Double Shot: Caffeine Withdrawal
Walkability/Accessibility[B+]: Caffeine Withdrawal is located in The Heist food truck cluster at Woodstock and 48th. From campus, you can take the 19 line straight up Woodstock. You can order inside, or at the street-facing window.
Pricing [B+]: A 12 oz latte is only $4, but a cortado is $4.50. This is the only place we’ve ever seen that charges more for a cortado than a latte, but both are under $5 so we can’t complain. The reason this isn’t an automatic “A” is that the specialties start at $6.25 for a 12 oz, and go as high as $7.50 for a 16 oz.
Coffee Quality (and option variety) [B]: This place has the most diverse list of syrup pairings we’ve seen. The brown sugar cinnamon oat latte is a favorite. It was light and mellow without being oversweet. They use Umbria coffee, the same as Canyon Cafe, but we think they make better use of it. The plain lavender latte, one of our standard evaluation drinks, was inoffensive but pretty light on the lavender. Their cortado was a strong contender, with a roasty up front flavor followed up by a more fruity finish.
Food Quality (and option variety) [N/A]: Caffeine Withdrawal doesn’t have any food, although there are plenty of great options in The Heist. Because these are separate businesses, we opted not to include them in this grading.
Atmosphere [N/A]: It’s hard to rate the place’s atmosphere, because the cafe itself doesn’t have any seating. The Heist around it is usually bustling, and provides an intriguing almost narrative setting with the decorations made out of real bank equipment. Some of the sliding safe deposit boxes have cute little scenes inside.
Alternative Drinks [B]: Their chai is Oregon Chai concentrate, the same as Canyon Cafe, but their preparation is notably better. They mix the concentrate with milk (not water) before steaming, and in the correct ratio. We were pleasantly surprised by how well it came out, since many places that use this concentrate don’t prepare it as well. (See our review of Heart Coffee from last year on the Quebsite.)