Coffee at Why 50, at least at the time we visited them, came from Berlin’s Bonanza Coffee Roasters. They are very forward about this detail, with minimalist, white packaging sat on the counter top. Accompanying the bags of coffee are some extra stickers for customers and fans to take home, plus little cards with information about each coffee being offered.
The coffee itself is very lightly roasted. One might say that it is rotated as little as possible, resulting in very expressive flavors that are exciting and experimental.
We ordered a single origin, natural process Brazil that was farmed by Antonio Garcia and his family at what is described as “unusually high altitudes for Brazil.”
It was an almost ludicrously restricted shot on the cafe’s Slayer Espresso Machine. The extraction was about a minute long and the resulting liquid was sticky and like a syrup. And delicious! Sweet, tight, and concentrated tanginess. It’s not what you would expect when you think of a coffee from Brazil.
And that strain of mold-breaking matches well with the Why 50 coffee shop vibe. Design-wise, the cafe is young. On first glance, the exteriors don’t even look like a cafe, until you take a closer look.
Wheat paste out on front, an eclectic seldom of art pieces inside, and a graffiti-esqe branding would lead you to expect this to be a hang out for mostly young professionals and artists. But we found that the cafe was being enjoyed by people from all ages, taking advantage of an atmosphere that is extremely conducive to conversation.
