or, What online video can learn from the coffee business.

There’s a pretty incredible thing happening in the coffee business here in New York and other cities all over the country — independent, locally-owned coffee shops are springing up that are giving Starbucks a run for their money by paying obsessive attention to quality of their product and creating a better, more unique experience than an international supercorporation possibly can.

I first noticed this in my own neighborhood when I wandered into Cafe Grumpy at a friend’s recommendation, or, more accurately, his obsession — he wouldn’t stop talking about it. Cafe Grumpy (their name is a poke at Starbucks baristas) (deleted, see Caroline’s comment below) started out in Brooklyn, then began conquering Chelsea with their ultra-fancy single-brew Clover coffee machines, which people obsess over; fair trade sourced and locally roasted coffee; and super-rich, hand-poured espresso drinks — no more expensive, and often cheaper, than the mass-produced ones at Starbucks — where they draw little designs with the foamed milk, part of a fun new trend called latte art. The coffee was noticeably tastier than most other cups I’d ever had, the place was cool and welcoming, and being the silly old hipster I am, I was soon hooked enough to start walking several blocks out of my way to stop in on my walks between home and work.

Sam pours up a cafe latte at Cafe Grumpy, from their Flickr stream.

But Cafe Grumpy’s just one example. Joe is opening shops all over the city, there’s the tiny Gimme Coffee in Soho and Brooklyn, Gorilla in Park Slope, and a couple Ninth Street Espresso locations, one of which broke off on its own as Everyman Espresso. In Los Angeles, there’s Groundwork coffee in Venice and Hollywood, my frequent hangout Kings Road, Intelligentsia (invading from Chicago), and the Latino-owned Sabor y Cultura. San Francisco’s got Ritual Roasters and Blue Bottle. In Austin, there’s the amazing Jo’s Coffee, creating some of the best new jobs for hipsters since Waterloo opened, and in Washington, D.C., there’s Tryst (their slogan: “no corporate coffee. no matching silverware”) and the fast-growing, famously black-owned Mayorga with over ten locations already. Many of these businesses are opening franchises in local airports and train stations — the places you’d expect to see yet another Starbucks — benefiting from programs to attract local businesses. And like Starbucks or Whole Foods’ Allegro team (a bunch of whom I met randomly last week in Austin, and who seemed uniformly passionate and smart), these businesses take personal pride in sharing the sourcing of their coffees, even visiting the growers and posting photos of their trips on Flickr.

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