The Chocolate Barista

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The Chocolate Barista

Award-winning coffee professional & coffee culture critic. Founder . Consulting & writing about hospitality, culture, & belonging. ☕️

06/10/2026

On June 7, 2016, I penned an essay about race. It changed the coffee industry forever.

But it took me ten years to discover what the actual point was of The Chocolate Barista. Little did I know, I was practicing "the point" the whole time—just without the clarity necessary to articulate, defend, and protect it.

Until now.

Discover my epiphany over on the completely refreshed TheChocolateBarista.com. 💭

06/06/2026

I tested out the new OSMO coffee filters. The results honestly surprised me! Would you try these for yourself or do you think all coffee filters are the same?

05/05/2026

One thing about a coffee professional like me, I don’t play about what sits on my home bar setup. ☕️

Meet the Steel DUO PLUS PID, an espresso machine that gives me café quality without ever leaving the house.

What I love so far:
- It heats up in under a minute, so no more waiting around in a robe. By the time I weigh and grind my coffee, it’s ready to go.
- It’s volumetric, which sounds technical but really just means I tell it exactly how much espresso I want in my cup, and it does that every single time without me babysitting the shot. I set it once for the coffee I’m using and forget it. We love consistency on autopilot.
- The standby mode doesn’t kick in for TWO hours (and programmable to do less), which works extremely well for how my household drinks coffee throughout the day. By the time I come back for a second cup, the machine is still hot and ready—like Little Caesars. 😂

I’m still figuring out the steaming, but I’m only a couple days into tinkering in real time. But that’s the fun part, and I’m really looking forward to learning more about it with more use.

Espresso Parts is running a 15% promotion on Ascaso machines right now (link in bio). For everything else on their website, use code THECHOCOLATEBARISTA for 10% off. ✨

Tell me: what‘s one thing you’ve always wanted to understand about pulling espresso at home? Drop it below! 👇🏾

04/23/2026

At press time, I still haven’t gotten to those emails.

04/12/2026

Friday morning bar takeover of with and was the perfect way to kick off ! Thanks for capturing me in my happy place. ☕️

02/20/2026

January 12th was the ten year anniversary since I started The Chocolate Barista.

I didn’t make a bunch of noise about it—I have all year to celebrate—but I have reflected a ton about who I was back then, who I am now, and everything in between.

This platform expanded my world in ways I knew were possible, but I didn’t know how.

We, as a society, talk a lot about self-parenting. Many of us didn’t get that from the people who were supposed to do it when it mattered most.

For me, offline, The Chocolate Barista catalyzed that work. Actually, the need for me to self-parent was urgent, because being The Chocolate Barista cast a hot spotlight on everything I wasn’t prepared for ahead of time: the reality of living as a q***r Black woman in the real world.

I didn’t know it was happening back then, but now I can see—The Chocolate Barista is how I came of age; in all of its gore and glory, in my mid-twenties, publicly, and well-documented.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

💜

Address

631 9th Ave
San Diego, CA
92101

Website

http://www.thechocolatebarista.com/

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