Tunnel City returns to its roots with Uptown Tunnel at Williams Bookstore
A quieter take on the bustling Spring St. staple, Tunnel City Coffee’s ’Uptown Tunnel’ offers double doses of espresso and lattes in an intimate and near poetic space. The youngest of the Tunnel siblings, the ‘Uptown’ edition celebrates specialty coffee with pour over events, tastings and community education sessions covering topics like alternative brewing methods and coffee production.
“We’re going back to our roots with Uptown Tunnel,” says Tunnel City owner Paul Lovegreen. “At our new shop, you can get a beautiful tetsubin cast iron pot of tea brewed and brought to your table, or a mug of light roast coffee from a small farm in Thailand. Uptown Tunnel is a place for our customers to enjoy a personalized experience in an intimate space.”
For Tunnel City, providing specialty coffee in a small town is about sharing something with the people who make it home.
“We believe that it’s important to show that a small community like Williamstown can stack up to major cities in serving the highest quality coffee,” says Lovegreen. “You can get a bag of whole bean specialty coffee right outside your front door.”
Community to community
Uptown Tunnel will offer small batches of imported specialty coffee sourced from small communities in Mexico, Thailand and Costa Rica, to name a few. These varieties are available for whole bean purchase by the bag, as well as by the cup. “It’s exciting for us to offer specialty coffee produced by small farms,” says Lovegreen. “It connects our small community of Williamstown to a small community in say, Costa Rica or Sumatra. We want to grow these relationships between our growers and customers as much as possible.”
Drip coffee is now available as a pour-over, one of several brewing methods to be featured at the new shop. “We’ll demonstrate alternative brewing methods every week,” says Lovegreen. “We’ll feature the Kalita Wave for pour overs, then the Aeropress, Chemex. We’re experimenting with different ways of brewing our specialty coffee and sharing that knowledge with our community.” Customers can also enjoy a few non-dairy milks at Uptown Tunnel, including coconut and almond, and soon, hemp. The result is an expanded variety of textures, tastes and options for those seeking out more than soy.
For visitors at Tunnel’s main Spring St. shop, Uptown Tunnel is a quiet diversion from the quick cup of coffee. Uptown will soon host evenings featuring local artists, as well as its regular brewing and tasting events. “We look forward to bringing our creative community into the shop to showcase the personality of Williamstown.” says Lovegreen. “Our goal for Uptown Tunnel is to give people a space where they can get together with friends and stay for an hour or two and enjoy what Williamstown has to offer."
Tunnel City Coffee is a specialty coffee roasting company located in the northern Berkshires. Its flagship store on Spring Street in Williamstown features a full-service espresso bar, whole bean coffee, loose tea and pastry. Since its establishment in 1992, Tunnel City’s operations have grown to include a coffee bar on the Mass MoCA campus, an expanded coffee roasting facility in the Norad Mill of North Adams and Uptown Tunnel at Williams College. To purchase products or learn more, please visit TunnelCityCoffee.com or call 413. 458. 5010. Follow Tunnel City Coffee: facebook.com/TunnelCityCoffee, @tunnelcitycoffee on Instagram, @TunnelCity on Twitter
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