(Photo: courtesy of Intelligentsia.)
[I]ntelligentsia Coffee’s new Coffeebar and Training Lab opens tomorrow in Boston’s Watertown neighborhood. The adjoining café and training space are the first locations in the Boston, Massachusetts area, and part of a larger plan to expand the brand’s presence in the East Coast. The new coffee bar invites guests to fully experience the company’s vision for serving exceptional coffee, while showing customers the finer points of crafting it.
The coffee menu includes pour-over brew bar service of V60, Chemex, Café Solo, and Kalita Wave, as well as custom Grindmaster Cecilware Barista Series Urn-brewed coffee. Espresso will be crafted on a La Marzocco Strada AV.
In addition to the robust coffee menu, customers will also be able to enjoy fresh pastries from Boston-based Forge Baking Company.
Intelligentsia’s tea line, Kilogram Tea, will be featured on the menu both in loose leaf and in a new format—the Coffeebar is among the first of Intelligentsia’s cafés to serve the company’s brand new sparkling iced tea. Tea offerings will rotate to reflect peak seasonality.
The 1,900 square-foot coffee bar was designed by Bestor Architecture and preserves and exposes much of the building’s original structure. The café features a “chef’s table” pour-over bar, where customers can engage in the crafting process of each beverage. The space incorporates a boho-modern vibe, vintage European furniture, a multi-level outdoor space, thoughtful built-in seating, special nooks, and on-site parking, making the space a comfortable and relaxing “home-away-from-home.”
The Training Lab will be used mostly for Intelligentsia’s wholesale partners, but coffee enthusiasts will have the opportunity to participate in public courses covering the fundamentals of coffee brewing and milk steaming.
The Watertown Coffeebar is open from 6:30 a.m.–5p.m. daily and is located at 810 Mount Auburn St. Watertown, Massachusetts, 02472.
—Rachel Sandstrom Morrison is Fresh Cup‘s associate editor.