You think your Starbucks cold-brew coffee is trendy? People in Anchorage were buying bottled cold brew five years ago. As for your pour-over black cup made with single-origin beans from a small farm in Africa? Yawn. Fairbanks has been doing that since the 1990s.
Little-known fact: Alaska is among the most coffee-obsessed states in the nation. Some years, the coffee-shop-to-human ratio in Anchorage has been higher than Seattle, making it the most caffeinated place in the America (at last count, in 2011, it dropped to number two, with about one coffee shop for every 2,000 souls.)
You cannot escape the coffee carts here, common as roadside moose, each with its unique brand: The Sugar Shack, Java the Hut, Fred’s Bail Bonding and Coffee Cabana. And then, there are the local coffee shops.
Anchorage-based Kaladi Brothers Coffee, the largest among half a dozen serious coffee roasters in the state, roasts 1.2m pounds of beans per year, enough for every man, woman and child in the state to brew at least five pots of strong coffee each. One of the biggest share goes to the oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope, where workers are on 24 hours a day, says Dale Tran, the company’s chief operating officer. Kaladi has 15 stores in Alaska and one in Seattle.
You know I am just happy with any story about Alaska that does not involve a gun death, a serial killer, or somebody being killed and eaten by a bear.
But I am especially happy to read that we were on the cutting edge of something.
And yes the coffee shops in Anchorage started popping up about 40 years ago, and these days you literally cannot travel half a mile in the city without passing at least half a dozen.
Sometimes in the winter the lines outside a coffee hut can be seven to ten cars deep, with another down the road with a line just as long.
Of course what can you expect in state where the winter nights are long and cold?
I am a little sad to say that I personally am not one of the Alaska coffee connoisseurs.
I am just a little too cheap to buy my coffee in a fancy shop, or kiosk along the road.
No I am a home brew man, who typically drinks about two to three cups of regular Folgers blend with a little Truvia and vanilla flavored non-dairy creamer added to fancy it up a bit.
But once in a while I do splurge and treat myself to a large Cafe Mocha.
Because after all, the winter nights are long and cold.
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