OAKLAND — A divine blend is brewing in East Oakland.
The aroma of gourmet coffee comes from an unlikely locale, near Havenscourt and Bancroft avenues. The newly opened coffee shop has all the usual java offerings plus a little more — piped-in gospel music and a shot of community self-help.
“Starbucks is not going to come to the ‘hood,” said the Rev. Kevin Barnes, pastor at West Oakland’s Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church. “People want this type of coffee around here and they are not going to get it on the way to work at a gas station or a fast food place.”
The combination of espresso and religion can be found at Heavenly Grounds, which opened this week in a storefront formerly occupied by a barbershop.
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What would be cool would be a Catholic Coffee house where you could sit down and have a nice cup a Joseph. After all cappuccino was named after the Capuchin Franciscans. What could be better than confession and cappuccino. In confession our dark black sins get turned white as snow. In cappuccino a dark black coffee gets turned white as snow. Even more appropriate the average Catholic doesn’t know beans about the faith so we could start Coffee Cathechetics modeled after the program “theology on tap.”
And of course the sign on the wall would say “Brew unto others as you would want others to brew unto you.”
