Blue Bottle Coffee Kiosk   

Blue Bottle Coffee Company claims it may "very well be the smallest and greenest coffee roasting company in the United States." It also could be the coffee company with the most fanatical drinkers. In a city famous for its refined culinary palate, Blue Bottle has nurtured a cult following with its obsessive approach to buying and roasting coffee beans, and, now, brewing and pouring coffee drinks out of a tiny storefront in Hayes Valley. Operating from a 183-square-foot space just off Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, the independent roaster was founded by James Freeman, who is as passionate about coffee as enophiles are about their cherished drink. Freeman, a former musician, refuses to sell beans that are more than 48 hours out of the roaster. Of course, all of Blue Bottle's beans are organic, and its signature blends offer coffee at its most complex and satisfying. For example, here's how the company describes its Alma Viva, a blend of Costa Rican and Mexican beans: "You don't have to be a Flaubert scholar to realize that the Alma Viva is the Emma Bovary of our blends: snappy and forthright, with echoes of orange peel and toasted almonds when no dairy is added, but demure to the point of passivity with milk or cream." With all seriousness, Freeman describes his coffee as "transcendent." Grab a cup and judge for yourself.