Clube Caffeine

V60 on the counter, records on the wall

Coffee here is poured through a V60, one cup at a time, using beans roasted by Senzu. That single choice explains the pace of the room: a pour-over cannot be rushed, so the counter runs at conversation speed rather than commuter speed, and the coffee arrives closer to tea in clarity than to a quick espresso.

Smoothies cover the other end of the drinks list, and there are cakes for anyone who wants something alongside. It is a short list, which suits a café that would rather do a few things at length than everything at speed.

A record shop's temperament

Vinyl is part of the fabric rather than decoration. There is a DJ booth in the room and Friday music sessions, so the same space that works quietly over a pour-over in the morning turns into somewhere you go for the music at the end of the week. Records are chosen and played rather than left to a playlist, and that shapes who stays and for how long.

The two moods are not in conflict. A café built around a slow brewing method already asks people to sit still for a few minutes, and the music simply extends that from minutes into an evening.

Lisbon has plenty of cafés that play music and plenty that brew carefully, and comparatively few where both are taken equally seriously. Here the record collection and the brew bar get the same attention, which is the whole idea rather than a decorative afterthought.

Ordering

Start with the V60. It is the house method and the most direct read on the Senzu roast, including the single-origin Honduran coffee the café has poured. If coffee is not the point of the visit, the smoothies are the alternative worth taking seriously, and a cake makes either into a proper sit rather than a stop.

Ask which beans are loaded before ordering. A café pouring one roaster's coffee through a single method changes what it serves by changing the coffee, so the answer decides what the cup will taste like more than the method does.

Then decide which version of the room you want: the quiet daytime one, with a record playing low and a filter cooling on the table, or the Friday one, when the booth takes over and the coffee becomes the excuse rather than the reason.