I Spent $28 on a Coffee and Guess What?

Plus! Summer reading reccos!! 38 libraries, no regrets!!!

Jul 07, 2025

Hello everyone,

Welcome to Issue #171 of CAFÉ ANNE!

I am taking next week off to take care of some bizness and—more important—do some summer reading on the couch, at the dog run and, of course, at Laundry & Latte, the fantastic new laundromat-café that just opened around the corner on Columbia Place. The owner is FRENCH so you know it’s TRÉS AUTHENTICO.

And what will I be reading? My criteria for a good summer book: Fun-But-Not-Dumb. This is a tricky needle to thread. So far this summer I’ve been delighted by James Michener’s Centennial (I learned a lot about bison!), fellow Brooklynite Tony Tulathimutte’s very funny and very online incel tribute Rejection and Sang Young Park’s Seoul-based Love in the Big City

Not so fun: The Sleepers by another Brooklynite, Matthew Gasda. I hated this slim brick of nihilistic relationship dialogue so much, I devoured it within 36 hours of starting. So maybe it was fun. What is wrong with me?

In any case, all these reads were suggested by friends, and now I am turning to you: what are your favorite Fun-But-Not-Dumb summer reads?

In other news, huge summer reading shoutouts to our newest paid subscribers Gaylord F., Steven L., Peace L. and Mary M. That’s enough $$$ to pay off my library fines and raid the used book stand on Court Street!

I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. We’ve got an account of my $28 coffee adventure plus a chat with Claire Akkan about her recent tour checking out every library in Manhattan. Please enjoy.

Regards!

Anne

I Spent $28 on a Coffee and Guess What?

A standard-but-decent cup of coffee costs about $3 in NYC these days. So when I spotted the $28 pour-over at the new WatchHouse café in the Chrysler Building, my first thought was, "I must try this!" My second thought: "I must get the readers to pay for it!"

And you did. After I proposed this little coffee adventure in Issue #169, eleven readers chipped in via Venmo, contributing more than enough to treat myself and a friend. "For your $28 pour-over,” wrote reader Xeni F. in the note accompanying her donation, “because there are only so many signs of the coming apocalypse you can drink!"

I embarked last Tuesday. It was one of those sunny, sweltering NYC summer afternoons—ideal for a steaming hot cup of coffee. And I knew that Aharon, the "friend" I'd invited along, would be in a great mood. He'd just returned from Oregon on a delayed flight.

While waiting for Aharon in the lobby of the Chrysler Building, I chatted with the security guard about the WatchHouse. The London-based chain opened its newest NYC location just three weeks ago. "You know what I'm here for—they have a $28 coffee," I told the guard.

"That's right, they do!" he said. "I haven't tried it out yet, but I know people here who have, and they said—" he hoisted two thumbs in the air.

He was planning to treat himself next payday, he added. "I gotta try it out!"

View of the WatchHouse from the Chrysler Building lobby

Aharon showed up in a terrible t-shirt, a bit damp after getting caught in a surprise rain shower. "My friend Aharon showed up wearing a terrible t-shirt from college," said Aharon, narrating his own arrival. "15 percent more dyspeptic than he normally is. Which is really saying something!”

We went in. The café was filled with well-dressed office types who looked like they were informational interviewing each other. The space had an Art Deco look echoing the Chrysler Building lobby, and fresh flowers adorned each table. The cashier, with her curly, acid-green bangs and face covered with foil star stickers, added a touch of Gen Z whimsy.

"I was thinking of getting the La Negrita," I told her, referring to the $28 coffee. "Is it pretty good?"

"It's pretty rare and it's pretty good! It's one of our most popular," she said.

(La Negrita, I later learned, is not the name of the coffee. It refers to the farm in Tolima, Colombia where the beans are grown. This small farm, I also learned, is owned and operated by a former radiation oncologist.)

I told Aharon to order anything he wanted and he got a $4 espresso—the cheapest thing on the menu. With tax and tip, the total came to $41.24.

Jeremy, the barista, started my pour-over by pulling a small test tube of whole beans from a freezer case on the counter. "We dose them out downstairs, but then we freeze them to keep the freshness," he explained.

"It looks like a blood sample!" I said.

"I know, I feel like a scientist," said Jeremy.

"An evil scientist?" asked Aharon.

"A cartoon one," Jeremy corrected.

He poured the beans into the grinder: "We do 16.1 grams," he said. "Just because the point-one can get lost in the grinder."

Next he filled and weighed a beaker of water—250 grams.

"You put it on the scale! Oh my God, that's so crazy!" I said. I am easily wowed.

Jeremy warmed the water in an electric kettle before pouring it over the grinds in a timed stream—a 50-gram pour in ten seconds, followed by two 100-gram, 20-second pours. He set my coffee on a little wood tray accompanied by a glass of green tea to serve as a palate cleanser.

This all seemed seemed very silly, but also sort of impressive. A fine bit of coffee theater! Aharon, who knows more about coffee, assured me that all this fuss makes a difference.

We’d see. We found a table and set down our trays. Aharon sampled his espresso.

"This is German train station quality!" he pronounced.

Aharon rates his espresso *Deutsche Bahnhofsqualität!*

I poured half my $28 coffee from its glass carafe into the ceramic cup and took a sip. I felt confused. I took another sip. I felt confused. I took another sip. It tasted like—wine? Tea? It was a little fruity, and very thin. "If someone blind-folded me and I drank this, I couldn't tell you what it was," I said.

