Nirvana Soul Coffee

Nirvana Soul roasts its own coffee on a Loring in North San Jose and pours it downtown, where the café works as a daily room for the neighbourhood rather than a quick espresso window.

House roasting, three blends and a cold brew

The company is built around coffee, tea and the room they are served in, and the roasting is what gives the counter its authority. Beans are fairly sourced and roasted locally, then sold for French press, drip and espresso grind as well as brewed at the bar. Simpatica is the medium-roast café blend, a washed Guatemalan Red Bourbon against a natural Ethiopian from the Aricha Kebele washing station, tasting of milk chocolate, lemon tart and raspberry. Pitalito is a medium single origin from Huila in Colombia, drawn from a smallholder lot of about seventy producers, with caramel, sugarcane and almond. Noir is the dark three-bean blend, Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala, all baker's chocolate and clementine, and it is the coffee behind the cold brew.

A counter people come back to

The downtown café is used the way a good local café should be, by remote workers, students and people meeting over a cup rather than a meal. The company describes its purpose as bringing people together, and the room is arranged for staying rather than turning tables. Behind it sits a wider operation, with branches in Cupertino and San Francisco, wholesale accounts, catering, private events, delivery and tours of the roastery, so the café is the front door of something larger. Specialty lattes and the traditional espresso drinks cover the everyday, and tea is taken seriously enough to sit in the company name alongside coffee.

Cold brew first, then a bag of Noir

Start with the cold brew, which is built on Noir and is the most talked-about thing the bar makes. If the weather or the hour argues against it, a specialty latte shows how the house handles milk, and a straight cup of Simpatica shows the roast on its own terms. Pastries come through the catering side from The French Spot, so treat food as an accompaniment rather than the reason to come. Before leaving, buy beans: Pitalito for the lighter, sweeter cup at home, Noir if what you liked was the cold brew. Both bags are roasted a few miles from the counter you bought them at.