Tag Archives: coffee

CLOSED Ruta Maya Coffee Trailer on South First

The Bouldin Creek Trailer Park is becoming my favorite park. Sure, part of it is that it directly on South First which I travel down every single day and I’m not always one for leaving my side of town. It’s always had different vegan friendly establishments moving in and out but once Wasota moved in, it became a top spot in book. Then Little Thai Food moved in and I became obsessed with their Tom Kha and now, the missing element of the east side of the street (I’m no good at left turns you should see my car) was breakfast and now Ruta Maya has come in and potentially changed my morning routine.

Ruta Maya is an Austin institution that’s been around forever and by forever I mean 1990 when it was a downtown spot on 4th to have coffee and talk about organic food, do some Tai Chi, and maybe bring your dog named Marley. They eventually got ousted from downtown and moved to Penn Field on South Congress into a really huge location that had tons of events like drum circles, Brazilian dancing, yoga, shows like Harry and the Potters, free classes and of course their locally roasted coffee. Now they have even been ousted from that location too as Austin gets more and more difficult to hold a lease in. I’ve heard they want to open up a new brick and mortar location but for now, in addition to still selling coffee beans in stores, they have this little trailer on at 1207 S. 1st St in the Bouldin Creek Trailer Park. I noticed it yesterday on my drive downtown and got to try it this morning. So far, it’s the soft opening and they don’t have much of a menu but they were super nice and offered to make me a spinach, mushroom, and black bean taco. I was also very pleased to see that they sold tiny 8oz coffees. I recently fell in love with the small coffee on my trip to New York and they aren’t as ubiquitous in Austin.

It sounds like their new menu is going to have lots of breakfast items but dinner specials too and they were very excited about all their gluten free options, including GF bagels. They will have regular bagels and I kind of begged them to serve vegan cream cheese so cross your fingers that they add that to the menu. If they do, it will probably become my #1 breakfast stop because as much as I desire Whole Foods breakfast tacos, I do not love the line. Also the Bouldin Creek Trailer Park is kind of beautiful, with the sometimes active creek, the nice seating, and shady trees. It’s a great spot. I am excited to see what all they decide for the grand opening in two weeks.

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VeganMoFo: a perfect cup of coffee

Another year another Vegan Month of Food! Since 2008 I’ve been participating in veganmofo and I’m so stoked to begin another year. I have a lot of stuff tentatively planned but no formal theme this year so it should be more of the usual, tacos, restaurant talk, bake sale planning, travel pics, favorite recipes and maybe some of my own recipes which I’ve really gotten away from in recent years. Writing recipes takes forever. I don’t know how you all do it and where you find the time, I’ve got books to read and TV to watch. Also this is my 401 post! That’s a lot of blah blah blah vegan.

And speaking of talking too much, there is one subject I can talk about all day and that’s coffee. I love it. Ever since I was 11 and my Dad handed me a cup saying. “this is a cappuccino” I’ve been hooked on fancy coffee. It is so easy to spend way too much money every day going to coffee shops and getting a nice soy latte but sadly it is not something I can afford to do every day. So over these many years I have suffered, sure in a first-world comparably-rich easy-office-job-lifestyle-way, but suffered nonetheless with shitty cups of coffee. Some of you may know that I spent much of last year in pain and unable to walk and it is all because I fell in a hole on my way to get coffee, passing at least three places I could have picked it up along the way, because I have standards folks. I’m a total snob when it comes to coffee at home too and after using drip machines, and french presses for some time I have finally found my ideal family of coffee making equipment.

For my birthday this last year Dan got me a Toddy and really at the time it seemed kind of silly. I was perfectly satisfied with using the french press to cold brew coffee and I wasn’t even looking for something else. But like heroin once I tried it, I couldn’t resist. The Toddy works very similarly to the french press, you cover some coffee grounds with cold water and let it sit overnight. The difference is really in the filter. Instead of the single screen in the french press the Toddy has a really thick multi-layered filter and it ends up taking out a lot of the acid taste which I never even noticed was covering up all the flavors. The liquid that comes out is concentrated so it lasts for quite a few cups and then you can mix it with soy milk, water or whatever.

All summer I’ve been enjoying it over ice but now that the weather has gotten into the 70s I’ve been craving a hot cup of joe. A few weeks ago I pulled out my Bodum frother and I have got to tell you that the frothy vanilla soy milk with the toddy cold pressed coffee has lead to the greatest cups of coffee in my life, especially with this Indian coffee they have at the Fair Bean. You can just taste every nuance of the beans and it doesn’t hurt my belly the way shitty coffee does. It almost seems healthy but folks, I promise I’m highly caffeinated See all these run-on sentences? They all comes from this coffee!!!!! I could really go on all day about this but instead I am going to leave you with a clip from a place where they take coffee very seriously.