16 — Wednesday, N
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
I don’t consider myself a religious per-
son, but I had the closest thing to a spiritual
awakening when I first climbed up the olive
steps leading to South Fourth Avenue’s most
charming hideaway — a place with tingling
espresso aromas, walls adorned with matcha-
colored greenery and a heavenly soundtrack
of scholarly chatter and prickly indie tunes:
Literati Coffee. It was my first semester of
college, and per a self-made tradition, I had
set aside every Wednesday afternoon before
my Women’s Studies lecture to explore the
abundance of coffee shops Ann Arbor had to
offer.
Every Wednesday, one shop at a time.
This week’s pick was a fancy-sounding place
called Literati Coffee, tucked just above its
sister storefront, Literati Bookstore.
I reached the top of the bookstore’s worn
steps, only to turn the corner and discover a
strikingly peaceful corner of campus I never
even knew existed. The experience felt tran-
scendent: I had crossed the threshold from a
university town buzzing in the excitement of
changing fall colors and an anticipated foot-
ball season to the serene nirvana found just
above Literati Bookstore. And so, I entered,
perhaps floating a foot off the ground all the
while.
True Literati enthusiasts will tell you that
securing a window seat is a challenging yet
noble task. The general makeup of the cof-
feehouse’s customer base consists of astute-
looking millennials and pensive bibliophiles.
So, inching your way to one of the store’s
treasured window-hugging tables means
shuffling through a sea of wool coats, plaid-
patterned winter wear and finicky ceramic
espresso cups. Yet, I suppose my spiritual
awakening had ushered in a kind of seren-
dipity, and so, upon crossing the divide from
University-haze to Literati-nirvana, I had a
glistening window seat waiting just for me.
With an iced, almond-milk latte — my go-
to order, sitting contently next to my Spanish
coursebook — I was convinced I had found
my own little slice of happiness on campus.
I spent the afternoon catching up on class-
work and humming along to my favorite
playlist, blissfully content with the lingering
taste of espresso that rested on my tongue.
Later in the afternoon, as if planted by a
divine spirit or maybe even a romantic movie
producer, a young man walking on the street
below caught my eye contact and waved. I
couldn’t help but feel elated by that small ex-
change — it was the purest little demonstra-
tion of love I had experienced since moving
to Ann Arbor earlier that fall.
During my freshman year, leading up to
and after my Literati discovery, I approached
my coffeehouse crawl with a particular zeal.
With weeks of scouting out Ann Arbor’s
best coffee joints, starting with the ever-
convenient Espresso Royale then venturing
to other shops sprinkled across downtown, I
quickly discovered that my quest was about
something more than coffee. It was in these
varied spaces that I had some of my best
hustled study sessions, feverishly outlining
my next Spanish paper or studying for an
upcoming statistics exam. More important-
ly, these spaces also allowed me to engage
in mindful experiences: a lovely interaction
with a friendly barista, spending a few min-
utes gazing at the colorful patrons passing in
and out, or even sneaking pictures of the art
that kissed the walls.
In this way, I think coffeehouses occupy
a truly unique purpose somewhere between
the frigid atmosphere of University academ-
ic buildings and the commercial craze of Ann
Arbor’s retail and dining scene. These shops
serve as a safe haven away from the busied
streets of campus, offering a sacred kind of
anonymity I began to really cherish. As a Res-
idential College student part of intertwined
living and academic communities, it became
difficult to draw the boundary between work
and play within East Quad Residence Hall,
where the RC is housed. So, when I started to
venture beyond East University Avenue and
explore coffeehouses all across town, this
ritual became my time to decompress and
observe the culture of the city beyond my RC
bubble.
Ultimately, one of the coffeehouse’s most
impressive assets is its versatility. While I
might frequent these shops to indulge my
reclusive romantics, they also serve as a hub
for social gathering and even political discus-
sion. This beloved “coffeehouse culture,” ac-
tually dates back to the 16th century, when
Oxford academics would gather in coffee-
houses — hotly referred to as “Penny Univer-
sities” — and partake in the elitist, scholarly
conversations.
London’s coffeehouse culture continued
to grow in popularity into the 18th century
as Londoners sought leisurely conversation,
political debate and networking amid their
stuffy work lives. With the distribution of
newspapers becoming more widespread in
the city, coffeehouses were soon positioned
as hubs of printed news and up-in-coming
intelligence. In 1675, King Charles II went as
far as proclaiming the shutdown of all coffee-
houses, stating they “produced very evil and
dangerous effects,” and were a “disturbance
of the peace and quiet realm.” However, his
outcry proved ineffective: The people con-
tinued to gather, drink coffee and indulge in
an café-bred sense of authenticity.
And they continue to gather today, just
with more laptops and less top hats involved.
U-M students have utilized the city’s of-
fering of coffeehouses in a myriad of ways,
christening the coffeehouse space as a kind
of library turned living room turned campus
hub. LSA sophomore Nicole (Nori) Pham
frequented the late Espresso Royale on
South University Avenue for all sorts of rea-
sons, from studying to drinks with friends to
networking. I sat down with the fellow cof-
fee lover (via virtual call) to discuss all things
Ann Arbor coffee, wanting to hear how she
chose to utilize these spaces.
