Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
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Call, a coffee-and-beignet institution with a similar longstanding history in the city. "When I was a teenager, we would all hang out at Morning Call," he says. "It's like the famous Café Du Monde, but more of a locals' spot. Back then, and still now, the traditional way of serving coffee with chicory was in a café au lait. Coffee and chicory would come pre-ground, get brewed in a big batch, and then mixed half and half with steamed milk." NOLA's coffee has been so intertwined with chicory that most cof- fee shops didn't even serve coffee without chicory until the 1990s. "Chicory in coffee has always been a New Orleans thing," Demian says. "PJ's was the fi rst coffee shop that I know of that actually served coffee without chicory. They were also the fi rst place I had iced coffee in the early 1990s." Renee Blanchard, owner of Church Alley Coffee Bar in Mid-City in New Orleans and a native of Lafayette, La., has similar memories of coffee served with chicory. "My mom always had two different kinds of cold brew around when I was in high school. Cool Brew, [a bottled brew made by] an old business started by a New Orleans company, and she also made her cold brew in a Toddy. Most kids my age prob- ably have similar stories. Chicory and cold brew [have been] essential parts of our lives here for as long as I can remember." Although chicory and cold brew permeate NOLA's coffee culture, the pairing hasn't always been a popular choice in the larger specialty industry. "I think with the third-wave movement, most shops shied away from the old café au lait with chicory," Demian says. "It tends to be considered pretty old-fashioned." Still, many of the city's progressive shops embrace the old and are eager to fi nd creative ways to reintroduce age-old traditions to their specialty-minded clientele—including Demian's own Mojo. "Since Mojo has been a part of the New Orleans scene for so long, we didn't want to get rid of the tradition altogether," he says. "Even though we don't brew with chicory anymore, we developed a house-made chicory concentrate that can be added to our drinks in order to satisfy people that are looking for that classic taste of New Orleans. We consider it a little nod to our local traditions." At Church Alley, Renee makes a cold-brew drink that honors the fl avors of New Orleans-style cold brew without using chicory. "I create my own cold-brew blends each season with different coffees that I like," she says. "I make my cold brew bold, which suggests a similarity to chicory but is balanced and complex, and highlights the beauty of the coffees and the season." While she notices a demand for more specialty coffees that highlight the nuance of the coffees themselves, she also knows that coffee and chicory are an everlasting New Orle- ans tradition. "I think that cold brew is getting less bold and of a higher quality around the city, but there is absolutely a love for a chicory cold brew that I don't think will ever really go away." Florida native and the owner of Sólo Espresso in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, Lauren Morlock fi rst learned about chicory when she made the move to NOLA in 2009. "It was new to me, and interesting, and yes, I drank it," she says. "I actually love chicory as a bittersweet root. There is also this delicious herbal coffee alternative called Dandy Blend, and one of the main ingredients is roasted-chicory powder." Most in the United States were, like Lauren, oblivious to the PHOTO BY ELSA HAHNE Demian Estevez, pictured, remembers chicory and coff ee going together like bread and bu er when he was a kid growing up in New Orleans. "It was everywhere, and everyone drank it." Though the traditional NOLA beverage hasn't quite caught on in its original form at the city's leading third-wave companies, such as Mojo Coff ee Roasters, which Demian owns with his wife, Angee, it's important to Demian that Mojo provides a high-quality chicory off ering to anyone who wants it. At Mojo, a house-made chicory concentrate is o en requested as an addition to an iced coff ee or au lait. 82 barista magazine