Growing up on an island north of Seattle, the smell of freshly roasted coffee would waft through Ally Lynch's backyard. About a mile from her house, tucked into the woods, sat a small roastery called Cafe in the Woods, and on quiet mornings its scent found its way to her yard before she ever connected it to anything. She just knew it smelled like something good. Now, whenever that same smell catches her somewhere else, in a new city, in a cafe she's never been to, she says it still feels like home.
Ally is the winner of our fall seasonal menu competition. Her drink, the Iced Maple Latte with Tahini Cold Foam, hits cafes on September 1st. She built it around maple first, then went looking for a second flavor. It had to feel new, but not risky. Tahini fit that description well. She'd been noticing it everywhere lately, tucked into pastry cases around the city, in a cookie here, a brownie there, an oat bar from the farmers market at Union Square. If tahini worked in a pastry, she figured, it could work in a coffee. She spent weeks testing it against maple in different forms before landing on the combination she wanted, a pinch of salt included, almost as an afterthought that turned out to be the thing that made it click.
She moved to New York three years ago from her hometown, first through an AmeriCorps placement. The first year nearly broke her. New York was loud in a way she wasn't used to, and she remembers feeling like she couldn't get her footing. She stayed anyway. She'd wanted to throw herself into city life, and she still believes everyone should have to live in New York for at least a year. It builds something in you, she says, that nowhere else can.
Coffee found her early and stuck around quietly. Back home, she worked at a cafe on and off for four years, and for most of that time she drank decaf, simply because she liked the taste more than the caffeine. These days she's on Joe's catering team, setting up and breaking down pop-ups across the city with a different crew every week. She calls it unpredictable, and means that as a compliment. Ask her about her coworkers and she doesn't hesitate: they're the coolest people she knows in the city, she says, every one of them doing their own thing and doing it well.
