Drip Specialty Coffee (Drip Café Especial) started as merely a window for take-away only. Now, it’s a simple storefront on Calle Guadalajara in the leafy Roma Norte neighborhood, located next to a health-conscious restaurant and a tiny greenmarket.

You may be drawn in by its two cute wooden tables with benches out front, or intrigued by its darker interior with a black-and-white menu on the left wall. Whichever brings you in, you won’t be able to choose wrong from Drip’s offerings of lattes, cold brew, dirty chais and matcha.

A person pouring drip coffee in Mexico City. Brown bag of coffee beans set next to a flaky croissant on a white plate with two cups of black coffee A cup of drip coffee on a table in Mexico City.

Design of Drip Specialty Coffee

Drip’s minimalist design draws your attention to the things that stand out among the black, white and wood: their brown paper bag coffee for sale, the books that you can grab to read while you sit down with your drink and the tiny cacti that sit on the tables out front. You can sit upstairs in a quieter environment, or out on the street to have the perfect spot for people-watching out toward the intersection with Avenida Sonora.

A cafe in Mexico City serving drip coffee with a sign that reads "drip". The stairs in Mexico City are made of wood. A view of a table and chairs in a Mexican restaurant.

Coffee drinks and food at Drip

Santiago, one of the baristas, treated us to a pour-over coffee and then to two tiny cups of espresso that has its origins in Puebla. He showed us exactly where the espresso comes from, down to the name of the ‘productor,’ Amalia Garrido Perez. The beans were grown at 1600 meters and they came ‘lavado,’ or washed.

Two cups of Mexico City drip coffee on a wooden table. A person in Mexico City brewing Drip Coffee in a coffee maker.

If you’d like a milder drink, you can try the latte, flat white, cappuccino or mocha, and for those who like something strong to kick start their day, you can go for the cold brew, cold brew with leche, dirty chai or espresso.

A person in Mexico City pours drip coffee into a glass. A Mexico City coffee shop menu featuring drip coffee is displayed on a wall. Two cups of coffee on a wooden table in Mexico City.

For a snack or for breakfast, try the croissants or the cookies.

A tray of cookies and a money machine on a table in Mexico City. A plate of croissants paired with drip coffee on a wooden table in Mexico.

The Drip Story

Drip puts an emphasis on fair trade and on direct dealings with coffee producers in places like Puebla and Oaxaca. Created to have a positive impact on Mexico as well as the people it serves, Drip does just that with its mantra of, “Hacemos café; hacemos historias.” In English, it translates to, “We make coffee; we make stories.” You can find it written on the bags of coffee sold in the shop.

Two small white cups of black coffee, a croissant on a white plate and a brown paper bag of craft coffee in Mexico City Drip Cafe Coffee merchandise shelf at Drip coffee in Mexico City

The shop started as a ‘minicafeteria’ for take-away only, and was a neighborhood favorite. In 2017, the earthquake that shook Mexico City unfortunately damaged the original property. So, Drip moved to Sinaloa 199 (but really, the storefront is on Calle Guadalajara) and made friends and stories in this new neighborhood.

At Drip, you can not only buy coffee to take home, but you can also buy honey (by the jar!). By selling honey, they hope to promote cultural tourism by creating a sense of necessary consciousness of the process by which products make their way to our tables.

If you’re traveling through the rest of Mexico City, check out our other favorite cafes nearby.

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