It was one of those hot days that just happened in LA. The type of heat that is not for Angelenos…read morebecause it breaks our 71 and sunny expectation that almost seems a clause we are provided with when our residence lies within the Golden State. So my plan to walk and explore LA's downtown was nixed. It neededa an extreme-heatcheck. Subsequentlly, I needed a place to chill and sip before my next scheduled thing began. I landed here, and it was cool that I did because I got a break from the heat and was expose to the chill factor of this place that kind of felt I visited my hipster bud while they were right in the middle of their modern and off-center Japanese decoration phase.
This place resides within a modern shopping center. Those that have like a parking lot and around have small bussinesses. So mapquest might say one has arrived to the spot, but one must walk into the shopping plaza to find Kissaten Corazon.
When I entered, first one passes a living room in a garage like situation. So basically when one enters, they enter via a garage door, and the garage area has to be passed to get to where the main coffee action takes place. The furniture in this area, is not patio furniture, by the way. It is like a coffee table with chairs that belong in like a dude's apartment, where the dude finally learned how to create a home space with furniture that he found from an eclectic collection of places. Thus, as soon as one enters one gets hit with funky-modern. We have cash, we have style, but no cohesion because cohesion does not belong to the young, only disordely mess that doubles as beautiful mixture of pieces that need a home. If one takes care to look at my pictures, of the whole experience, then one will understand that this place is a medly of concepts with a string-running along that when pulled vibrates to the twang of coffee house with Japanese and wine notes.
I ordered my coffee and of course I irked the barista. So the menu (I clipped it) has a heading called tomodachi. It was my first time here and I did not know what that meant. The barista tried to explain it. And I was still confused. She was saying things but not really explaining that it was a coffee chain that supplied their coffees to this spot. So it was like having Nestle at the top of a menu and having different coffees from this supplier. I did not understand if she was talking about a machine or what cause at what point she made it sound like it might be a machine by calling it the roaster. But the roaster was the vendor. And to me a roaster can be a machine that roasts beans. Or did I stretch for the stars? It took like three of four questions to arrive at her understanding. In the process, she kind of rolled her eyes in mild exhaustion. But almost as the universe intervened, her cap said, "to be a learner, you've got to be willing to be a fool." And I was a persistent fool with my questions. But I got my appropriate answer. It is what it is.
The coffeehouse had people with laptops. The next Interstellar or War and Peace might be written here. One will find others typing here, if one likes to type only when others are doing it too. There is a central picture of a cherry blossom branch behind blue. I wonder why the blue was not pink? Perhaps because my drink was pink, slightly, not like clearly.
I got two drinks. The barista that I annoyed helped me pick. The first one was a strawberry drink. It tasted like a sophisticatd Nesquick that was coffee-forward. The Nesquick taste came from the strawberry flavoring. It was rich, sweet, and frankly, hit the spot that needed to be quelled by the outside heat. Easy to like, long for it because the place is not near my pad. I would need a specific trip to get this strawberry coffee and that will happen someday just don't know when.
I also got a pour over drink. I cannot remember, which one it was. I did see another barista create the drink. As the pictures show, he used a non-electric pot and filter to make my coffee. The act seemed ceremonial and birth in a place closed to feudal Japan. I wonder if Shoguns drank their coffee a la pourover too? I also took a clip of different tea pots lined up. It was all so cute and spoke of tradition. Take the time to dip a bag of tea leaves into a cup being held by a doily. If not, then is one taking the time to see the world and its tea leaves?
As I was there, there was a customer working hard to retrieve a 20.00 dollar refund. She was right. It was owed to her. She had called. And still they could not figure out what the problem was exactly. I wonder if the world was divided into those who would fight for their 20 bucks like this customer and the other half would be people who forget the 20 bucks, where would the percentage lie? Would people seek or forget? I would forget. I ordered two drinks and gulped one, and tasted the second to around half the way to understand this experience better not just get coffee when I needed a break.
