Coffee Shops in Asbury Park

Paul Cali, 32, who is co-owner of Cafe Volan on Bangs Avenue, considers himself part of the coffee industry's "third wave." The first wave was bad coffee simply used as a vehicle for caffeine, he says. The second wave brought places like Starbucks, which offered a bettertasting cup but not yet one of the highest quality. The third wave raised the bar higher, bringing coffee almost to an art form. Purveyors pay close attention to the beans they use, the way they're roasted and how the drink is prepared.

"It's treating coffee as something more culinary, or just more complex," Cali says.

Cafe Volan, with its wood floors and heavily tattooed clientele, feels like it was plucked right out of Brooklyn, but for the distinct surfing and skateboarding theme. While the café sells pour-overs and iced coffee by the growler – a 32-ounce refillable jug typically used to sell beer – espresso-based drinks like cappuccinos and lattes are its specialties.

"That was a big thing for us, that our espresso was amazing," Cali says. "People have our cappuccino and say, 'I didn't even need to put sugar in it because it's being prepared so well.' That was our goal: preparing coffee in the best possible way."

What the café's owners don't do is roast their own beans. They use coffee from La Colombe, a brand they chose because it makes an incredible espresso, Cali says. The pair hope to eventually roast their own, but it's not something they wanted to jump into, because they feared if they weren't good at it, it might compromise taste.

"Anybody can roast a bean if you have the roaster, but it takes work to really do it right, and we wanted to make sure our coffee was consistently great across the board," Cali says. "We were confident in our ability as baristas but not as roasters."

Rook Coffee Roasters, another new roaster that's opened in the area, is also relying on micro lots to help raise the quality of their coffee. Co-owner Shawn Kingsley, 36, was a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley when he was laid off in 2009. He decided to open Rook with his childhood friend, Holly Migliaccio, 35, who had worked in marketing for Yahoo and several other companies. Both had lived in San Francisco at some point in their careers and had experienced the West Coast coffee culture. They wanted to open something similar on the Jersey Shore.

The business partners spent a year preparing – with Kingsley studying the fundamentals and chemistry of roasting while Migliaccio studied the industry – and in 2010, they opened Rook in Ocean Township, a coffee roaster and retail shop that only brews coffee by the cup, not the pot. The business has become so popular, the duo has expanded from one to four shops in just three years.

"A lot of people who come in here are looking for that next step in coffee," Magliaccio says. "It reminds me of what's gone on in the wine culture, in that over the past 10, 15, 20 years, wine drinkers have developed a more sophisticated palate."

Rook offers 10 different single-origin coffees, none of which are blends or have flavoring like hazelnut or French vanilla added. All are made from beans that were roasted within the week. The company sells no lattes or macchiatos. They just sell really good coffee, made by the cup, for each customer who walks in, Migliaccio says.

"It's a plain old American coffee," she says. "We love espresso, but that's not part of our model. There's not a lot of companies out there that strictly do pour-overs, so that steps us out a little bit."

With all these cafés and roasteries opening up, does Blanco feel the market is getting saturated? "Nah," he says. He believes he's created a niche all his own.

"My beans are what make my place unique. My coffee is my coffee. It's our brand."