Aquarela Coffee - DTLA

Everything here is Brazilian and roasted by the people selling it, on a 2.5-kilo and a 10-kilo San Franciscan, out of six farms the company visits twice a year and pays above market. Kipling opened this counter in 2017 for a former employer and came back in 2022 to run it as his own, in the lobby of the 1931 CalEdison — a great deal of building for a Batida.

• brazilian single origins
• espresso
• weekday mornings
• pão de queijo

Every coffee is a Brazilian single origin the company roasts itself, from six farms it names by region and visits twice a year, with a stated specialization in anaerobic processing.

Aquarela pours out of downtown's grandest lobby: the CalEdison's, finished in 1931 by Allison & Rible, two stories tall under a thirty-foot coffered ceiling with at least seventeen kinds of marble across the floor and walls. Hugo Ballin's mural Power closes the far end of the lobby.