Stop by our MidCity shop this Saturday as we celebrate four years in operation with Coffea Fair. Coffee Cotton Candy! Special Drinks! Games!
Coffee Cotton Candy? Yes, we are making coffee cotton candy with Counter Culture’s Slow Motion decaf coffee so everyone can enjoy.
Special Drinks? Try our espresso two ways with an Equals Two or a Black & Lavender Bubble Tea this Saturday only!
Games? Guess the beans the jar and win a prize!
And more!
All day this Saturday, May 30, at 1718 14th St NW!!
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This past weekend, a team of three Peregrine Espresso baristas traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to compete in the annual America’s Best Coffeehouse Eastern Regional Competition as a part of the Coffee Fest tradeshow. After three days of competition against five other teams of baristas from throughout the east coast, Peregrine Espresso’s team won the 1st place trophy, $2000 and a berth at the National Finals competition in 2016. Peregrine’s team was comprised of Allison Bouley, Britt Calder and Joseph Stout and they bested Seeds Coffee Company of Birmingham, AL, and Black Water Loft of Floyd, VA, in Sunday’s finals round.
The America’s Best Coffeehouse competition debuted in Seattle in fall 2012 with a two-year regional cycle leading up to the first America’s Best Coffeehouse National Finals competition in fall 2014. The competition’s founders created it “to evaluate teamwork, hospitality, aptitude, professionalism, presentation and limits.” Each team is given 15 minutes to set up, 30 minutes of service time and 15 minutes to clean up, replicating a short shift at a busy neighborhood coffeehouse. During the service time, the teams serve a standard menu of coffee and espresso drinks to a mixture of customer judges as well as tradeshow attendees.
Peregrine Espresso previously won the America’s Best Coffeehouse Eastern Regional in New York in February 2013 and sent a team to the 2014 National Finals. Peregrine’s team placed fourth at the National Finals in Portland, OR, as Palace Coffee Company of Canyon, Texas, was crowned champion. Baristas from Peregrine Espresso have also placed highly in individual competitions, twice winning SCAA Regional Barista Competitions and twice placing in the top ten at the United States Barista Championship as well as placing highly in Latte Art and Brewer’s Cup competitions.
Owner of Peregrine Espresso, Ryan Jensen, says, “We think it’s a really valuable experience to compete because it allows our staff an opportunity to engage the national coffee community and share new ideas about coffee. It’s doubly rewarding to place well and I’m so proud of our team for their work both this weekend and every day.”
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We’ve always had a commitment to our staff to allow them the ability to visit family and friends around holidays. Sometimes, we need to reduce our hours of operation a bit while we are short-staffed. Also, December 25 is the only day we close annually.
Here are our hours on the impacted days through January 1:
December 24: Eastern Market 7-1, MidCity 8-1, Union Market 8-3
December 25: all locations closed
December 26: Eastern Market 8-3, MidCity 8-2, Union Market 8-8
December 27: Eastern Market 8-3, MidCity 7-9, Union Market 8-8
December 28: Eastern Market 8-3, MidCity 8-7, Union Market 8-8
December 31: Eastern Market 7-7, MidCity 7-7, Union Market 8-8
January 1: Eastern Market 8-8, MidCity 8-8, Union Market closed
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Hey!
We recently switched to a new online market to better serve all you online shoppers. Find it here and shop away. There are gift cards, brewing devices, consumer class signups and coffee for yourself or your loved ones. There is even an option to buy a class as a gift and we can work out the date later.
Also, we got in a new batch of t-shirts yesterday. We brought back an old design by popular demand and put it on some new colors. The Unisex shirts are Heather Imperial Purple and the Women’s sizes are in Heather Forest and are all American Apparel Poly-Cotton. Find them at your closest Peregrine or in the online shop linked above.
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Hello!
Here are our hours for the holiday:
Thanksgiving Day
Eastern Market: 7am-1pm
MidCity: 8am-1pm
Union Market: closed
Friday, we resume normal hours as posted on our website.
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In February 2013, we sent a team of three of our staff to Coffee Fest New York to compete in the Eastern regional of the America’s Best Coffeehouse competition. After two rounds, our team wound up winning the competition, a cash prize and a spot in National Finals happening this weekend in Portland, OR.
