DRIFT - Volume 11: Los Angeles

With distribution and readership across the globe, this stylish lifestyle magazine takes a sociological and anthropological approach to understanding coffee in cities around the world, and provides a useful tool for navigating them.After water, coffee is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. It’s a versatile backdrop for the everyday as well as the intersection to some of life’s most memorable moments. It can be a morning ritual, a comforting companion to a book, an excuse for a first date, and often helps us see the world afresh when we travel. Perhaps most importantly, coffee reinforces a sense of place and creates community.Drift explores all of this and more through the lens of the people who drink and serve coffee – from consumers to coffeehouse owners, street vendors, and baristas – and the cities where they live. These pages brim with stories about how coffee connects us, and helps shape the cultural landscape of places around the world.Drift Volume 11 washes up on the sunny coast of Southern California, home to one of America’s most vibrant cities. From the beach volleyball courts of Santa Monica to the ever-changing neighbourhoods of the urban core, the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles is home to a wide range of communities. Whether it’s specialty Colombian coffee at Andrés Piñeros’s coffee shop in the ‘surfurbia’ of Redondo Beach, or Jonathan Yang’s Cantonese-inspired drinks at Thank You Coffee in Chinatown, L.A. has something for everyone. But as the coffee pioneers of the city’s West side, like Menotti’s in Venice Beach, or the emerging Black-owned coffee shops, like Bloom & Plume Coffee in Filipinotown, demonstrate, beneath the glossy patina of the city’s celebrity glamour is an incredibly diverse coffee culture that – like Saugus Cafe, which was founded in 1888 – is steeped in history, and offers unique perspectives that make Los Angeles a dynamic place to live, visit, and drink coffee.