NoFi Slow Bar Brings a Deliberate Coffee Experience to San Antonio

A new coffee destination in San Antonio, Texas, is redefining the cafe experience with a focus on simplicity and presence. NoFi Slow Bar, located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, embraces a minimalist approach—no syrups, no sweeteners, no paper cups, and no Wi-Fi. Drinks are served exclusively in ceramic cups for in-house enjoyment, encouraging customers to slow down and fully appreciate their coffee.

“We wanted to push the envelope and present astounding coffees and teas in their most basic form,” said NoFi Slow Bar Co-Owner Hana Buck. “As we evolve, we are certainly interested in exploring craft coffee beverages, perhaps with unconventional brewing methods or additional ingredients, mixologist-style.”

Despite the lack of takeout options, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. “Folks have been graciously receptive to our policy and supportive of our vision for a slower-paced coffee experience,” Buck said. “No one has been so bold as to bring their own cup—yet. And if they so choose, that’s their prerogative.”

The 1,000-square-foot space is designed to foster relaxation, with earth tones, wood and stone surfaces, and warm lighting. Thoughtful details, such as a Tiffany stained glass lamp and a bonsai tree, contribute to the shop’s calming atmosphere. Guests can also enjoy music played from vinyl records through a vintage high-end sound system.

“NoFi was meant to be a place for intention and mindful presence,” Buck said. “It feels like the shop has always been there, sparking a pseudo-familiarity that makes you feel right at home. The black-and-white mosaic tile floor and dark, moody aesthetic make you feel like Ernest Hemingway, if he drank coffee instead of rum.”

Buck and her husband, Rolando Almaraz, also own Bright Coffee, a San Antonio multiroaster cafe that opened in 2022. While both shops highlight high-quality coffee and premium audio experiences, their aesthetics and approaches differ. Bright Coffee features a mid-century-modern design with mirrored walls and wooden floors, while NoFi’s ambiance is darker and cozier. Bright’s menu includes creative lattes with flavors like pistachio-cardamom, red bean, and sesame, whereas NoFi focuses on pure, unadulterated coffee.

“The design of NoFi and Bright are polar opposites, but they are definitely sister shops in some ways,” Buck said. “There is a feeling of coziness in both shops that is prioritized. We want customers to feel comfortable and settle in at both.”

Buck’s journey in specialty coffee began in 2013 with her first job at Starbucks. Over the years, she worked at various San Antonio specialty coffee shops, including Estate Coffee Co., where she refined her expertise.

At NoFi, she continues exploring the possibilities of coffee with a Slayer Espresso V3 machine, an Option O Lagom 01 single-dose grinder with Mizen 102-millimeter blind flat burrs, and a Ground Control Cyclops for larger batch brews. The slow bar also features a selection of Fellow kettles for coffee and Brewista kettles for tea.

Roasting takes place in a 400-square-foot space on-site, where NoFi partner David Falk oversees the process. The cafe primarily sources green coffee from Ally Coffee and Crop to Cup. While there are plans to transition both NoFi and Bright to exclusively house-roasted coffees, quality remains the top priority.

“The main priority is a tasty cup,” Buck said. “Outside of that, we want consistency and uniqueness. We want to share the spectrum of what coffee can be with our city. If we can roast a crisp, clear Panama Gesha or a Colombia co-ferment well, and our guests can have a wonderful experience, that’s a win for us.”

February 6, 2025

What makes coffee so special?

With each sip, coffee takes you on a journey through time and space, awakening your senses and invigorating your spirit. It's not just a beverage; it's a passport to different lands and traditions, a key to unlocking new perspectives and connections.

How can you embrace the coffee adventure?

Step out of your comfort zone and explore the diverse world of coffee. Try different brewing methods, sample beans from various regions, and immerse yourself in the rituals and stories that accompany each cup. Challenge your taste buds and expand your horizons with each new blend.

Why should you join the coffee revolution?

Coffee is more than just a drink; it's a lifestyle, a culture, a way of life. By embracing the coffee adventure, you open yourself up to a world of possibilities and experiences. You become part of a global community united by a love for the bold and the flavorful, the adventurous and the inspiring.

So, are you ready to embark on this coffee journey? Grab your mug, take a sip, and let the rich aroma of coffee transport you to new heights of taste and discovery. The world of coffee awaits, full of bold flavors and exciting experiences. Cheers to the coffee adventure!

The Aromatic Journey of Coffee: From Bean to Brew

The Brew Theory of Pour Over Coffee

Why is it so tricky to brew a great pour over coffee? After all, at its heart, making a pour over is a simple process—pouring hot water over ground coffee dissolves flavor and aromatic compounds in the beans. The challenge lies in dissolving only the right kinds of compounds in coffee—and in the right proportion. To make a perfect pour over coffee is to find a coffee’s “sweet spot,” a balance of the extraction percentage and strength level we consider most delicious.