Our team for this weekend is Jeremy Sterner, Dawn Shanks and Monique Sommer- all longtime members of our Eastern Market staff. They will be competing against some of the best coffeehouses in the country- Klatch Coffee (LA), Ipsento (Chicago), Slate (Seattle), Cafe Grumpy (NY) and Palace Coffee Company (Canyon, TX). The first round of the competition begins this morning and continues tomorrow before the finals on Sunday.
The America’s Best Coffeehouse competition is a team competition as “dueling coffeehouse teams of three employees each will be filling roles such as barista, bar back, and greeter/cashier, who will serve attendees and judges.” (from ABC website) The performance is scored on drink quality, efficiency, cleanliness and customer service and this weekend’s national champion will receive a $10,000 cash prize as well as some intense bragging rights. Wish our team luck!
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Last winter, we had an opportunity to have our pick of some small Ecuadorian lots Counter Culture Coffee had brought in and used it as an opportunity to have two giant staff cuppings to taste and vote on the coffees that would be served at each of the coffee bars. We were happy to bring our staff together again last week to taste 22 (yes, twenty-two) fantastic coffees and make some tough decisions about which ones to serve our lovely customers.
All shops will also be serving Concepcion Huista (Guatemala) and our espresso coffee will be Sipacapa (Guatemala). Here are the results for the rest:
Eastern Market: Kambarari (Kenya), Elias Benata Sundried (Ethiopia), Finca Mauritania (El Salvador), Olke Birre (Ethiopia)
MidCity: Muso (Kenya), Aleme Wako Sundried (Ethiopia), Olke Birre (Ethiopia), Finca Kilimanjaro (El Salvador)
Union Market: Thiriku Peaberry (Kenya), Aleme Wako Sundried (Ethiopia), Olke Birre (Ethiopia), Los Alpes Peaberry (El Salvador)
These coffees are all available now but many of them are very small lots so don’t wait around long to get your taste.
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On August 29, 2008, Peregrine Espresso first opened on Capitol Hill. This year, to celebrate our anniversary, we decided to feature a coffee from one of our former baristas, David Nigel Flynn, at Belleville Brulerie in Paris.
Hunapu, Antigua, Guatemala
Cup= $2.50 Bag= $16
David (pictured below) was one of our opening day baristas and worked for us for just over a year as he finished up college and decided his next move. His next move ended up being to Paris, France, where he continued a part-time coffee job while working at a marketing firm. Eventually, he decided to pursue coffee full-time again and, after stints at two cafes, started Telescope with a friend in spring 2012. After about a year of operation, David decided to start a roasting company and sold his share in Telescope. Belleville Brulerie opened a year ago in Paris and have been roasting some of the finest coffees in the city and growing the Paris specialty coffee scene. We are excited to offer their Antigua Hunapu from Guatemala and are proud of all that David has done in the last five years since moving on from Peregrine. Enjoy this taste of Paris in DC.
Recognize this guy?
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About a year ago, I realized that I had passed the ten year mark in the DC coffee scene, which caused some reflection and nearly resulted in a blog post titled, “Reflections on Ten Years in DC Coffee” had I not been too busy to sit still and record my thoughts. Now that I have a few minutes to write, I realize that the current appropriate title for this may be, “Why I Love the Current State of DC Coffee.” As the global specialty coffee world has grown, DC has been a unique coffee city in a nation where many of our cities now have companies clawing and fighting with each other to get the most press, attention and daily traffic. Up to now, the upper echelon of DC coffee has been populated by hard-working, passionate and friendly individuals or families, which has created a community that supports one another, cares about the communities we serve and is more focused on creating wonderful coffee than creating profit for investors.
Over the past eleven years, I’ve seen and experienced countless examples of businesses helping one another succeed. When one could say that we should be fierce competitors looking to exploit weaknesses, time after time support and selflessness has won out. Your paper supplier didn’t deliver? Here’s a case of cups. UPS only dropped off half your coffee order? Here’s 20 lbs to get you through. Your pre-opening health inspection is coming up? Here are the pitfalls we ran into. I’ve personally been on both the giving and receiving end of all of these (and so many more) scenarios. We are a community that is full of caring individuals, dedicated to each other’s success rather than hopeful for each other’s failure. We speak well of one another, refer customers to one another and respect and celebrate each other’s strengths.