Aharon closed his eyes and took a sip. "Olive juice!" he said. "You know, like when you get a dirty martini—you splash a little olive juice in there. Take out the salt, and that's what you have."

I took another sip. Yep! Olive juice.

"This is for aristocrats for whom everything is so dreary that any sort of normal thing is boring," said Aharon.

I set down my cup. There was no way I was drinking the rest. "How can we monetize this?" I wondered.

"How can we monetize other people monetizing this? We can package this and sell it in Brooklyn for $42, plus tax," said Aharon. "We can undercut them by offering unidentifiable coffee across the street for only $26. Or we can just move on with our lives."

But I wasn't done. I went back to the counter and ordered a second round. The $6 cappuccino and $6 chocolate chip cookie weren't the best, but they tasted like coffee and dessert.

"I have a cappuccino and a cookie, so I'm happy," I said, feeling very happy.

"But Anne," said Aharon.

"Yes?"

"That's you giving yourself five stars, and that's a universal thing."

PS: I emailed WatchHouse a couple times to request a comment, but its PR firm did not get back to me in time. I’m hoping to have an update next week!

PPS: There's still $44.90 left in my coffee adventure fund. What shall I blow it on? Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

DEPT. OF POINTLESS ESCAPADES

38 Libraries, No Regrets!

There are 38 free-standing public libraries in Manhattan. And over the past several months, Claire Akkan visited them all. Well, except for one. I joined her last week for her last stop—the flagship main library on 5th Avenue.

Before going in, we chatted on the steps of the grand Beaux-Arts building. My first question: why visit every library in Manhattan?

NYC location collecting is a time-honored sport, of course. I've previously written about Jessi Highet and Mike Varley, the couple who visited 200 bagel shops, and Jacob Ready's quest to visit every NYC bookstore, not to mention Caroline Weaver, who visited 14,000 small businesses in all five boroughs.

"People want a goal that is quantifiable and has a definitive start and end. It feels productive, even maybe when it's not—when you're just spending your weekends wandering around libraries," said Ms. Akkan.

She also just really loves libraries. And believes the expedition made her a better New Yorker. "If you try to see every library in Manhattan, you'll go to every neighborhood," she said. "I walked on streets I'd never walked before. I feel like I understood a little bit more about the soul of each neighborhood."

Whether it's Inwood or the West Village, you'll find pretty much the same Starbucks in every community. But each public library serves as a mirror of its surroundings. At the Seward Park Library in Chinatown, for example, the bottom floor is devoted to Chinese language books. Harlem hosts the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture while the Mulberry Street Library in Soho has a huge collection of art and fashion books, plus a gallery.

And then there's the specialty locations like the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library and the Library for the Performing Arts near Lincoln Square with its music hall, theater lab and listening room packed with turntables.

"Every library in New York has its own little soul," she said.

Ms. Akkan, who is 26 and lives in Kips Bay with her husband, is an officially Busy Lady. Aside from writing her NYC culture newsletter, Cappuccino Thoughts, she has a full-time strategy and operations job at a big startup. Plus, she designs and manufactures her own line of handbags (carried in nine local stores) and serves on the board of the Yale Club of NYC.

She visited every branch within a few months by devoting her Saturdays to the project, often visiting several in one day. The libraries were packed with New Yorkers of every stripe, she said—attending lectures, surfing the internet, browsing magazines and yes, sometimes reading books!

So which libraries stood out?

• Personal Favorite: The 67th Street Library, Lenox Hill

"It just felt the most like a library to me. It was the right mix of spacious and filled with light, but also packed with aisles and aisles of books. The people there were really nice. It has this beautiful wrought iron staircase in the middle. I just walked in and I was like, 'Oh, this is what a library feels like to me.'"

• Most Beautiful: Jefferson Market Library, West Village

"It looks like a gothic church, with beautiful windows and a stone staircase. It seems like people have figured this out, because a lot of 20- and 30-somethings have moved in there and use it as a co-working space."

• The worst: Kips Bay Library

"My local library. I always kind thought it was a typical city library, but it was also the only one that I would go to. And then I saw the others, and I was like, 'No, this actually is the worst library in the city.' It's super cramped. Also, the people are kind of mean. I think it needs to be renovated. If I ever strike it rich, you'll know, because I'll donate my money to the Kips Bay Library. Maybe they'll rename it for me."

It was time to head inside!

The main library, a vast, four-story research institution overlooking Bryant Park, is likely the only library with a line to get in, metal detectors at the entrance and security guards searching your bag. It's packed with tourists! But also books! It holds more than 2.5 million volumes.

The famous Rose Reading Room at the main library

We explored Astor Hall with its grand marble staircases, the Rose Reading Room packed with scholars and pseudo-scholars and the exhibit rooms with their vast collections of maps and prints. Like all the city's grand public spaces including Grand Central Terminal and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it elevates and inspires all who pass through, turning losers into winners.

We fell silent.

"I was just thinking how crazy it is that libraries exist at all," Ms. Akkan said finally. "If someone running for office today said, 'I'm going to create a service whereby any New Yorker gets a card and then they can get a free book, and we're going to trust that they're going to bring it back. And also, we're going to give you a nice space where you can sit for a while. And you can use our printers, you can use the internet, and you can have air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, and we're not going to charge you anything...'"

"That is a good point," I said. "It's bizarre."

"It's crazy," she agreed. "Millions of people check out millions of books every year. We trust them, and it just works. It's wild!"