Coffee club is still alive!

For those of you who don’t know, and a recap for those of you who do, coffee club was created by Mikaela Ruef and Sara James.

Every morning on away trips about forty-five minutes to an hour before breakfast, a group of us go on a grand adventure to various coffee shops along the west coast. By grand adventures I mean we walk for about fifteen minutes, tops.

The members of the coffee club are yours truly (Tess Picknell), Bird (Erica McCall), Smiley (John, the media guy), and Hana Potter (one of the managers).

The coffee club is a way to go outside and see a little bit of the city where we are staying, helping break up the routine of hotel, bus, gym, bus, hotel, food, sleep, wake up and do it again. The goal is to find unique coffee shops, the mom and pop shops that have original coffee that is to die for. Chain coffee shops are only used when those mom and pop shops cannot be found.

So far this year, the coffee selection has been great. When we went to Hawaii we found a place that had a honey macadamia nut latte. In Chattanooga there was a place that had a lavender honey latte. In Tennessee the closest coffee shop was a combination between a coffee shop and a chocolate shop, so I bought way too many chocolate covered cherries (they were amazing!!).

But my favorite is the Washington trip, which is by far the best because the coffee shop in Spokane that we went to had a scrabble board, so we had great coffee while playing scrabble together. Then there is Seattle, which is probably the greatest coffee club trip because the hotel is within walking distance of Pike’s Place Market. We got to walk through it in the morning, and watch all the vendors putting up their wares. Pikes Place Market is also home to the original Starbucks (it’s the original so we make an exception) and this little stall that sells literally some of the best donut holes in existence, and I don’t say that lightly.

So coffee club is going strong, and I hope that I will be able to convince a couple more of the girls to join, They like their sleep in the morning, but I think I can do it.

— Tess