While not every neighborhood has a first-rate coffee bar yet, I’ve been so happy to witness great cafes sprouting up across our city. It’s apparent that, as a community, we open shops where we live, where we like to hang out or where we find an intriguing community- not necessarily where we can make the most money. Why is downtown DC somewhat underserved at the moment? Its just a theory, but I think its because the high-volume, high-profit locations haven’t been as attractive to DC’s coffee entrepreneurs when they have an opportunity to invest into—and create—communities for a much lower investment and much lower monthly rent but experience a much greater personal reward. Personally, I have a dedication to my staff to ask myself about any potential location, “Would I enjoy working here? If I wasn’t working, is this an area where I would enjoy spending time?” If no, then maybe it isn’t the right fit for Peregrine. Many of the opportunities that we’ve had downtown up to now would’ve been high-profile and high-traffic and probably “great for our brand” but failed this simple test. DC’s neighborhood cafes invest in communities, usually attracting employees from within their neighborhoods, pour money back into other neighborhood businesses and help build communities rather than location portfolios or bank accounts.
The fact that our coffee scene is dominated by passionate coffee people rather than investors or nationally expanding brands keeps these coffee-focused businesses focused on the coffee. We love investing in our employees and training them from scratch to be professional and knowledgeable coffee people. Personally, I love being able to promote staff from within and reward hard work and dedication to our company goals. The companies that have expanded have done so slowly and organically, usually gauging the existing staffs’ ability to fill new management roles and the owners’ personal capacity to add responsibilities without swallowing up hobbies, family or sanity. Since we all love coffee, we attend, host and support monthly Thursday Night Latte Art Throwdowns, which enjoy great participation and attendance from a wide range of shops. Baristas across the city can be found visiting cafes where they don’t work and actually buying cups of coffee because they want to taste what everyone else is serving and, usually, coffee people love hanging out at coffee shops. We’ve learned together, pushed each other and enjoyed friendly competition without any need to keep secrets or create alliances.
Other cities like New York, LA, San Francisco and others have become battlegrounds for nationally expanding companies like Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle, Stumptown and others. Who knows why they’ve largely ignored DC up to now. Do they see DC as a second-tier city? Is DC not quite hip enough? Not quite dense enough? I’m not entirely certain but I’m thankful that we’ve had the time we’ve had to develop a great community of businesses, owners and baristas that support one another, invest in our communities and love serving people lovely coffee. I’m sure this won’t last forever but, up to now, it has been pretty great and I’m grateful for the coffee community we have.
Ryan
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The 2014 United States Barista Championship was held April 25-27 in Seattle, Washington. This year, we were proud to send Dawn Shanks as our Peregrine Espresso competitor after she placed 3rd place in the Southeast Regional Barista Competition and earned a place in the US Championship. There were only 36 baristas from across the United States that qualified for the national competition.
This was Dawn’s first year competing and she did a fantastic job. She served Idido Sundried from Ethiopia roasted by Counter Culture Coffee and her signature drink included Aloe, raspberry and cherry juices. Dawn placed 13th of the 24 baristas in the 1st round (12 baristas had already pre-qualified for the semifinal round) but had a wonderful, professional and inspiring performance.
Union Market Shop Manager Travis Beckett (still the only DC resident to ever make USBC Finals) volunteered as a judge for the first two rounds of the USBC and Eastern Market barista Ben Blake cartooned (Sprudge link here) and was knocked out in the first round of the US Aeropress Championship. Seattle offered up wonderful food, coffee and friends as always.
Recently, we were featured in a couple of articles that didn’t get blogged about:
USA Today: USA Today did a feature titled 10 Best Coffeehouses Across the USA and included us. Find the link here.
Epicurious: Epicurious.com compiled a list of America’s 25 Best Coffee Shops and we were honored to be included there as well. Click the link for that one here.
Both of these lists feature some of our nations best and most progressive coffee companies that we are always excited to be mentioned alongside.
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peregrine espresso 