NHmagazine:  Our Favorite cafes in NH – Great Photos!

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Coffee shops build communities with a warm welcome and a creative jolt. Here’s the “crema” the crop.

For winter in New Hampshire, nothing quite beats a cup of hot coffee. Nothing puts life back into frozen fingers like wrapping them around a steaming mug, and nothing gives the same kick to get us out the door when the weather outside is frightful. There’s snow to shovel, ski trails to run, work and play that needs doing. But first, have a cup of coffee.

A passable cup of joe isn’t too hard, but many of us still prefer a café to the old kitchen brewer. That’s because you get more than coffee at a café. They’re meeting places, social centers, cozy homes-away-from-home. They hold a community together and, like caffeine, energize and invigorate it. A café is to a town what coffee is for the body, making it cozy and getting it going, providing energy and warmth. Coffee helps us get through the cold, dark winter, but so do our friends, the usual table, a fresh-baked pastry and the hum of the town hub.

The best coffee places are local, but coffee itself is global — you can’t grow it in New Hampshire. So some cafés bring the best of coffee’s unifying power not just to the town they’re in, but also to the relationship between that town and the community that produces the coffee. Dark roast or light, milk and sugar or black, for here or to go, this is a drink that places us in the world, connects us not only to the barista and the other regulars but to growers a continent away.