Looking for a Proper Cup of Coffee? Check Your iPhone

​Blue Crow Media, aka Derek Lamberton, lives in London. When he worked for Current TV, he used to travel frequently to San Francisco. He spent so much time in both cities searching out new cafes and independent roasters that when he became unemployed, he decided to turn his info spreadsheets into a series of iPhone apps. Right before Christmas, Blue Crow Media launched "San Francisco's Best Coffee," a 99-cent app that provides a curated directory to small, independent coffee shops and local roasters.

Lamberton and a San Francisco associate have identified more than 50 cafes they think qualify for the app. "If they're serving independently roasted coffee and they use non-automatic machinery [to brew it]," he says, "that's the simple criteria. And then there's how much the baristas care about what they're doing." The two started by asking roasters like De La Paz, Four Barrel, and Barefoot which cafes they supplied, and then visited all of them to write up short descriptions, including the name of the coffee roaster that supplies them and the espresso machine they use.


He stresses, however, that the list of coffees the app profiles will remain curated. "When you open it up to user-submitted cafes" he says, "then you get chains and everyone's favorite place around the corner. It gets a little messy." By making quarterly trips to San Francisco, he hopes to keep the app up to date. And, just as soon as Lamberton finishes up a New York version, he wants to roll out Android versions of the three apps. And, in the meantime, look for a job.