The aroma of freshly brewed coffee fills the air as you walk into Blue Bottle, one of Chestnut Hill’s newest cafes. Located at The Street, Blue Bottle Coffee offers a large assortment of unique coffee, beverages and bakery items.

The ambiance of the café was very calm and minimalist with a wood board menu and a modern white theme. The ordering process was incredibly straightforward and each employee was very helpful in recommending drinks to my family.

Since its opening, I’ve already been several times and have had the chance to try a couple of different menu items.

The simplest of these was the Iced Caffe Mocha ($5.50), which I ordered with whole milk. A mocha is a chocolate flavored variant of an ordinary latte and is a really great option for people who are not avid coffee drinkers or are just beginning to enjoy it. The chocolate flavor was certainly more prominent than the coffee taste, and personally, I wish there was a bit more of a coffee flavor. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the drink and would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for something that is less strong.

The other coffee drink I tried was the Iced Shakerato with oat milk ($6.50), which is a shaken drink that includes espresso, milk, vanilla and sugar. I thought that this had a really great balance of milk and coffee, and I could immediately tell that the coffee itself was very high quality. It did have a distinct creamy texture which did not bother me, but for my mom, who drinks black coffee quite often, she did not enjoy the creaminess.

One of the most intriguing items on their menu is called the Hōjicha latte ($5). One of the employees described it as having hints of coffee flavor and a matcha-like flavor despite having no caffeine. Hōjicha is a Japanese green tea, typically roasted in a porcelain pot over charcoal to give it a distinct flavor. I ordered it with whole milk and as a coffee lover and a matcha lover, this was easily my favorite drink. It was not very sweet but due to the way Hōjicha is roasted, it was not as bitter as matcha can be. My dad ordered it with oat milk and we were disappointed with how different it tasted. His drink had almost no taste of Hōjicha to it and really just tasted like plain oat milk.

The final thing I tried was the brownie ($3.85), which had to have been one of the best brownies I have ever tasted. It was rich and dense while still being soft and easy to bite into. It was not overly sweet and paired really well with the Hōjicha latte.

The cafe is similarly priced to Starbucks, and for two drinks it came out to about $12. Though this is certainly on the more expensive side, I really believe that it is worth the money purely based on the quality of each individual drink and the ease of the whole process.

Conveniently located, Blue Bottle is an easy, efficient, delicious and high quality spot for all things coffee and will indefinitely become a go-to café once seating opens.