Coffee Strength and Extraction

When it comes to understanding strength and extraction, we find it helpful to compare coffee to a spice cupboard. Much in the same way spices are stowed away in a cupboard, an array of delicious flavors—aka volatile and soluble compounds—are locked inside roasted coffee beans. To be exact, coffee contains on average 30 percent soluble compounds and 70 percent insoluble compounds. But like any cook’s cupboard, it also contains a handful of flavors we don’t want—or want only in limited quantities—particularly bitter compounds that impart flavors of ash, tobacco, or carbon. What’s so fun about making a pour over coffee is how much control it gives you in pulling out exactly the right flavors at exactly the right ratio. It’s the Michelin-starred chef of coffee brew methods.

Coffee Strength

The concentration or intensity of flavor in a cup is what we refer to as coffee strength. On the palate, a coffee’s strength registers on a spectrum between watery and dense. In scientific terms, it can be measured by the percentage of dissolved coffee to water, a measurement we call the total dissolved solubles, or TDS.

For example, a well-made espresso has a TDS of between 9 and 20 percent coffee to water. By comparison, the more mellow pour over coffee has a much lower TDS of between 1 and 2 percent coffee to 98 to 99 percent water.

Strength is largely influenced by the amount of coffee you brew. In barista terms, this is referred to as the brew ratio or coffee dose. In lay terms, the more coffee you brew, the stronger the cup. At Blue Bottle, to set accurate brew ratios, we use gram scales to measure both our coffee and our water.

And we set individual brew ratios for all our coffees: We prefer our blends slightly stronger, to stand up to milk, so we generally brew them at 30 grams coffee per 350 grams water. We prefer our single origins more nuanced and expressive, so we “turn down the volume” a bit and keep their brew ratio slightly lower, at 22 to 24 grams coffee per 350 grams water.

If this seems like a lot to remember, a good way to assess a coffee’s strength is to judge its body. That is, the weight and feel of the coffee on your tongue. Does the coffee feel light like skim milk or heavy like whipping cream?

Coffee Extraction

Picture a cup of tea: Steep it too little and it will taste like water. Steep it too much and you have tar. Coffee behaves much the same way. Extraction is a measure of the quality of the solubles in coffee, which emerge at different rates the longer you brew. Those rates are influenced by time, temperature, and ratio of ground coffee to water. An underextracted coffee tastes sour. An overextracted cup is overwhelmed with bitter, even burnt flavors.

Ground coffee contains at most about 30 percent soluble compounds; the remaining 70 percent are fiber and other compounds that water cannot penetrate. But if you dissolve all 30 percent, your cup will not taste good. In a properly extracted cup of coffee, only between 18 and 22 percent of the coffee’s solubles have dissolved.

In pour over coffee, extraction is shaped by pour rate and pour patterns. It’s also impacted by grind size. Grind your beans too fine and the water will pass too slowly through the coffee, extracting too many bitter compounds. Grind them too coarse and the water will rush past the best flavor compounds, leaving you with a coffee that tastes only sour, not sweet or radiant. Grind your beans just right, and the optimal flavor compounds will dissolve in the water, leaving the undesirable flavors behind.

If this all seems like a lot to remember, a good way to assess extraction is by the coffee’s finish. Once you’ve finished a cup of coffee, pay attention to whether or not you can still experience its flavors. We often describe finish in terms of duration, how long the taste lingers, and texture, the feel of it in your mouth. Is the finish fleeting or does it linger? Does it feel smooth or rough?

Finding a Pour Over Coffee’s Sweet Spot

The trick to any method of coffee brewing is to hit the sweet spot—to balance a coffee’s strength and extraction percentage to achieve one delicious cup.

Now that you have an understanding of brew theory and the concepts of strength and extraction, we recommend you practice making a pour over coffee, perhaps altering the coffee-to-water ratio to see how flavors can either become more distinct (with more more water) or more opaque and textured, as happens with the addition of more coffee grounds. Notice if you have a preferred strength. Do your preferences depend on the kind of coffee you’re making, whether a lighthearted single origin or a hefty blend?

Play with the extraction quality, too, by honing your pour over coffee skills, from dialing in the grind to pour technique. Somewhere in this quest you’ll start to notice that your coffee becomes more resonant, with every aspect of it coming into clearer focus. Like notes played on a tuned-up piano, individual flavors start to ring, until the entire coffee, from its mouthfeel to its finish, hums like a chord progression.