{shortcode-fb128839e9162f865640f235af37507b67f9ef8e} Last semester, following rumors of a new coffee shop under the Anthropologie, I forced four of my closest friends to come with me to try it out. After walking for about 10 minutes in the cold, excitedly talking about what we would order and mildly questioning why we couldn’t find any information about it online, we arrived at the shop!

The shop was a construction site.

This semester, believing that I had lived down that debacle, I retried my luck (with a different group of friends) and was rewarded with a fully finished bookstore/coffee shop/wine bar called Lovestruck Books. Exploring the store revealed that the right half was a fully furnished bookstore (containing more than just romance books!), and the left half was a coffee bar area that doubled as a wine bar at night. While the space itself is listed as Lovestruck Books, the coffee bar is separately run as a George Howell Coffee cafe.

If you’re me, you instantly wonder who exactly G.H. is. A quick glance at Wikipedia told me that 1. He studied at Yale (BOOO!), 2. He was a pioneer of something called third-wave coffee (when did the first wave happen?) and 3. He INVENTED the FRAPPUCCINO. This instantly gave him the greatest amount of coffee credibility possible, and I was extremely excited to try the menu.

On first perusal, I was immediately impressed by the range of syrups provided. There was a La Minta, Costa Rica flavor, a Las Palomas, Guatemala flavor, and even a Kenya flavor!

Wait… just kidding, those are the coffee origins!

But don’t worry, the initial confusion subsides and you learn that you can get Costa Rica-sourced coffee and flavor it with your choice of orange, maple, or milk chocolate syrup.

Wait… just kidding again, those are the coffee notes!

Yes, my friends laughed at me.

But, after eventually figuring out the menu, I was rewarded with the most delightful iced caramel latte I have ever tried. I would describe it as having the creaminess of a Faro latte and the flavor depth of a Pavement coffee on a good day (plus no sourness!).

Therefore, I can definitively say that George Howell’s coffee will be worth any amount of embarrassment you might go through to get to it. It has the capacity to be the highlight of any bad day, especially when paired with a good book and a cute, comfy setup.