Americanos always perfect, but definitely splurge and try some of the amazing chocolate drink options.
Awesome, friendly staff. Yummy coffee and treats. Supports a beautiful cause. My personal recommendation is to try a roasted cocoa bean because i found it mind blowing.
Today I was visiting some cafes that offered specialty hot chocolates as part of the annual Vancouver hot chocolate festival. My journey downtown brought me to “East Van Roasters”, a cafe I would have never heard of, or thought to visit if not for the #hotchocolatefest”. A cafe, that despite its name, operates in Gastown. They specialize in chocolate and coffee and operate under the title of a “chocolate cafe”.
A PHS non-profit initiative, they train and are employed by women living at the Rainier hotel. They have excellent coffee and chocolates. I regularly buy their EVR espresso for my morning coffee at home. The flavours are very rich, deep and balanced. I rarely drink coffee during the day but every now and again I'll pop in for a small Americano and an Aloha Crunch square (think high end, dark chocolate Skor bar with Sea salt).
East Van Roasters aka the CHOCOLATE CAFE is an adorable little cafe tucked away in Historic Gastown. They are known for their single origin chocolates and their "bean to table" preparation. As in, East Van Roaster's roast their own cocoa beans in house and then prepare the chocolate! This is definitely very rare to find in a big bustling city like Vancouver.
I visited East Van Roaster's to try their The Buzzzzzz, their 2016 Hot Chocolate Festival flavour. It was in collaboration with Hive's for Humanity featuring fresh honey and honey pollen! This was my first time having bee pollen and it was very unique. I honestly did not expect it to be crunchy! The honey flavour was very pronounced - I am assuming since the honey is as fresh as it can be - and overpowered the milk chocolate. The little honey financier was so yummy and I wish they gave us a giant loaf slice. Highly suggest dipping it into the hot chocolate! hehe
Great chocolate and a small cozy atmosphere. The salted caramel cookie was delicious. Would definitely go back to try their hot chocolate drink.
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It's not even Christmas yet and we unwrapped the best gift. That was the discovery of a successful neighbourhood roaster and chocolate café that makes an enormous impact on the lives in a community. This all goes way beyond our usual story about coffee.In fact, East Van Roasters stands on its own in that it's a fully registered charity. Currently, they welcome the public to donate the funds necessary to purchase equipment needed to increase their production capacity. That is, they process their own organic, single origin cacoa beans in-house (known as "bean-to-bar" chocolate) and roast weekly their own organic, fair trade coffee beans ($16/lb). If you donate at least $50, they'll be happy to issue you a tax receipt.They could also use the money to hire more community members to help with their busy holiday production, and beyond. That's because EVR is a non-profit social enterprise of the PHS Community Services Society: this roastery/chocolate café provides support and training to the women residents of the Rainier Hotel and other Downtown Eastside housing initiatives.Another way you can support East Van Roasters - Stop 47 on our weekly Search for Vancouver's Best Coffee - is simply drop by, have a coffee and try out their quality products.
This isn't my first time ;) EVR is where I discovered REAL chocolate, from Bean to Bar. After working at a mainstream chocolate company for 3 years, EVR is still hands down my fave chocolate in the city. Today, I had a peppermint drinking chocolate, with a gluten free chocolate brownie. The brownie was to die for...absolutely perfect. Better than non-gluten-free brownies! The drinking chocolate was heavenly, like a dark chocolate peppermint bar, melted and blended with creamy milk...omnom!
Hot Chocolate & Chocolates. Great spot for studying/working and a little chocolate treat during Gastown shopping. Watching them make chocolate through the window really satisfies the Willy Wonka fantasies you've had since childhood.
Move over Nelson. Checked out East Van Roasters today. I had their latte/cookie combo. Chocolate cookie w/salted caramel, yum! Latte was nice and hot but I should've had a double, my single was a bit weak. Super-cool atmosphere, very clean and simple. Tiniest chocolate factory down one side of the space, interesting to watch the action. Nicely done guys!
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Bite a cocoa bean!. Maybe I'm stupid for going to a specialty chocolate shop like East Van Roasters and ordering coffee to drink there instead of hot chokkie. I also brought home a bag of East Van's roasted-in-house espresso beans, because I was out of coffee for my machine. Makes a great excuse to go to a coffee shop, eh? My cappucino was small and robust, not over-milky, restrained on the foam. East Van's pastry selection is small but the stuff they have is intense in its artisanship. I had an almond twist, which was like a flaky pie crust turn-screw coated in crunchy almond ganache. The room is an airy place to sit, and you can watch the chocolate temperers through the big glass dividers.
East Van Roasters sells frou-frou chocolates such as dark chocolate bark dotted with pink peppercorns or slivers of candied ginger. I got a box of that for my mum for Mother's Day. If you go to East Van, try some of their roasted chocolate nibs. All foodies have eaten roasted coffee beans. The roasted nibs are crunchy that way, but they taste salty and nutty instead of sweet. Get this -- East Van Roasters doesn't just sell these things by the jar, they have three kinds of "single origin" roasted coffee nibs. If you have a food snob you want to give a "can-you-top-this" gift to, I think roasted nibs would be it.
I was excited to be one of the lucky three people who won! Vancity provided me a $125 Vancity Visa gift card to carry out my idea. The coffee shop that I chose to pay it forward was East Van Roasters , which is located below the historic Rainier Hotel in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. East Van Roasters is a non-profit that helps women recovering from addiction and staying at the Rainier Hotel by providing them employment and training. They also creates organic ‘bean-to-bar’ chocolate and organic drinking chocolate and coffees as well. Their work is meaningful to the community and I thought that paying it forward at East Van Roasters would be worthwhile.
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