clubs May 6, 2016

Coffee Fix

By Suzy

Hi there, It’s been a while, I know. I’ve been working super hard this term. TA’ing takes a lot out of my schedule but my predicament has gotten easier since I stopped having six hours of volleyball every week. Now I can pick which time I spend on exercise, so I can power through my homework and then do a one-hour HIIT workout at 10pm. That’s what I did last night. I’m very sore, so today I get an hour of yoga instead.

When your life is busy like this it’s tempting to caffeinate and never sleep and eat junk food. And I have an additional problem: I love coffee. I like the taste, I like the process of brewing it in the morning, and I like how motivated I feel after I drink coffee. However, if I drink it too often, I’m headachey and cranky all the time.

Most people on campus can get coffee most of the time. Weekday open kitchen provides a beverage that is technically coffee. Red Door (our delicious on-campus coffee shop) brews coffee for coffee lovers. They buy their beans from a local hipster coffee shop - a place with mismatched furniture and twinkle lights on the ceiling. Red Door isopen 7:30am-5:30pm Monday-Friday. Chouse, our student-run coffee house, serves fried foods and various beverages and is open from 10pm-2am Sunday-Thursday. But what, you ask, if you need a coffee fix on the weekend? Then your options get more limited. You can always buy an energy shot or a bottled/canned iced coffee beverage from the convenience store (C-store). That’s open at some interesting and erratic times, but you should be able to find out when it’s open from this convenient website. You can grab coffee from Chandler open kitchen. That’s 10am-2pm on weekends, and they pre-brew big thermoses of coffee from the fancy beans that Red Door uses. It’s unfortunately much less nice than getting your drink made fresh.

My roommate and I, however, are never without coffee. She hails from Seattle, and her family seems to think that under-caffeination is a serious concern. She is very generous and shares all that her family sends - coffee beans, a French press, a drip coffee pot, two milk frothers, and an espresso machine. We now have a simply unreasonable amount of coffee equipment. Which is great.

There’s also about a million great off-campus places to get your coffee fix. My favorite so far is Copa Vida. They do pretty good food and just the best coffee. Others will sing the praises of Jones’ Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia, or Jameson Brown. Copa Vida, to me, is the best in town.

That’s about it for how we get coffee on campus. For those of you who will be joining us in the fall, here’s a review of important names and locations:

Chouse: Student-run coffee house
Open:10pm-2am Sunday-Thursday night
Located inside Red Door
Serves grilled foods, udon, chili, coffee/tea/ice cream beverages, and an occasional special
C-store: Convenience store operated by the campus dining service
Open: 10:30am-1:00am
Located between Chandler and Page House
Serves chips and portable snacks, cooking basics (vegetable oil, baking soda, etc.), soda and juice, necessities (toothbrush, shampoo, etc), energy drinks and iced coffee
Open Kitchen: Self-serve kitchen
Open: 7am-11am, 3pm-7pm Monday-Friday, 10am-2pm on weekends
Located adjacent to your house dining hall on weekdays and in Chandler on weekends
Serves:salad bar, soda, coffee, tea, cereals, fruit and a sandwich/toast bar.