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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 07:58:03 JST Adrianna Tan

   The bulk coffee section at Rainbow grocery in sf. Probably the most economical way to get good coffee beans

   #Coffee #Food #SanFrancisco

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:09:53 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • Sir Real 🇵🇸

     @LeftCoast to buy tea or to drink it?

     To buy: red blossom in Chinatown. A bit pricey but it’s the type of tea that I prefer (high quality Chinese tea leaves). They have tasting flight.

     Otherwise she can also go to this place which also has a huge selection of tea. (Leaves and bags)

     To sit down: I don’t love most of the tea shops out here. I do Maiko or Maruwa Seicha for matcha and hojicha drinks.

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     Sir Real 🇵🇸 (leftcoast@freeradical.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:09:54 JST Sir Real 🇵🇸

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     @skinnylatte Do you know of any good tea shops in SF? My daughter goes to school up there and would love to find one.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:21:45 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • Sir Real 🇵🇸

     @LeftCoast have her try maruwa seicha’s matcha or hojicha (any, they’re all good) and try a cheese tart as well. Right across from it there is a Japanese tea store called Chato. Also interesting but not cheap. Not terribly expensive just not cheap. Good quality tea

     While she’s there and if she makes it early enough, jina bakes has delicious Korean French pastries.

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     Sir Real 🇵🇸 (leftcoast@freeradical.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:21:46 JST Sir Real 🇵🇸

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     @skinnylatte Thank you so much! She's mostly interested in making tea to bring to classes and the library. She'll love this.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:27:57 JST Adrianna Tan

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     My informal coffee math: getting a 12-16oz bag of whole beans from a nice coffee shop runs around $18-25 (!) some of them do a free black coffee with each purchase but in general I don’t find it good value to get coffee beans from their coffee shops (at least where I am).

     At a bulk shop like rainbow I still get beans from the same places I might go (mother tongue coffee, linea, grand) and it works out to be about 30% cheaper. There also isn’t the pressure of ‘tipping’ at the till (like if you get a coffee drink and a bag of beans it’s weird to not tip on the whole check)

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:28:25 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • Sam Nabi

     @samnabi they move a lot of stuff. They have bulk stuff for every spice, herb, tea, seed, even fresh yeast and tofu and fermented foods. Every flour you can imagine

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     Sam Nabi (samnabi@spore.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:28:26 JST Sam Nabi

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Do they have roast dates on the bins? They must sell a lot of coffee to keep it all fresh!

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     sortius (sortius@infosec.exchange)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:29:57 JST sortius

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     @skinnylatte it's funny seeing the difference between American coffee culture, and Australian.

     No Aussie would touch any of that, as it's open to the air, not temperature controlled, etc. This doesn't make much difference with drip coffee, but for espresso, which most Aussies drink, you probably won't get crema when extracting.

     Not a knock on the coffee shown, just how the style of coffee you drink dictates how it's stored/sold. We do have bulk coffee places, but they use airtight coffee fridges to preserve the oils that make crema

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 08:29:57 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • sortius

     @sortius also the location. It doesn’t get super hot here at all and they move a lot of product so I would say almost all of it is pretty fresh. I do chemex and aeropress so it doesn’t bother me but now I want to find an espresso fiend friend and ask them about it

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:19:43 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • Matt Boyd

     @3psboyd yup

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     Matt Boyd (3psboyd@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:19:44 JST Matt Boyd

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte What's the bulk price per pound? Around $15?

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:24:52 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • Matt Boyd

     @3psboyd they usually do but I haven’t seen it recently

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     Matt Boyd (3psboyd@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:24:53 JST Matt Boyd

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     @skinnylatte Nice. I wonder if they ever carry Red Bay.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:36:40 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • johne

     @johne they have dates of roasting and it is usually same week / better than what I’d get in a coffee shop especially since they mostly source from local roasters

     I mostly do chemex and aeropress and haven’t noticed a difference (their offerings are never stale for any of the bulk foods) but might feel differently if I were more espresso-leaning

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     johne (johne@denvr.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:36:41 JST johne

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     @skinnylatte Coffer beans go stale about 2-4 weeks after roasting once exposed to oxygen. I can notice a change in pour-over quality though it’s slight. It’s much more noticeable when making espresso, and is why I started roasting beans myself. I paid for my roasting oven in about four months with the savings.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 09:57:19 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Other things at the bulk bin

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 12:04:36 JST Adrianna Tan

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     • johne

     @johne yeah it’s a special bulk shop so they really have their shit together

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     johne (johne@denvr.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Oct-2025 12:04:54 JST johne

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte oh, that’s really good. I’ve never seen that with bulk coffee.