Black Coffee, Please — coffee news for people whose morning personality is still loading.

On the menu: a San Jose café serving Indonesian coffees and dessert-inspired drinks, fresh numbers on espresso and app ordering, and a research firm asking what coffee customers actually want. Also: a roaster auction supporting care at origin, a café's battle with shift notes, and Barcelona's carefully choreographed pastry temptation.

All six articles below were published September 15–18, 2026.

Featured Post

Indonesia gets more room on the menu

Hijau Coffee's new San Jose shop exclusively serves single-origin Indonesian coffees, selected by founders Lisa Maria and Ryan Prawiradjaja and roasted in collaboration with Santa Clara's Barefoot Coffee. The couple built their following through farmers markets and pop-ups before moving into a former Starbucks space.

The menu carries the idea further: a Nastar Latte takes inspiration from pineapple tarts, while a Klepon Latte references the palm-sugar-filled rice cake. Handmade cups come from Yogyakarta potters. These details give customers several ways into the founders' food culture, including a straight coffee for those of us whose breakfast adventurousness develops slowly.

The Big Perk: An origin can become a place you learn about, rather than a word you pronounce nervously at the till.

Your Next Move: Ask your regular roaster which Indonesian region and processing method it currently offers. Start with the specific coffee; leave the sweeping “all Indonesian coffee tastes like…” theory in the conspiracy drawer.

Read: Hijau Coffee Brings the Flavors of Indonesia to San Jose — Daily Coffee News, September 16.

Big News

Espresso is popular. So is avoiding the queue.

The National Coffee Association's latest survey found 47% of U.S. adults had an espresso-based drink in the past week, up from 45% in January. Among people who bought coffee outside the home in the past week, 40% ordered through an app. Your phone has successfully inserted itself between you and consciousness.

The research surveyed 1,882 adults in June; these are newly reported findings, not a September head count. Another useful detail: the NCA's “specialty” category includes several drink formats and coffee consumers perceive as premium. It does not mean every respondent is buying meticulously traced microlots.

Why this matters: The numbers suggest cafés are serving growing expectations for both espresso drinks and convenient ordering. Neither statistic tells us whether the coffee tasted good or the barista had enough help.

Your Next Move: Notice whether your favorite café's pickup system actually works. Clear names, somewhere to stand, and an accurate order can do an astonishing amount for a morning.

Read: NCA: More Americans Are Drinking Specialty Coffee and Ordering by App — Daily Coffee News, September 15.

Spicy Take

The customer has entered the research chat

Cheryl Hung and Brian Gaffney have launched Furthers & Betters, a research and consulting business focused on specialty coffee consumers. Its first segmentation study is scheduled for a preview in October, with the full release in January 2027. There are no new consumer findings to celebrate yet; this is the launch of a service intended to produce them.

Our take: Coffee people can explain a roast curve with forensic precision, then guess why someone stopped visiting. Perhaps the espresso changed. Perhaps the opening time became unreliable. Perhaps ordering felt like interrupting a private meeting of the Burr Geometry Society.

Research could help businesses separate those possibilities. Meanwhile, an owner can ask a regular what almost kept them from coming back—and listen without defending the furniture.

The Bitter Truth: Being passionate about your product does not automatically make you observant about your customers.

Read: Furthers & Betters Goes Beyond the Cup for Specialty Coffee Consumer Intelligence — Daily Coffee News, September 17.

Quick Hits

Roasters: put September 23–24 on the calendar

Grounds for Health's auction opens Wednesday at noon EDT and closes Thursday at 6 p.m. EDT, supporting cervical cancer prevention in coffee-growing communities. The lineup includes an anaerobic natural robusta from Vietnam's Dak Lak province. Green coffee bidding is for verified coffee companies; international bidders need prior approval. Home brewers: this is a useful story to share with your roaster, rather than an invitation to accidentally acquire 132 pounds of green coffee.

Read: Grounds for Health Marks 30 Years with Annual Coffee Auction — Daily Coffee News, September 16.

The missing milk may be a communication problem

Rad Coffee co-founder Jade Valore built DeskPanther to handle inventory, repair reports, cash records, and shift communication. It was tested in Rad's three shops before its public launch. A digital notebook carries information between shifts; the system does not integrate with point-of-sale platforms. Unglamorous? Absolutely. So is discovering that yesterday's “someone should order cups” message has become today's emergency.

Read: Rad Coffee Co-Founder Unleashes DeskPanther Operations Software — Daily Coffee News, September 15.

Barcelona's pastry display knows what it's doing

At Cinnamood in El Born, designers arranged the route to the counter alongside the cinnamon-roll display and placed seating away from potential queues. Rounded counters wrap existing columns inside the 89.4-square-meter café. The photographs deliver the color; the layout supplies the useful lesson. Your breakfast detour may have been carefully planned by an architect. Finally, a conspiracy with frosting.

Read: Design Details: A Fluid Space for Cinnamon Rolls and Specialty Coffee at Cinnamood in Barcelona — Daily Coffee News, September 18.

Keep Learning

This week: find the weakest part of your actual morning coffee routine. Spend five minutes taking notes across your next three cups. No equipment shopping required.

1. Record the cup. At home, note the coffee, roast date, dose, water amount, and grind setting. At a café, record the drink and any bean information available.

2. Record the experience separately. Was the coffee enjoyable? Was making or collecting it easy? Write one sentence for each. A frustrating queue and a bitter cup need different fixes.

3. Pick one recurring problem. Running late because you cannot find the filters? Put tomorrow's supplies together tonight. Unsure how to brew a new bag? Ask the roaster for a starting recipe using your brewer.

4. Change one thing and repeat. Keep the coffee and other steps steady where practical. Note whether the change helped before changing anything else.

5. Save the useful version. Put the recipe or preparation checklist in your phone. If a café gets your morning right, tell the staff specifically what worked.

The aim is one reliably enjoyable cup before your inbox starts making demands. The Secret Committee for Additional Coffee Accessories will survive the disappointment.

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