1521377…
every time some new drink blows up online I could throw it on the menu for a quick bump, but I want Mad Lab to taste like Mad Lab lol. so we're not turning into a matcha spot or adding cream tops to chase a bigger ticket. if thats your drink go enjoy it honestly
late night thought but the stuff I say most across the bar is like youre awesome or I hope this cup helps lol, and I mean it every time. for a lot of people coffee is the one bit of normal in their day so I take that part pretty seriously, more than you'd guess from a roaster
I trust my cupping spoon more than a defect count on a grading sheet and this new review kinda backs me up lol, they looked at grading systems from all over and the counts dont translate straight to how the cup tastes. so Im still gonna taste everything doi.org/10.3390/foods1521380…