Coffee Lover, you are not alone

April 28, 8:08 AMBerkeley Coffeeshop ExaminerMaddy Burke

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Cara, Sarah, and Sam were on a road trip. During the trip the trio found themselves wandering through rural West Virginia and, there, fortune smiled on them. Our intrepid travelers happened upon the most incredible local coffee shop. The little coffeehouse and the steaming mugs of good java made the friends realize that, in general, independent coffee shops remain completely unbeknownst to travelers. So far, a love for travel has necessitated sacrificing good coffee, except on the rarest occasions. That day, deep in the rolling blue mountains of West Virginia www.indiecoffeeshops.com was born. 
 
The website features a large map, powered by Google, indicating the locations of independent coffeehouses all over the United States. Visitors to the site use can add their favorite local shops to the map. The premise is simple but the collaboration among coffee lovers had (when this article was written) already indexed the addresses of 1813 indie coffee shops in 859 US cities.
 
Indiecoffeeshops provides the user the ability to write reviews about individual cafes but, because their goal is to promote these businesses, they encourage dissenters to find another forum for negative feedback. The site enables coffee enthusiasts to share information about local coffee treasures that might otherwise take months to discover otherwise and lends free advertising to an industry that struggles against well funded international chains.
 
Alexandria is woefully represented on the map, boasting only a few of our many excellent indie shops. At the risk of just jumping on the band wagon I have already began to add Alexandria coffeehouses to the map and I encourage you to do so too! This exciting resource is only even going to be as strong as the caffeine addicts who contribute to it and I, for one, am looking forward to using this site to take a chance on a local cafe the next time I head out of town.
 
In the comments below tell me about your favorite local coffee place.
 
While we are at it: Do you think that the Independent Coffee Shop is an endangered species?