The Quest for The Best

Everyone has that one defining in moment in their life. A moment where they realize that "this is what I was meant to do." For me? That was and is; coffee. Not only is coffee a relatable beverage among most, but coffee culture itself is a whole other world that I am ready to dive into.

A little background on me, my name is Rylie, most call me Ry. I grew up in Buffalo, NY where on every corner we had a Tim Horton's. I was given my first cup of coffee, a black cup of Folgers in a styrofoam cup. I was 5 years old and it was in our church at the time. From then on, I was hooked.

On a consistent basis, I drank my father's coffee.  Until my parents let me start regularly drinking my own iced coffee from Timmy Ho's at age 12. To me, I was the definition of a coffee drinker at the time. When I discovered Starbucks at age 13 (middle school years, gotta love it), it was game over.

In high school, I went and got my coffee and bagel every morning, no matter what. In fact, the workers had it ready for me. Do you know how many times I got to cut the line? I was living in my PRIME, known as the girl with the coffee 24/7. I thought I lived and breathed coffee. Until college. Then everything changes.

You know how everyone tells you that you drink more coffee in college and even if you are not a coffee drink you will? Well I obviously didn't have a problem with that. Unfortunately I started drinking coffee as a substitute for food because I was constantly on the go and didn't have my mother's amazing cooking anymore. But coffee? It's my best friend.

The school I attend, Roberts Wesleyan College, is in Rochester, NY, only about an hour from my hometown. Prior to college, I have never really been out to Rochester considering Buffalo is bigger and has everything Rochester has, well almost everything. See, the thing I have been missing all my life, was actual coffee, not chain crappy coffee.

The first local coffee shop I went to was freshman year. It is called Leaf and Bean Coffee Co (a shop I will reference and mention a lot in this blog). It is about 10 minutes down the road from campus, an upperclassmen took me their for the first time to get to know me and drink coffee. I got a mocha, it was the only thing I knew what it was. Now, I am a junior and I pretty much go there everyday, sometimes twice and in case you were wondering, I get a large iced Jamaican me crazy with almond milk.

Continuing on in my journey, I sat down one day and discovered that I have been to 14 different locally owned coffee shops throughout my time in Rochester thus far. These shops are where I spend:

1. Majority of my time

2. Majority of my money

These shops have made such an impact on me that I now really only drink locally owned coffee, and occasionally Starbucks. Tim Horton's and (dare I even say) Dunkin' do not do it for me, I refuse to drink it. I like to think I only drink coffee for it's flavor and that's why, but I can't deny the power that caffeine can have.

This past May I traveled to Ireland with my school and every morning before we had to do anything, I would drag my friend Sarrah to a local coffee shop. In fact, for a week and a half we were there, we made it our mission to go to a new shop every morning.

When we came back to Rochester, we started to go back to our normal routine of different coffee shops to do our work in. From there on, my idea was born; a travel coffee blog.

My goal was to travel to different coffee shops throughout Rochester and review them, based on my standards. By the time I graduate, I want to go to every single shop. People already ask me for my opinion on these shops, so I thought "why not just blog about it so you don't have to talk to anyone?"

Unfortunately, someone had done my idea. Now I know this isn't the most original idea, but someone did it about Rochester shops which discouraged me from wanting to make this blog. I'm now stepping out of that and decided I will just do what I want. So here it is.

The Quest for The Best

The first thing I did in my research was to find all the locally owned Rochester coffee shops (which you can find the list on my blog). Then I made a critique sheet. What makes a coffee shop good? I broke these off into 7 categories:

1. Location

2. Atmosphere

3. Aesthetic

4. Space

5. Seating

6. Noise

7. Price

The next question I have is; What makes the coffee drink good?

1. Flavor

2. Boldness

3.Aftertaste

4. Signature Drink

5. Options

As I travel, these are the areas I will be looking into. I will explain more in depth next time as we compare a coffee shop to the rating. The first shop on our list? Ugly Duck Coffee.