All posts tagged: lattes

Best pumpkin spice lattes and seasonal fall drinks to try in Los Angeles

Best pumpkin spice lattes and seasonal fall drinks to try in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

Thank You Coffee began serving its play on pumpkin spice in 2020, but the Chinatown and Anaheim coffee counters riff on Asian ingredients and flavor profiles with options such as the five-spice latte year-round. Around fall, however, the scent of gourd spice always makes its return: the seasonal, signature KSL — or kabocha spice latte — which swaps pumpkin for kabocha squash. “We don’t really eat pumpkin, but we eat a lot of kabocha,” said co-owner Jonathan Yang. “My wife, Julia, and I love kabocha but not all people know it, and we realized this is a neat way to highlight that kabocha is pretty much like a Japanese pumpkin.” Thank You Coffee’s KSL derives its chief flavors from a blend of toasted spices including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom and ginger, which are turned into a syrup with a combination of white and dark brown sugars and ginger bitters; it all gets steeped and strained. Yang steams fresh kabocha squash, then purées it and incorporates it into the spice syrup, adding depth without detracting from …

Where to find the best misugaru lattes in Los Angeles

Where to find the best misugaru lattes in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

When I was growing up in Michigan, misugaru was a warm, comforting drink that my Korean stepmother made for me as a treat before bed on especially cold winter nights. She called it “sweet rice tea,” which sounded amazing to my 9-year-old brain. Misugaru is a powder blend made up of a variety of grains such as brown rice, barley, millet and black sesame. The grains are steamed, roasted and ground and served hot or cold mixed with water or milk. Many Koreans make their own misugaru at home, but there are also a dizzying number of retail versions. It’s sometimes consumed as a meal replacement since it’s high in many nutrients. I hadn’t thought about the drink in ages until I stumbled into Bodega Park, a sandwich and coffee shop in Silver Lake. There, chef and co-owner Eric Park serves a black sesame misugaru drink that combines espresso, oat milk and the multigrain powder and gets topped with black sesame cream. It’s nutty, sweet and frothy, but not too rich thanks to the bitterness …

Where to get the best pumpkin spice lattes in Los Angeles

Where to get the best pumpkin spice lattes in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

Call it basic, or call it one of the most brilliant marketing ploys the coffee world has ever seen. Heralding fall with the same gusto as an afternoon of apple picking — which does indeed exist within driving distance of L.A. — the pumpkin spice latte is back, featuring espresso with nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and other warming spices often combined in pumpkin pie. Given that the spice blend the latte is based upon is more than two centuries old — and this year, the Starbucks-popularized drink that garnered a pumpkin-rabid fandom turned 20 — it appears the pumpkin spice latte is here to stay. The Starbucks icon reprised its reign Aug. 24 — nearly a week earlier than last year’s return — but independent L.A. coffee shops are currently turning out some of their own, more delicious takes. From Chinatown to Culver City, mom-and-pop cafes are building on the PSL — some even juicing fresh pumpkins, simmering small batches of kabocha squash or hand-grinding spices with a mortar and pestle. To many, the drink has …