In Los Angeles the options...
for a place to grab a cup of coffee are near boundless. To become a standout cafe among hundreds of others requires more than just good coffee. A great location helps, a knowledgeable staff is of course a staple, but a unique style and culture is what pushes you past the ordinary. Since I live just a couple hours from LA I've been to Go Get Em Tiger, and they have all of the above.
Go Get Em Tiger, otherwise known as gget Started in 2012 by Charles Babinski and Kyle Glanville. Gget was as a bit of a departure from their other cafe G&B. They aimed for more a bight, neighborhood, and community oriented place that served the same great coffees and innovative food. Unlike most cafes there are no lines, you approach the bar and order like you would at a traditional bar. Except here your beverages are coffee focused, and the food is more gourmet than fried.
In August of this year Gget announced they will be moving from a multi-roaster program to their own roasted coffees. This was big news in the specialty coffee industry. The coffees served at Gget were top-notch, and came from the lines of 49th Parallel, Camber, and others. They have some big shoes to fill, and according to an interview they did on Sprudge they felt ready to publicly roll out their roasts after "honing" their coffee roasting skills.
The first espresso I dug into was their flagship Minor Monuments. Opening the bag I did notice that the coffee was roasted significantly darker than I expected based on their previous directions. There was even a bit of visible oils on the surface of the beans, which is a signifier of a darker roasted coffee. Since this will often be paired with milk, it isn't unusual to roast a bit darker. As espresso it was did carry the notes of burnt sugar, molasses and a bit of chocolate. I felt as though the Ethiopia portion of the blend did not come through as I had hoped. I would've liked to have a bit more acidity. But with milk this espresso became a creamy delight with a very obvious note of vanilla that I found very nice.
The Ethiopia Yabitu Koba is their single origin espresso option. Oftentimes these espressos carry either too much or too little acidity for my liking. This one was also roasted a bit darker than I had previously anticipated. The notes of lemon and stone fruit did come through though, and it was a nice clean shot. With milk the flavors leaned more towards the berry spectrum, with some sugary notes and the added sweetness of steamed milk was a nice touch.
In the end both of these coffees are worth a try, but could also use a bit more work in the development side. I really would've loved to had more of the Ethiopia come through in the Minor Monuments, and a bit lighter of a roast on the Ethiopia Yabitu Koba to really get some of the flavors that Guji is known for. On my scale these coffees both earn a 'Try It'.
