Coffee

The Best Coffee Shop in Pittsburgh

People often ask me “you’re really into coffee so you must know a lot about coffee shops – what’s your favorite one in Pittsbugh?” I wish there was a simple answer, but it depends on what kind of drink you’re looking for. I’ve been working on this list for a while, although it’s still a work in progress. If I don’t have a ranking for a category, it’s not because I’ve never had the drink, but rather because I haven’t (yet) found a place that’s good enough in that area to put it on the list. I’m definitely always open to recommendations!

Note that I personally really enjoy both fruity and fermented notes in coffee, and I don’t love darker notes. If you’re a huge dark roast fan you might disagree with some of these choices.

Drink Rankings

• Best Straight Espresso: Definitely Redhawk Coffee, they do a great job with flavorful shots with fruity notes.
• Best Hot Latte: Abolition Coffee. It’s one guy and his coffee shop, and he does an absolutely terrific job. Hours are kinda funky – you can’t roll in here at any time like you would a Starbucks. Edit: I’ve just learned that Abolition has sadly closed, so I’m in the process of finding somewhere new.
• Best Iced Latte: Still looking for a place – we’re not quite to iced drink season and I don’t have a great memory of where I liked last season, so this spot will have to wait until the summer.
• Best Iced Seasonal Drinks: Previously Adda, but now actively searching for something new.
• Best Hot Seasonal Drinks: Arriviste Coffee in Shadyside has super fun specialty drinks. I feel like a really good specialty drink is more than just making a cool syrup and throwing it in a latte. Arriviste definitely does this (although they also have many cool house-made syrups!).
• Best Pourover: Tentatively Ghost Coffee Collab. They’ve won awards for their pour overs in the past, but I need to go a few more times to confirm the spot.
• Best Espresso Tonic: This is one of my favorite drinks, and the bar is pretty high. I’m still looking for somewhere good enough to make the list.
• Best Drip Coffee: I’d give it to Redhawk Coffee for now, but actively looking for more.

Other Rankings

• Best Latte Art: It’s Arriviste Coffee, I don’t know how you can beat their baristas.
• Best Ambiance:
• Best Beans: I can’t in good conscience give a recommendation, since this is so dependent on personal preference. That said, my standard is Redhawk Coffee, but I’ve recently been enjoying beans from Commonplace Coffee. Ghost Coffee Collab also has a ton of very interesting beans, but I haven’t had the opportunity to try them yet.

Coffee

I first really got into coffee while studying abroad in Japan! My host family founded Kariomons Coffee Roasters, so I had a great experience learning to appreciate coffee while staying with them. My favorite coffee shop in Pittsburgh is Redhawk Coffee!

Gallery

Setup

I’m using a Niche Zero grinder with a Fellow Stagg EKG for my coffee. For espresso drinks, I use a Cafelat Robot with the Subminimal Nanofoamer, though these days I mostly brew V60s.