{caliber coffee roasters}

I live, as I've said before countless times, in a very small city. I've dreamt of living someplace massive and moving, a town with constant activity and perpetual new things to see and do and places to eat and chill, but that doesn't seem to be in my future at the moment. I am not in Chicago or New York or London. I am not even in Toronto or Vancouver. I am, for better or worse, decidedly here. 

Regina, Saskatchewan.

There is a very positive side to this; that is, when you're not always trying new restaraunts and coffee shops, you get to be a regular at one. You get to try everything on the menu and the barista recognizes you when you come through the door. When a band you really like comes to town, it's a big deal, not something you take for granted. And when you find Something Cool tucked away somewhere in the middle of the city like a diamond that fell from a fancy woman's engagement ring and landed on the sidewalk to be discovered by you later on, you appreciate it for all that it's worth. 

We found one such gem this weekend, on the corner of Osler and 6th. It's called Café Market, and it's the home of Caliber Coffee Roasters.

And you're like, "Oh. Another coffee shop. Cool."

NO.

There are kind of two parts to Café Market. One side is a big showroom with every imaginable kind of coffee brewing system you can think of (Chemex, French Press, Aeropress, etc), as well as teas and syrups and stuff. The other side is where Caliber Coffee Roasters has set up shop. You can't actually go in and buy a cup, but if you're a big old coffee nerd like Barclay is, you will appreciate this much, much more.

Every Saturday, from 10am-3pm, they have free coffee tastings. I can't remember where we heard about this from, but we went in on Saturday with Julia and Scott and timidly asked about it. Like, "Hey. So, um. Yeah we heard that you guys have...coffee...here...?" Because it's downright awkward to ask for free stuff. I'm getting better at it though. (I'm not sure if that's a good thing.)

But the guy working there that day (John) put us at ease right away. He invited us behind the counter into his little coffee laboratory, showed us the beans they'd roasted that week, and gave us a half hour lesson on the exact science of brewing the perfect cup of coffee in an Aeropress (this was at our request; I saw him teaching some other customers how to use the Chemex later on, and an espresso machine as we were leaving). It was the real deal. The kind of coffee-making that involves scales and exact temperatures and all that. It was so, so geeky, and so incredibly fun.

We got to try three different roasts, and because I haven't been drinking much caffeinated coffee lately, I felt it running up my back and shaking my brain for the rest of the day. Pretty sure I slept with my eyes wide open that night. Worth it.

We'll be going back often, I think. So if you're in the area and think intense coffee science is fun (or you just want to hang out with a bunch of geeks and try some good free coffee), you should definitely join us.