La Pâtisserie Viennoise, Diptyque, tasse à café

It may be Spring but hot chocolate/chocolat chaud ☕️ is always a good idea in Paris 

La Pâtisserie Viennoise is tucked away on a side street is easy to miss - 8 rue l'école de médecine 75006 Bus 86, 63 go right by it.

Paris Cafes

A Paris cafe story today just because

Aussie Bess dropped into a Paris cafe.

Have you seen these new cafe tables with adverts for Pepsi etc. Love em or hate em?

My kind of cafe table.

If it ain't broke, why change it?

Square cafe tables.

I love these tables...miam

I rarely sit down in a cafe unless I'm meeting someone.

I love to shoot a quiet moment at a cafe as I'm breezing by enroute to somewhere else.
I browse cafes rather than sit in them. Who has the time?

You know that your coffee will be much cheaper if you stand up at the bar or le zinc... You're paying rent when you sit down at a table don't forget. At least they don't charge you more when you sit by the window...

Yadda-yadda-yadda - a cafe is like an after hours party. Yackity-yack. Doesn't matter if a trillion people are passing by. No one is distracted from their intense conversations.

Oooops caught in the act.

Do you have a favorite cafe you hang out at for hours? BONNE JOURNEE!

Visiting Cafés Richard Factory

I've always loved the smell of coffee. When I lived on 13th street, my next door neighbor's morning coffee would waft through the wall and wake me up like the best alarm clock.

And I've always loved coffee ice cream, even if it keeps me up till 3AM. But last Paris trip I learned to love coffee every which way. I tasted this "flight" of different expressos.

When I visited the coffee factory outside Paris. I got to experience every step of the coffee roasting process. These resident antique coffee mills are just for show.

Talk about heady coffee aromas. There is nothing like marching through a coffee roasting factory for a wake-up call. Roasting transforms the green beans into a product that can be brewed and unlocks at least 700 aromatic elements.

A wide range of carefully selected beans are blended just like wine or chocolate.

Freshly roasted coffee is sent out every morning to Paris' cafes and restaurants in these sweet little trucks... guess who's wearing the white coat and hat reflected in the truck.

And lands on your Paris cafe table ready to wake you up! Just enhale...YUM!

 

Have you had coffee at Les Deux Magots, Angelina, Cafe de Flore, Bhudda Bar, La Tour d'Argent, Le Dome, La Coupole, Le Jules Verne Tour Eiffel? You've been drinking Cafés Richard coffee.

Cafes Richard

La Tasse Petale- Cafes Richard, original watercolor, 8 1/2" x 11"

Back to cups and the possible opening of Cafe Gillott. I was sent a set of new coffee and expresso cups by the American distributor. MERCI!

 

I'd seen pictures of the new La Tasse Petale cup and was a little hesitant.

My allegiances were to a cafe cup I met and painted in Provence.
OK I'm fickle...when I next met this cup at Le Luco Cafe, my heart went pitter, patter. A new love and so much fun to paint!

TA -DA! I introduce you to the brand NEW La Tasse Petale.
It's called "the petal cup" because the handle has been cleverly turned to the side, making it easier to hold and more ergonomic perhaps? Plus the interior is rounded so you can better taste the "fruits" of the coffee.
 

The creators of this new cup for Cafe Richard are SISMO Design Antoine Fenoglio and Frederic Lecourt specialize in taking quotidienne / everyday objects and giving them a new twist. They have a shop in the Marais and I can't wait to visit it!

SISMO Design, 5 bis rue St Paul, 75004 Paris, Métro: St Paul
 
My new cups came with loads of chocolate squares.
These are the expresso cups. Pretty adorable you'll agree.
David L. just went to the Università del Caffè, so you might like to get some pointers on making expresso yourself. And Greg has a ton of coffee info at his coffee ratings site. I'm studying all this too since I mostly drink hot chocolate...oops

Signs of Spring...

12°F (Feels like: 3°F)

Humph... and they said yesterday was the coldest day of the year. Gypsy Purple said...Wow, the daffodil sketches are lovely, the colours just warms you. It would be lovely to see more.

I went looking for signs of SPRING on Monday. I found this 50's tea cup at ABC Carpet, my favorite browsing store. I went back and bought it yesterday for still life usage and it is "Springy".

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a gift shop at Rockefeller Center. And of course their windows were full of "Springy" prints - even for the guys.

Look at these pressed glass chickens sitting in FISHS EDDY's window on 889 Broadway! Can you get more "Springy" than that?
Yes, Teuscher Chocolates at Rockefeller Center is definitely way more "Springy"!
Also at Rockefeller Center, a sign that Spring is not just around the corner😊

Not Macarons...

Last Sunday, Corey did a lovely post on her friend, Shelly and French blue café au lait bols. I was reminded of the bleu bowls I saw while window shopping on rue Notre-Dame Des Champs last May in the 6ème.By the way lèche-vitrine (licking windows) is how you say window shopping in French -- it feels more accurate somehow.Are windows just more delicious in France?

*Here's a travel tip. It takes a good week and a half to get your eyes above window level in Paris. Then you can start to see the amazing architecture. Don't even try before 1 1/2 weeks...useless in my opinion.

I don't even drink coffee but I've always loved these bleu café bols. There's something about them that says grandmother's kitchen, something homey and comfortable. Maybe I've seen too many old French movies.

OK...So one GREEN bowl snuck in here. But these window still lifes are just too beautiful. Does Cézanne or Chardin own this shop? I bought a red and white café au lait bowl in France way back, made by Genevieve Lethu. I filled it with peaches and thought I'd paint it for this post...but no go :( It seems the MACARONS are still flying around in my head. Or maybe if the bowl had been BLEU?