France’s new wave of java arrived relatively early on in Lyon, back in the 2010s with Mokxa, a coffee shop (complete with unfinished stone walls and a shiny Slayer espresso machine) that could already be found on the slopes of the Croix Rousse neighborhood. Among the pioneers of the roast-your-own-beans movement was one Julien Da Silva, who left Strasbourg and a future as an architect behind in order to dive headfirst into the field of specialty coffee, founding Placid in the process. He roasts his flavor-packed beans slowly but surely in another space in Vénissieux. What’s more, his beans are always sourced from a single plot of land, whether it be in Burundi, like these juicy beans that taste almost lemony, or Costa Rica where they’re grown on a high-altitude farm surrounded by banana and mango trees, for a more wintery result, which tastes almost caramelized (€13 for 250 g). All of them can be tasted in house – espresso €2, carrot cake €4… // D.S.
Hidden gem: The Ethiopian bean grown on a permaculture farm in the country’s Dambi Uddo region (€13 for 250 g).
