My father and I both share a love of cof­fee. It has been part of the morn­ing rit­ual for as long as I can remem­ber; before I even drank cof­fee, it was part of my life. Today, few morn­ings pass with­out at least one cup of coffee.

When I trav­eled to Alaska in 1996, I delighted in the local cof­fee cul­ture from town to town, dis­cov­er­ing that Seat­tle’s pen­chant for the brown elixir extended up the north­ern coast. Each lit­tle town seemed to have a homey, inde­pen­dent café and per­haps a smaller walk-up style cof­fee hut com­plete with per­fect espresso drinks and inter­est­ing syrup options– mango latte, any­one? One town, Seward, I think, even had con­verted a tug­boat into a cof­fee hut; too cool. The high­light though of my Alaskan cof­fee tour, was the dis­cov­ery of Raven’s Brew Cof­fee. Drawn in by their raven-themed art­work, they con­verted a cus­tomer for life with their deli­cious brews.

Years later, I spent lengthy stints in Seat­tle, arguably one of, if not THE cof­fee capi­tol of the world or at least the United States. Cof­fee there is an art­form, but we all know that; I still lament the untimely death of Cof­fee Mes­siah. Van­cou­ver, Canada earned a spot on my cof­fee radar when I tasted some of the best espresso I’ve had in my life at Café Arti­giano.

My years spent in Swe­den revealed another haven ded­i­cated to its cof­fee, one that even had its own verb for tak­ing a cof­fee break– att fika (as I men­tioned ear­lier). I still laugh to myself when recall­ing Amer­i­can col­leagues vis­ited me at grad school who couldn’t drink the Swedish cof­fee– it was just too strong for them! This inabil­ity to han­dle the strength of Scan­di­na­vian cof­fee was beyond me, but charm­ing nonetheless.

This morn­ing, I finally tried Star­bucks’ new Via prod­uct– instant, microground ready-brew cof­fee. And I can hap­pily report, much to my own sur­prise that Star­bucks Via makes a decent cup of cof­fee. As handy as could be and a close match to their other brewed cof­fees– rea­son­ably strong and smooth; not too shabby Star­bucks. Finally I can enjoy decent qual­ity cof­fee any­where I travel and not just the colder climes of Scan­di­navia and the Pacific northwest.

Tell me, read­ers, what is your favorite hot bev­er­age? Where in the world do YOU go for good cof­fee or tea??

Images: Ravens Brew Cof­fee and Star­bucks Girl