Roasting style: Light Roast
Opened: 2013
Drinks Menu: Only a handful of espresso drinks, including sidecar and cortado, with a couple flavored syrups to add to drinks. The flavors of the coffee are the primary focus. You'll find more variety on the bean menu for pour over coffees, as well as the loose leaf tea menu.
Food Menu: A few pastries made in house.
Espresso Machine: Manual La Marzocco
Brew Options: V60 Pourover and cold brew
Location: The Loop
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Specialty Drinks: Rested Neapolitan latte. This was a special in the summer of 2016 and it was an interesting beverage. Aptly named after the ice cream, this drink is made with chocolate ganache, strawberry and vanilla bean syrup, espresso and milk. The ingredients are whipped with a handmixer to make the milk fluffy and thick. Rather than serving it immediately, this concoction is refrigerated for a couple days to make the flavors more pronounced. While the flavor was good, the texture was gritty and the temperature was luke warm. It left a strange aftertaste and feeling in my mouth. Although I didn't like the Neapolitan, it was nice to see a coffee shop experimenting and offering something new.
Review:
Although Blueprint Coffee has only one location in the Loop, its influence can be felt all over the city. You can find the Penrose espresso in The Mud House on Cherokee, Half and Half in Clayton, Foundation Grounds in Maplewood, and other coffee shops all over the city.
For the full Blueprint experience, you have to visit the shop itself, which is divided into a spacious cafe in the front and the Gothot roaster and giant bags of green coffee in the back. The décor is clean and cold - not unwelcoming, but certainly not inviting you to stay for long. It mixes cold, industrial details, such as stark white walls, dark concrete floors, and clinical white tiles, with natural elements, including unstained wood and numerous potted plants. The pour over coffee is served in beakers on little metal trays, and the seats are hard stools, the kind you see in labs and classrooms where you need a little discomfort to stay awake.
This design style creates a vibe that you need to be on a mission for coffee when you walk in. This isn’t a place for students to study all day, nor for lengthy meetings. It’s a place to order a cup of coffee, enjoy it, then move on.
The company approaches roasting and brewing with a similar scientific accuracy, measuring the espresso as it pours from the group head and weighing the coffee as it fills the glass carafe for a pour over. Despite this methodical approach, I've had mixed experiences with Blueprint Coffee. I’ve had pour overs that were cold and espresso that was very sharp and acidic. On other trips, though, I've enjoyed cappucinos with fruity finishes and fluffy microfoam. I don't expect perfection. I know people can have an off day, but the disappointing drinks seem to happen with Blueprint more than with other coffee shops of the same caliber.
The atmosphere of the coffee shop puts me off too. It’s not just the stools that make your butt fall asleep after half an hour. It’s also that the Loop can be a pain to drive through and the parking is limited. It’s not worth the traffic, meter fees or crowds of people to sit in a cold room. Plus, every time I’ve gone, it has taken me a long time to get my drink. Even without anyone ahead of me in line, it takes several minutes to make a cortado or cappuccino. While I’m willing to wait for a coffee made by hand and made well, I don’t have to wait as long at Sump or Comet Coffee, where the drinks are prepared even better than at Blueprint.
While it's not my favorite coffee shop, Blueprint is worth visiting and following because of its innovative drinks, skilled baristas and excellent beans.
While it's not my favorite coffee shop, Blueprint is worth visiting and following because of its innovative drinks, skilled baristas and excellent beans.
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