Cognoscenti Coffee began as “LA’s first pop-up specialty coffee bar”, and it now runs two cafés: a roastery café at City Market South in the Downtown Fashion District, and a second room in the Culver City Arts District. The roasting happens at the Downtown site, and online orders can be collected there.

Under the banner “Exceptional Coffees, Roasted in LA”, the range is single-origin microlots from specific farms and harvests, chosen for distinctive character through continual cupping and long-term relationships, and small-batch blends built for everyday pour-over, espresso and cold brew. The microlots lean towards Colombia: several lots from Néstor Lasso’s El Diviso farm in Pitalito, among them a Caturra Chiroso and a Red Bourbon, both anaerobic naturals scoring 88 and above by the roaster’s cupping, and a Maragogype from Diego Bermúdez’s El Paraíso in Cauca fermented with koji, the mould behind soy sauce and sake, with soy and umami up front and sweet chocolate and green apple behind in the roaster’s notes. Alongside them sit a washed Guji from the Habtamu Goro washing station, a full natural from Arufa in Papua New Guinea, a natural Caturra from Eli Espinoza in Peru, now in its third year with the roaster, and a black honey H17 from the Duran family in Costa Rica. The house blend is called It’s a Hoot, and the decaf is a sugarcane EA Colombia.

Whole beans ship nationwide, roasted to order for the subscription, and the Cog Blog takes on sourcing questions such as traceability under Colombia’s coffee federation and the trade-offs between farmer relationships and cup quality.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Cognoscenti Coffee