East Bay Coffee Culture

By Amy Glynn Pattern recognition 101: Jack London Square, early morning. The steely grays of the sky and water meet the steely grays of the Bay Bridge in a fog dense enough to spatter my shoulders like rain—a fantastical composition of liquid; solid and vapor all in one color. By 10am the marine layer will be gone, replaced with high, brilliant skies. Beautiful in its own right, that high-def articulation of wave and girder, gesso-white gull feathers and grimy signage. But for now, nothing so crude as clarity. Glorious ambiguity, easy on the eyes, not revealing too much at once, leaving plenty to the imagination. That’s what we’re about around here at 6:30 in the morning, and the perfect beverage for that has to be the cappuccino, the beverage named for its supposed resemblance to the brow...