On Saturday morning, our roasters Derek & Ryan greeted customers at Peace Coffee's newest café account on 26th and Lyndale. Common Roots Café has been open for less than a week and is off to a great start. They are the only café in the city to serve our seasonal Dominican Republic Roast and they have also worked closely with our roasting team to create two unique espresso blends for their café.

The espresso they recommend for "sipping" is appropriately named The Roots Blend. It is a bold well-balanced espresso with a sweet herbal/floral start, fading into a nice buttery vanilla caramel middle, finishing with a spicy currant and a touch of chocolate. It has great crema. It is a worldly mix of our Ethiopia, Nicaragua & Colombia beans.

The second espresso was specifically created to pair with milk. This is the 1892 Blend. It is an earthy espresso with a potent dark chocolate characteristic. It also has flavors of black pepper, toasted walnut, cocoa, leather, and dried fig. It is a combination of our Peruvian and Nicaraguan beans.

The 1892 Blend is named after the year the café's building was constructed. The owner took painstaking measures to keep the building's original character intact. The brick interior and high ceilings give it the aged feeling alongside a more vibrant and new look of bright painted walls and energy saving overhead lighting. The overall feeling of the café is open and warm. Just what you want from a place that's core mission is to promote community gathering and conversation.

Common Roots is committed to bringing all sorts of interesting educational programming to the café. Last weekend they kicked off with a talk by a local beekeeper who brought his bees and eight varieties of honey to the café for people to taste. Local is a key component of their business. They have tried to source everything at the café from the tabletops to their flour for baking from local producers and vendors.

They are also committed to paying their employees a living wage. They offer benefits, vacation, sick leave, etc. for the entire staff. There is so much good stuff happening at Common Roots, I almost forgot to mention the best part -- the food. The cornerstone of the café is the freshly baked bagels. They also have rotating soups, salads and sandwiches. Everything on the menu is made from scratch with local ingredients. The beer on tap represents some of the best beer being brewed in the Midwest. They have a rotating selection of Surly, Flat Earth and Lakefront Beer.

Stop by Common Roots for everything from a pint of beer, a bagel, good conversation and, of course, exceptional coffee.

This Thursday, July 19th, from 7:30 - 8:30 PM, Andy Lambert, Peace Coffee Events and Outreach Coordinator, will present a slideshow from his trip to the FEDCARES coop and talk about coffee production in the Dominican Republic. This event is free and open to the public.

Common Roots Cafe, 2558 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55405, (612) 871-2360

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