Pannikin Coffee, Tea & Spices in Downtown San Diego (Gaslamp Quarter - East Village Neighborhood)

I suppose many of us have heard of how some restaurants intentionally vent their kitchen aroma onto the street in order to lure hungry passerby's in. Well, I don't know if that's what the owners of Pannikin Coffee, Tea, & Spices in downtown San Diego have in mind, but their practice of roasting their coffee on this cute little red 1 pound roasting machine right out front on the sidewalk makes it quite hard to walk by this place without feeling the caffeine withdrawal when you attempt to not veer into their door.

This quirky little red-bricked shop at the corner of G Street and 7th Avenue (right where the Gaslamp Quarter merges into East Village neighborhood) is owned by a pair of twin sisters from the UK. Quite friendly and very knowledgeable about exotic tea.

Their shop is shock full of just about every varieties of tea and coffee beans imaginable.... along with really colorful merchandise from everywhere but Pluto. If you are a retro-gift collector, this Pannikin is the store you walk in and never want to walk back out. In fact, it really is more of a gift and bean shop than a coffee house, since there is hardly any sitting space left in between all the psychedelic merchandises. They have anything from proper (if adventurously colored) tea sets, ceramics, to cute dolls from exotic places like India or Kenya, straight from the 60's suitcases and jewelry, and even what look like woodoo art stuff from Latin America. All scattered around the shop so that you have better not come in a large group or you won't have any place to sit together.

Pannikin does sell coffee drinks and tea (there are some biscuits and odd candies but no fresh pastries). You go in and the counter is sort of hidden toward the back left of the store. They've got this huge menu with curiously named drinks you can choose from. The price is roughly the same as what you'd find at Starbuck's or at Seattle's Best Coffee or at It's A Grind nearby. Really, the stuff they have in common with the other coffee joints aren't remarkable, so you're better off ordering really wacky stuff from the other side of the world when you come here. The service isn't the fastest, but both sisters really know their tea and coffee beans, and are can get downright talkative if you ask about the right sort of leaves!

There are (too) many coffee shops in the Gaslamp Quarter area of Downtown San Diego, but none of the other places offers you the intimate and time-and-space-warping experience that Pannikin at the corner of G and 7th does. If you are a tea and/or coffee connoisseur instead of just a caffeine-addicted hack like me, this is THE ONLY stop for you in downtown area. And, if you ever get enough of breathing in the aroma of the roasted exotic bean from their sidewalk, you can always skip into the wine shop next door for a tasting session. Bacchus can use a really alert visitor once in a while!

Pannikin Coffee, Tea & Spices:675 G Street (at 7th Avenue), San Diego, CA 92101. Tel. (619) 239-7891.