People get fiercely loyal, and wax extremely eloquent about their passions for specific New Haven pizza places. Much less quietly, the city developed a coffee shop culture of similar intensity.

This is significant, since in many regions of the country the coffeehouse boom is long over. In New Haven, it sometimes seems like it’s still developing, in energetic spurts not unlike the properties of the beverage it espouses

New Haven is a city which didn’t have a Starbuck’s until the late ‘90s—years after other cities had been settled and conquered by that monolithic caffeinated corporation. Sure, there’d always been plenty of Dunkin’ Donuts—the wonderful breakfast nook Gag Jr., when it closed in the late ‘80s, gave way to a DD. But independence and distinction have always been valued in New Haven. But there was always a strong, full-bodied presence, a robust perk.

Willoughby’s Coffee, of course, is the stalwart. Its original Chapel Street outpost is long gone, but the Whitney one is a grand institution, and Yale has had its own Willoughby’s on York now for a few years. When the local chain was sold and lost its way, the founders actually regained control.

Then there’s the calm tones of Woodland (two locations), the intellectual camaraderie of Lulu’s, the Orange Street hustle-bustle of Bru Café (not to be confused with the Bru-with-an-umlaut microbrewery restaurant at BAR on Crown). There’s Koffee? on Audubon, beloved of parents waiting to pick their kids up from classes at Neighborhood Music School. There’s the brewing-liberal Blue State Coffee, which first established itself on the students-rushing –to-class thoroughfare of Wall Street and now runs a second concern on York St., where the longlived Koffee 2 once was.

All independent. All aware that a good coffee rush is in the details (multiple kinds of cream, wooden stirrers, etc.) , and the décor.