“I always went to the South U (Espres-
so Royale) because I love the atmosphere
there,” Pham said. “There was a basement,
(and) I would just sort of sit there in between
my Bio class and my Physics class. … I would
spend almost every day there.”
Pham even became a regular with the
baristas, which eventually earned her “large
(drinks) even when I ordered a small. They
were just super friendly.”
As a pre-Med student, Pham also valued
the way Espresso Royale offered a space for
professional pursuits.
“I would always set up interviews and
stuff at Espresso Royale,” she said. “It was
just a very convenient location to have,
(where you could) have fun with friends, or
study, but also have that professional side
where you could connect and network with
other members of the Michigan community.”
Other coffeehouses, like Literati, can serve
a different niche for students who, like me,
are a sucker for the romantic nature of the
space. Public Policy senior Miriam Chung,
another member of the unofficial official Li-
terati fan club, told me about her passion for
the shop.
“I love the smell and touch of books,”
Chung said. “Even though I wouldn’t buy
them because I’m broke constantly, I would
linger around the store and pick up books,
read the first few pages, move on, repeat.”
She reminisced on the same, divine Lite-
rati bookstore-to-coffeehouse threshold that
I once crossed as a freshman.
“What (I) mainly miss about it, it’s that
the most interesting people used to come
into Literati — people watching provided a
fantastic break from studying,” Chung said.
“I loved how people from all ends of the
spectrum of interests and book tastes would
congregate together in that packed, teeny
upstairs space.”
From the sleek, scholarly tables of Lite-
rati Coffee to the endearingly worn booths
of Espresso Royale, University students are
finding their own corners of solitude or hap-
piness or community. And with this great
variety of espresso-centered environments
comes a need to differentiate between all
that Ann Arbor “coffeehouse culture” has
to offer: Are you team Literati? Espresso
Royale? Vertex Coffee Roasters? RoosRoast?
Lab? Sweetwaters?
As a freshman, I made the bold attempt
to differentiate between all these spaces
through a ranking built on the following cri-
teria: the quality of their iced, almond-milk
latte (my signature drink), the strength of
their Wi-Fi and the amount and type of seat-
ing offered.
After extensive on-site study and cof-
feehouse scouting, I collected the following
data: The Espresso Royale on South Uni-
versity had pretty average Wi-Fi but great
seating if you could snag a booth upstairs.
Comparatively, the Espresso Royale on State
Street had an extremely finicky Wi-Fi signal
but a plentiful offering of cushy booths, ta-
bles, and couches. Lab had minimal seating
but is often championed as the best coffee on
campus (personally, their roast is too strong
for me).
Alas, with its insanely tasty lattes, reliable
Wi-Fi signal, and overall serene atmosphere,
I ultimately decided on Literati Coffee as the
supreme coffeehouse on campus, and have
been a proud member of team Literati ever
since.
Perhaps via less formalized ranking sys-
tems, other students have secured their “go-
to” spots as well. Engineering sophomore
Paul Balko has been frequenting Lab since he
first visited on his tour of campus. Now, he
says, “Lab is my favorite just because of the
atmosphere and their big selection of fun,
different lattes and house-made syrups.”
He, too, said he has has been able to dif-
ferentiate between campus coffeehouses in
ways that are, perhaps, more practical than
mine. “To blatantly compare (Lab) to Espres-
so Royale, I think the coffee is higher quality.
I never really liked Espresso Royale. My first
impression of it was that the name was really
bad.”
Whether the name was bad or not, the
signature, yellow “Espresso Royale” slogans
still remain emblazoned on their storefronts,
like sad fossils from a pre-pandemic campus.
And other coffee joints including Literati
have joined Espresso Royale in a similarly
tragic fate, closing their doors to adhere to
Washtenaw County COVID-19 regulations.
To coffeehouse enthusiasts or many U-M
students, this news means a lot more than
just grappling with a world where one can’t
purchase an over-priced latte every day.
For students like Balko, closed coffee-
houses means, “the loss of a convenient and
multi-functional space.” And for Nori Pham,
a boarded-up Espresso Royale means termi-
nating an opportunity she once always had to
decompress between classes and exchange
niceties with friendly baristas. Ultimately,
during a semester where students are already
feeling the edge of virtual learning and strug-
gling to stay motivated, the loss of the coffee-
house feels like another harsh blow against
a version of college some of us already had
a taste of.
As cheesy as it may sound, just searching
for pictures of Literati Coffee’s interior to
inform this article elicited a dull pang in my
heart. I see these images and can almost feel
like I’m there again climbing a flight of stairs
toward a tucked-away nirvana as if Literati
was placed there just for me — a wandering
freshman from Indiana struggling to become
acclimated in a new city on a new campus.
I know — or rather, I hope — that one day
these spaces will be available once again, for
other unknowing freshmen to discover and
cherish and maybe even learn more about
themselves in. Because, if done right, the cof-
feehouse crawl can be a truly magical thing.
An ode to the
coffeehouse crawl
BY GRACE TUCKER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WEIBE