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Necessity Coffee along Coast Highway in Encinitas. Photo by Ryan Woldt
Necessity Coffee along Coast Highway in Encinitas. Photo by Ryan Woldt
ColumnsFood & WineRoast! San Diego

Bean Journal: Necessity Coffee

Where: Necessity Coffee, 102 2nd St, Encinitas, CA 92024
Open: 7:00 AM – 2:00 PM, Tuesday-Saturday
What: Guatemala Single Origin Natural – $4
Tasting notes: Raisin, plum, brown sugar
What: Colombia Huila Washed espresso – $4
Tasting notes: Chocolate, tangerine, brown sugar
Find them at: https://www.necessitycoffee.com/ • @necessity.coffee on Instagram
What I’m listening to: Early James & Sierra Ferrell, “Real Low Down Lonesome

The following is a fairly verbatim recap of a recent conversation with a coffee friend:

Me: Wanna meet up for coffee?

Friend: Sure. Where?

Me: How about Necessity Coffee in Encinitas? It’s new. New-ish, anyway.

Friend: Where is it?

Me: 102 2nd Street, kind of behind that mobile home park on 101.

Friend: Between Queenstage and Lofty? That’s a ballsy location.

They weren’t wrong. Less than a quarter mile separates those two coffee shops. Still, Necessity Coffee managed to split the difference, not that you would know it if you were riding* down the Coast Highway. There is a sign with an arrow at the corner of 2nd and A streets, but I still question if I’m in the right spot as I reach the end of the single-block dead end.

Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt
Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt

At the end of the street is a long industrial-looking building that used to house Burtech Plumbing. Most of the building has been converted to Maek Friends, a membership-based ceramics collective.

I turn in and roll past a half dozen cars and find Necessity Coffee tucked into the back of the building. At the end of the lot, several parking spots have been given over to heavy-duty wooden picnic tables. Ikea round coffee tables next to some simple yet classic-looking bench seats frame the doorway under the cursive Necessity Coffee logo painted black on the soft cotton candy pink exterior.

Inside an L-shaped coffee bar with a black front and pale blonde countertop hide what is legally a coffee cart. To the left is matching pale blonde plywood shelving and tabletop elevate pick compact disc-sized boxes of whole coffee beans, an orchid, and a cooler filled with bottles of Topo-Chico and cans of Better Booch. To the right, a pair of tables await the inevitable customer looking for a space to sit with a laptop. An open doorway leads into the ceramics studio.

The coffee bar houses a pink (and I mean PINK) La Marzocco espresso machine next to a jumbo commercial coffee bean grinder, tablet register, and a pink pastry display filled with goodies from Relic — a bakery down in Miramar. Behind the bar, owners Curtis and John softly chatter with each other.

They pause and perk up whenever a new customer enters. Their demeanors belie a calmness I don’t often encounter with highly caffeinated entrepreneurs.

Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt
Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt

I order a batch-brewed filter coffee from Guatemala and an espresso. The espresso offering is a single-origin Colombia washed from the Huila department, or region, in the southwest of the country. The term washed refers to a type of processing the coffee cherry goes through after being picked to remove the pulp and leave behind the seeds we call coffee beans.

Processors use water to remove the layers of coffee cherry skin, pulp, and mucilage before the seeds are left to dry. Washed coffees are often referred to as having a clean taste or even having the true** taste of the coffee bean because the sugars from the pulp have been washed away before the fermentation process that occurs during drying.

I take all my goodies outside to sit in the sun with the other customer strangers who will soon be coffee friends. I sit on one of the outdoor benches and lean up against the building. A couple from South “O” with their dog saw the shop on Instagram and decided to come down from Oceanside.*** Curtis later confirms that Instagram has been their primary marketing effort.

The espresso is quite lovely. A salty caramel flavor gives way to the intermingling of brown sugar and tangerine. It was served with a side tumbler of New Beginnings, a carbonated white tea. That is also really good — sweet and refreshing. It is so good that it is its own showstopper, and I think I would have preferred a simpler tonic or seltzer as a palate cleanser.

Despite being so near the Coast Highway, and for that matter in a parking lot, the patio at Necessity is a nice place to sit with a cup of coffee. An overgrown lot on the other side of a chain-link fence waves leisurely in the breeze. It is much quieter than you’d expect. Even the occasional train horn seems to have muted itself in deference to the birds chirping and the bees buzzing.

I work my way into batch-brewed Guatemala. It is also top-notch. I’d say almost as good as any batch brew I’ve drunk in the past year. I make a commitment to return to try Ethiopia. It only takes a day before I’m back with my wife, who orders the New Beginnings (tasting notes of pear and honey) and a Belgian Liege Waffle, perfect for dipping in my coffee.

Necessity Coffee has a simple menu, good coffee, and a willingness to answer the annoying questions of this insatiably curious coffee drinker passionate about understanding why. Specifically, why here and now in this ballsy location? I believe the answer to be in the experience.

Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt
Necessity Coffee. Photo by Ryan Woldt

The team behind Necessity Coffee is going to do its own thing. They’ll survive and thrive at their own pace. They’ll focus on what happens inside this small nook at the back of a dead-end street in Encinitas, not what doesn’t.

*I love what Encinitas and Leucadia have done with the streetscape to slow down traffic. I had given up riding a bicycle down the Coast Highway a few years ago. That’s not nothing considering I used to commute by bike in New York, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. It feels much safer than it did, and I’m glad to be back on two wheels traveling through the neighborhood.

**Whatever that means.

***Congratulations! If you’re you and you’re reading this column, you know why!

Want to hear the stories of local coffee entrepreneurs or learn how to brew a better cup of coffee at home? Listen to Coffee People and Coffee Smarter on your favorite podcasting platforms. You can even stream the latest episodes on The Coast News!

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