In the midst of all the contemporary, art-filled and succulent covered coffee shops sprouting all over Los Angeles, Copa Vida at corner of Green Street and Raymond Avenue sets itself apart with their unique approach to coffee drinking.
At Copa Vida, owner Steve Chang and his team have decided to label their coffees into 3 categories: Go, Enjoy and Experience. While all of the traditional information is available on the label (origin, elevation, varietal), they wanted to introduce simple categories that will help curious coffee drinkers quickly understand what they are buying.
Chang describes the first type, Go Coffee, as your basic idea of what a good cup of coffee is. He adds, “You wake up in the morning, you want a good cup of coffee to get your day started, that’s your Go coffee. It’s sweet, chocolaty, balanced and goes really well with milk and sugar.”
The second type, Enjoy Coffee is described by Chang as a “light bulb experience” with fruity and flora notes and depths that challenge the palate. It’s a cup of coffee that makes people wonder, “I didn’t know coffee could taste like that”.
The third type of coffee experience is what Chang refers to as an, “award winner, the top of the top of the top level of coffee” — a mind-blowing experience.
And Copa Vida’s roasting program—from getting only directly or fairly traded coffee beans and small batch roasting it themselves—has spread all over LA: at Cafe Dulce (Little Tokyo), Cognoscenti at Proof Bakery (Atwater Village), Bourbon Street Cafe (Koreatown), Love Cafe (Santa Monica), and Rose City Cafe (Pasadena).
Yes, at Copa Vida, they take coffee, not themselves, very seriously.
Copa Vida is located at 70 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 213-3952 or visit www.copa-vida.com.