Mexico City is packed with incredible sights. World class museums, ancient ruins, Spanish colonial buildings, sinking cathedrals and so much more that it would be ludicrous to try and list them all. You can easily spend a week in the Mexican capital and only see a fraction of what’s on offer. Still, one of the city’s biggest tourist magnets is located on its fringes, in a beautiful neighbourhood called Coyoacan. This tranquil village-like ‘colonia’ is where Frida Kahlo spent her final years and where huge lines form outside the famous Frida Kahlo museum every day.
It may seem obvious to trek all the way down here to marvel at her paintings, fashion and more, but for coffee lovers there is another reason come here. Located on a quiet side street of the zocalo, is one of the city’s most fantastic specialty coffee shops, Café Avellaneda. This cozy, coffee shop was one of the firsts in the city to pioneer third wave coffee culture and to roast its own coffees, all of which hail from Mexico.
Mexico is, in fact, one of the world’s only coffee producing countries where its finest crops down automatically get exported, but are increasingly sourced by local coffee roasters who proudly serve home-grown coffees to the local population. At Café Avellaneda, you can get a full experience of some of Mexico’s most delicious coffees, ranging from an exquisite espresso to various filter coffees and ‘tragos’, coffee based cock- and cocktails.
Staff here is an absolute joy and the welcoming bar invites you to linger, strike up a conversation and enter a friendly discussion about which coffee tastes the best. I started my tasting adventure off with a refreshing cold brew tonic served with lemon peel. This was the perfect drink to cool down my body temperature and prepare me for a cup of Café Avellaneda’s Candelara Pequeños from Veracruz state; a truly delicious and excellently roasted coffee that I immediately bought a bag of to take home.
In addition to its coffees, Café Avellaneda also offers really tasty cakes and even stocks the Commandante Grinder, made in Germany. If you happen to be in Coyoacan and you’re done gobbling up Frida’s legacy, make time to wander the streets of this charming neighbourhood, plazas and grab a coffee at Café Avellaneda.
