Greg just sprinted into the 44th Street Shop (seriously, sprinted) with a very heavy looking bag and a smile. The bag was filled with these awesome new Gregular Cards, which is great news for all of you who have been getting understandably impatient with their unavailability for the past few weeks. They’re here! They look cool! Come get one!

Friday at the Park Avenue Cinema, we’re screening one of my favorite comedies and easily the best film ever based on a board game, Clue! Dress up as your favorite character, maybe a play a few games, enjoy Madeline Kahn being completely brilliant, and help dispose of a bunch of alcohol.

L to R: The honey-processed Costa Rica Las Lajas beans (stripped of the skin, but not the mucilage before processing) and the natural-processed (skin-on) Las Lajas Perla Negra. We have served and enjoyed both coffees at Gregorys.

Oscar Chacon, the man largely responsible for the awesome quality of the coffee at Las Lajas.

Coffee cherry being separated by ripeness. The overripe cherries are less dense and therefore float to the top. Science!

Coffee cherry growing on a tree. You can see some green, way underripe ones in the bottom left corner. Those have a long while to go.

Coffee cherry from underripe to overripe.

Many, many more wonderful pictures at the Gregorys Facebook page.

We got a pretty big package in the mail the other day and we opened it up to reveal what looked like an amateur chemistry kit, but proved to be a gorgeous, Japanese slow drip iced coffee tower instead. The picture above shows (through a slight iPhone blur) the first coffee drips of what should be around a 12 hour process (the coffee didn’t even start coming until about 2 hours after we started the slow drips of ice water) and should result in some delicious Costa Rica Las Lajas. It’ll take some trial and error to figure out our exact technique (and trial and error takes a while when the trials last 12 hours), but we should have some wonderful new iced coffee for you soon. Until then, you’re welcome to stand around and be mesmerized by the slow drip; lord knows we are.

In Cosmicomics, Calvino writes of subjects as thrilling as lunar orbits and the first animals to walk on land (while at the same time writing about the relationship between the sign, signifier, and signified) with the playfulness and charm of a retelling of treasured childhood memories. It’s an extraordinary book, and one that I recommend to nearly everyone I care about who likes fun things.

It pairs well with any coffee that one might describe as both bright and complex, as well as a cappuccino, with intricate art on top and a deep, satisfying marriage of espresso and milk underneath. You have plenty of time to finish it before our meeting at Park Ave at 8pm on Monday the 23rd.

And I don’t think it would be too much bragging to say that we have improved quite a bit in the last five years. There was a time before our latte art looked like anything particularly pretty. There was a time before single-origin, made-to-order coffee and multiple brew-methods. There was a time when most of our pastries came from outside vendors. What has allowed us to constantly make both slight improvements and wholesale changes (besides of course our wonderful, open-minded customers; I can’t suck up to you folks enough that it would exceed how appreciative we actually are) is a staff of baristas, managers, and chefs who work hard, work as a team, and push themselves to learn new skills and perfect old ones. We’ve had many employees come and go (such is the nature of service jobs in NYC), but if you’ve ever worked a shift at Gregorys, you’ve made a difference to us.

So thanks again (and again and again). Here’s to another five years in which we learn as many wonderful new things as we have in the first five.

We hope you’re having as much fun as we are.
The Gregorys Fam.

In case you haven’t seen the current Gregorys Coffee Film Club selection, here’s a trailer. Pretty awesome hair shot to open the thing, you have to admit.

YUP.

If you’re in midtown in the next few days and need some coffee, all of our shops will run their usual hours on Wednesday and Friday, with the 44TH STREET SHOP heroically STAYING OPEN FROM 6AM to 3PM ON THANKSGIVING DAY. Whether you need some beans to counterbalance the tryptophan at home or a place to hang out and keep warm in Midtown, come on by.