You are somewhere new in Newcastle, you need a coffee, and the map is showing you eight options. We have been there plenty of times ourselves.
We are not going to pretend to be the authority here. We make coffee for a living and we still find new favourites all the time. These are just the things that tend to lead us somewhere we love.
Ask who roasts their beans
Our favourite opening question anywhere. People almost always light up, because there is a story behind how every cafe landed on their roaster.
Ours is Glee Coffee, roasted about forty minutes up the road, and we will happily talk your ear off about them if you ask.
Ask what they would drink today
The best thing you can say to someone standing behind a machine. People who make coffee all day have opinions, and letting them steer you is how you end up trying something you would never have ordered.
It is also a much nicer way to order than reading a board in silence.
Give the batch brew a go
Usually the cheapest coffee on the menu and a really honest one. No milk, nothing hiding, just what those beans taste like. If you drink your coffee black, it is the quickest way to get a feel for a place.
Go back on a different day
Cafes have rhythms, same as the rest of us. A quiet weekday and a flat out Saturday are completely different experiences. A few of the places we love most took us several visits to properly fall for.
Say hello
This is the real one. The cafe that becomes your regular is rarely the one with the most technical coffee. It is the one where someone knows your name and asks how your week has been.
That is the whole reason we do this. We are in the people business, and the coffee is how we get to meet everyone.
Come see us sometime
We are at 71 Cowper St in Wallsend, open 6am to 12:30pm Monday to Saturday. First time in? Say so, we love a first timer!
We also wrote up five Newcastle cafes we genuinely send people to, four of which are not ours.