West Lafayette Coffee Run (Purdue University)

Visited: Feb 2007

As some of you already know, I am studying at Purdue University over the fall semester of 2007. It is located in the middle of nowhere about 2 hours from Indianapolis and 3 hours from Chicago. I’ve been here half a term already since early Jan 2007 and have struggled with good coffee. I can suggest a few places around the campus and general Lafayette area I will list them in order of my choice:

Cap N' Ginos - Located near McDonalds cross intersection with state st. (not sure of the road name)
OK ... First of all they use intelligentsia coffee. The name really speaks for itself, however I have never seen anyone HACK into their coffee quiet like they do. They have a Rancilio Epoca along side Mazzer Major, even a Reg Barber tamper making the combination more than possible to produce Lafayette's best coffee by a long shot. I was shocked to discover that because of their drive through window they choose not to use the manual machine but instead press a button on their automatic machine. I talk to the barista and he even admitted that they don’t even touch the Rancilio, I was so angry but I didn’t say anything to him somehow I think he knew that I was thoroughly disappointed. Mind you, my espresso was terrible no crema no flavour closely described to "dish water". Still better then anything around Lafayette area.

Starbucks at Union - Starbucks is sturbucks unfortunately i cannot elaborate on that, I drink their coffee almost every day and ashamed of myself. If you end up going there, have them make you dolpio latte in an 8oz cup ... its their smallest cup and its hiding behind the counter so make sure you tell them.. they get confused. It is indeed funny. I guess the more confused you get them the better, its funny watching armatures at work, especially those who call them selves baristas. The reason i get double shot lattes there is because ... noone in their right mind could bare the taste of dolpio espresso from starbucks, so I dilute it with milk .. but not too much so some flavour remains still.

My last place and THE VERY LEAST would have to go to 2 places ... one is Vienna coffee opposite chase bank on state st ... and JR Huffords in the Tikapenue mall forgive the spelling I don’t pay attention to things like that. By far the worst coffee if I were you wouldn’t step my foot inside.

Its a shame that this school that is in top 10 schools in the USA doesn’t have a decent coffee shop. If you got any more question feel free to ask.

Kiril