49th Parallel Coffee has opened another new location, this time in North Vancouver by Lonsdale Quay. This location has 2,045 sqft of space filled with tables for studying and catching up with friends. Since it’s located in a heritage building, the interior decor pays homage to it. As you walk into the cafe, you’ll notice that there are repurposed elements to highlight that it used to be a hardware store in the early 1990s.
In honor of the new location, 49th parallel has launched a new North Shore Blend. This new blend is limited edition and is 100% Parainema variety produced by Juan Evangelista on his farm in Honduras and roasted in small batches at 49th Parallel’s roastery in Vancouver. You can expect bright red fruit acidity balanced by deep spices from this blend.
I haven’t tried their lattes before so I decided to grab one. The first thing I noticed was the gorgeous latte art and then the depth of flavour in their coffee! If you’re not a fan of stronger tasting coffee, I recommend adding sweetner but it was a joy to have on its own.
After ordering your coffee, you can easily grab Lucky’s Doughnuts from this location to pair with it. The doughnuts are made fresh in-house every morning and are absolutely delicious. For the launch of this location, a Mountain Highway doughnut was created. This doughnut is no laughing matter and features pastry made with the North Shore blend, chocolate ganache, topped with pecans and a chocolate dipped marshmallow to represent the local mountains.
Cherry Old Fashioned
I’m not a huge fan of cherry flavoured things because I don’t like artificial cherry flavouring. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was not the case here. The old fashioned doughnut was crispy on the outside and there was just enough cherry glaze for it to be a treat without being too sweet. It wouldn’t be an order I’d reach for first but I wouldn’t mind having it again.
Mountain Highway
This was easily one of my favourite doughnuts of the bunch. Despite the sweet looking exterior, this doughnut was not overly sweet. I loved how the coffee cream on the inside helped add bitterness to the sweet chocolate ganache that blanketed the doughnut. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I’d definitely order it again and the textural crunch of the nuts just made it all the more delicious.
French Cruller
A simple fresh cruller that tasted as though you were biting into a pastry dipped in honey. Sweet, simple, delicious.
Sprinkled
Sprinkled doughnuts always bring a smile to my face and this one did just that. The sprinkles added a pop of colour to the already delicious doughnut. What I noticed about the doughnuts here was that the dough was SO CHEWY! I loved how fluffy and chewy each yeast based doughnut was and it made me want another as soon as I was done.
Lemon Meringue Bismarck
This was a looker! The meringue on top was just lightly toasted and added creamy texture on top of the already velvety smooth lemon filling. I loved how the tartness of the lemon contrasted against the sweetness of the meringue. I’ve never been a fan of filled doughnuts because I find them to be too sweet, but I’ve been converted!
Carrot Cake Bismarck
Who says you can’t have carrot cake all year around? In all honesty, this was my attempt at getting a “healthier” looking doughnut but it was just as decadent as the others. Inside the fluffy carrot based dough you will find a generous helping of cream cheese filling. While it did get a little sweet towards the half way point, I wouldn’t mind having it again because it was just so delish!
I will definitely be back because there are so many more doughnuts to try and delicious coffee to go with it.