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Cat Chat 14: Coffee geeks

By Catherine Toth Fox • February 9, 2011 • Musings, The Daily Dish, Videos

I don’t drink coffee — and on Monday I found out why.

I’ve had bad coffee.

Some tasted bitter, others charred. Turns out I have probably never had a decent cup of coffee in my entire life — hence, my distaste for it.

I learned that by sampling the brew at Beach Bum Cafe, a new microbrew coffee house in downtown Honolulu. (In fact, it’s the only one on Oahu and possibly in the state.)

This boutique coffee shop, which opened this month and is located in Executive Centre, serves and sells only 100 percent Hawaii-grown coffee. Run by coffee geeks Dennis McQuoid and Shawn Steiman (Coffea Consulting and author of “The Hawaii Coffee Book”), the coffee here is uniquely brewed for each customer. Meaning, each cup is made individually and made-to-order. You pick your beans, which are ground right in front of you, then choose your brewing method: espresso, Chemex, vacuum pot and cloth filter.

It’s like a chemistry class in a coffee shop. The concept is seriously cool.

“I looked around and realized that no cafe on Oahu serves what I call ‘thought-provoking coffees,’ so I decided to open Beach Bum Cafe to fill the niche,” McQuoid said. “As far as I know, no cafe in Hawaii has yet to attempt this type of microbrew service and variety of coffee selection.”

Wanna see what he’s talking about? Check it out:

Beach Bum Cafe, 1088 Bishop St. Hours: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Phone: (808) 521-6699.

Got a suggestion for someone I should interview? Got an idea for a topic I should tackle? Post ’em here. We love hearing from you!

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10 Comments

  • Reply nathankam February 8, 2011 at 9:00 pm

    Great episode Cat and ON LOCATION FTW! 🙂 had a chance to experience Beach Bum Cafe and it was great. Delicious coffee and just watching your cup get brewed was worth the visit. Like coffee in a laboratory. Good stuff and glad it’s just across the street from where I work.

  • Reply joekalihi February 8, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    1 cup folgers decaf every morning and I’m good to go. Don’t go to these fancy coffee places. They cost more than a gal of gas.

  • Reply matti2d February 8, 2011 at 10:07 pm

    mmm…coffee. you’re right, though that the difference between good coffee and bad coffee is mind blowing. next time you’re at a nice dinner and you have one of your fabulous desserts, have a good cup of coffee with it. like a good wine with a meal, the coffee will enhance the flavors of the dessert, especially those molton chocolate cakes you seem so fond of.

  • Reply NeilYamamoto February 8, 2011 at 10:30 pm

    man, that girl walking in the back, was she pissed that you guys were there or something? she seemed a bit peeved…

  • Reply WatermarkHawaii February 9, 2011 at 12:14 am

    Thanks, NonStop, Cat & John, for sharing our neighbor Beach Bum Cafe and our resident coffee nerd, Shawn (“Dr. Coffee”) Steiman, with your readers/viewers!

  • Reply MaxMaxMax February 9, 2011 at 12:15 am

    When I go home to visit family in the south, they serve me Folgers… (bleeeh)
    Starbucks is not any better since theirs taste charred. And the “smelly flavored” coffee should be outlawed!

    But I really like the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

    …and of course, a 100% Kona brew is heaven on Earth!

    • Reply MaxMaxMax February 9, 2011 at 12:16 am

      By the way, I’m talking “real” coffee at “the Bean,” not the frou frou stuff.

  • Reply dbjack February 9, 2011 at 12:31 am

    I am waiting for an episode of Cat Chat with cat swirling a bowl of Pho at Hale Vietnam taking deep breaths from volatizing the esters… would be rather entertaining to see the Pho poured through an atomizer.

    Good coffee is not as easy to find as people think, after all they call it Charbucks for a reason. Had the best cup of coffee ever in a cafe in Xishaungbannah, Yunnan Province. It was so good I traveled numerous kilometers to find the farm where they grew the beans. Sun dried from a 5000 acre plantation they were ultimately scarfed up by Nestle. Tried to get Green Mountain to try them out but the farm wasn’t ‘Fair Trade Certified’ which by the way is a collosal joke if there ever was one.

    Stopped drinking coffee a while back because it was starting to upset my stomach. But a good cup with an excellent chocolate dessert is pretty amazing, just wish it weren’t so hard to find. Either the restaurant has great coffee and stale cake or vice versa. Will definitely check these guys out, that odd ball chemistry set cup looked like it made an ono cup.

  • Reply turkfontaine February 9, 2011 at 7:47 am

    Honolulu needed a top drawer single serve, multi-method coffee house. now i won’t miss Blue Bottle when i’m on Oahu.

    i grew up in the electric percolator 60s. when you bought your coffee ground and in a can.

    America drank second rate or worse Brazilian Santos in those days. the good stuff went to France and Italy, where people appreciated good coffee and lingered over it in a social, sharing time with friends. We Americans, being our expedient selves, just wanted a jolt of caffeine before hitting the freeway.

    i still have a chemex at home, and a french press, and an electric Zojirushi 2 cup drip, and a stovetop espesso maker. in the closet are at least three thrift shop auto espresso makers my wife keeps finding. they work. i think most people give them away ’cause they don’t want to clean the milk steamers.

    thanks for hipping us to a necessity of life, Cat. i’ll hit BBC when i hit town.

  • Reply beachbumcafe.com » Blog Archive » A new video! February 10, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    […] https://www.nonstophonolulu.com/blogs/thedailydish/cat-chat-14-coffee-geeks/ […]

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About Me

About Me
Born and raised on O‘ahu, Hawaiʻi, Catherine Toth Fox has been chronicling her adventures in her blog, The Cat Dish, for more than a decade. She worked as a newspaper reporter in Hawai‘i for 10 years and continues to freelance—in between teaching journalism, hitting the surf and eating everything in sight—for national and local print and online publications. She’s currently the editor of HAWAIʻI Magazine.

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