What Your Favorite Coffee Shop Says About Your Personal Style

Java. Joe. Coffee. It's the black liquid so many of us consume each and every morning and depend on to get us through the day. Thanks to the rise of the coffee connoisseurs in the '90s, we now have endless variations on where to pick up your favorite brew.

Like the other choices in life, where you decide to spend your time and money rubs off on the other aspects of who you are—personal style included. The place where you get your caffeine fix may say more about your style habits and choices than you realize. Whether you pick up your daily cup at the big name chains or at a coffee shop that resemble a science lab, this is What Your Favorite Coffee Shop Says About Your Personal Style.

Preferred Brands: L.L. Bean, Gap, Brooks Brothers

Coffee is the first thing you pick up on your way to the 9 to 5. Blue collar, white collar, you don't need anything impressive, you just need a cup o' joe and to check into the office on time before middle management gets on your ass. Like your coffee choice, your style is just as straight-forward. Classic American, no frills brands are the labels that you're looking at, but you're not trying to drop half a paycheck on your outfit—after all, it has to work just as hard as you. You're probably picking up gear at L.L. Bean, Gap, and (when the price is right) Brooks Brothers, and you're happy that it's as day-to-day as your schedule. It's cheap, it gets the job done, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Preferred Brands: visvim, AXS Folk Technology, Birkenstocks

Your heady lifestyle incense is probably as fragrant as the imported herbal tea that you consume with a flax seed-heavy breakfast. Your fashion sense needs to be as natural as you are, so whether you're rocking Huf weed socks because…they have plants on them, or you're chilling in your drapey tunic tops from AXS Folk Technology and indigo jawns from visvim, everything you own is your way of letting good chakras flow. If you can rock it in the teepee while waving some nag champa, then you're on board.

Preferred Brands: J.Crew, Club Monaco, Banana Republic

While not as luxurious as it wants you to believe, no one can deny that Starbucks made the average American a coffee fan and provided daily options other than the reheated sludge at the local diner. At one point, Starbucks cups were a sign that you cared a little bit about your coffee choices, and were willing to spend a little more for a little extra. If Starbucks is the gateway coffee, then J.Crew and Club Monaco are the gateway brands into dope men's style. Affordable, yes, and these brands do introduce the standard shopper to the world of men's style and other big things. This coffee and clothing are things that go beyond just getting the job done, and show that you actually care about your appearance and coffee habits, as well as the accessibility and immediacy of both caffeine and clothing.

Preferred Brands: Champion, New Balance, The Mountain

Kitties. It's that simple. The cafe that doubles as a cat playground is where you're spotted any time you have a couple hours to kill and just need something to cuddle and give you the love this cruel world never will. You're a normal guy just trying to make it through life one day at a time, and your clothes are truly no frills—besides, you don't want spend a ton of money on clothes that are going to be covered in cat hair. You are probably rocking some comfy Champion sweats you copped at Modell's, your go-to New Balances and a T-shirt covered with your favorite thing ever (kitties, duh) from The Mountain.

Preferred Brands: Nom de Guerre, Julius_7, The Soloist

You pride yourself on knowing about brands before anyone else, and it's your mantra every time you get into a discussion about—well, anything. Gregory's Coffee is local NYC, with a few locations scattered around the city, but every city has a shop that only dudes who are super-serious about excellent coffee and early co-signs frequent. If this describes your local java haunt, then you probably wore FBTs well before Kanye started rocking them daily. In the same way that you study up on different farms to differentiate various terroirs, you're also up late souring obscure forums to learn about incredibly niche Russian brands that no one else is fucking with...yet. As the great Ricky Bobby once said, “If you ain't first, you're last.”

Preferred Brands: BAPE, then RRL, then En Noir

Haven't you seen what everyone else is doing? Organic, free-trade coffee is in bruh, and you now know that better than anyone. You hit the newest coffee shop on the block the moment it turned up in the neighborhood, and started touting the techniques that the barista told you are that new new.

Your fashion choices follow the same route: As soon as your Tumblr dashboard reflects some new trend, you're already subscribing to it. You were rocking nothing but BAPE in 2005, looked like an urban lumberjack in 2010, then switched over to street goth movement a little over a year later. If your style is anything like this, then it's not surprising that you're jumping from Chemex brews to the next coffee trend every few months.

Preferred Brands: 3Sixteen, Engineered Garments, Yuketen

Like any craftsman that takes pride in their work, those who devote their lives to perfecting the simple cup of coffee produce a product that is simply superior in every way. Places like WTF Coffee Lab are literally breaking coffee down to a science. At incredibly devoted coffee meccas, the product smells better, it tastes better, and it's likely that the caffeine craftsmen at these places caree enough to tell you about why his work is better—all without the air of pretentiousness. If you've ever walked into a place like Nepenthes or Gentry, you'll know that once you go in, the people there are totally down to discuss the finer points of the clothes they're stocking out of a genuine love of the craft. If you justify spending $4 to $6 on a cup of coffee, then you're also striding down the street in clothes that are high-quality enough to become family heirlooms.

Preferred Brands: Isaïa, Berluti, Brunello Cucinelli

Sprezzatura is the first thing on your mind when you wake up and it's the last thing you think about before bed. You own a La Marzocco GS/3 espresso machine with wood paneling to match the color of your tobacco-brown double monks. You're never considering a jacket unless it's double breasted, and FOH if it's not complete with the crispiest peak lapels. You believe the Italians perfected the art of coffee making, and your yearly excursions to Pitti Uomo have you convinced they've perfected the art of tailoring as well. If your friends can't understand your commitment to the art of “studied carelessness,” then they don't understand what it's like to be shot by Tommy Ton at Pitti Uomo's “wall.”

Preferred Brands: Reigning Champ, Herschel Supply Co., wings + horns

You know better than anyone that Canada is on the come up. No longer known as the neighbor living above a really great party, the former punch line is now a hotbed for creatives—and their national coffee chain isn't half bad either. While Tim Horton's is nothing to get too excited about, the Canadians' easy-going nature applies not only to their national coffee chain, but also to their clothing. While Canada gets a bad rap as “America lite,” on the low, they're doing it better in some aspects than we are down here. Labels like Reigning Champ, Herschel Supply Co., and wings + horns are all a part of your rotation, and while some are more expensive than others, all of the labels are unpretentious—just like our lovely neighbors to the north and their beloved coffee chain.

Preferred Brands: Valentino, Saint Laurent

If you're one who regularly patrons the private showrooms Fifth Avenue flagships, you're probably familiar with super luxe treatment. Walking into those shops, if you're about to flex, and we mean really flex in that luxury boutique, the store's associates will happily ply your caffeine needs so you can stay energized (and hopefully spend more scratch in store). You're handed a custom demitasse of espresso while sitting on a velvet loveseat in the showroom, and the latest runway collection is shown to you personally, piece by piece. You're far from picking up your morning coffee with the plebes; you'll get your coffee at the boutique, along with your favorite designer's entire ready-to-wear season.

Preferred Brands: Starter, Oak, Vintage

This is the spot that people think of when they hear the phrase “coffee shop in Brooklyn.” The baristas roll their eyes when you can't figure out if you want your coffee via drip or press, and they're certainly not going to help you figure out what either of those things actually are. They seem in the know, but are really more assholes than anything else. Still though, their sense of superiority extends over to their personal style, and it's tough to admit that sometimes they're semi-stunting on you with gear they bought with their parents' money. Either that, or they're fully kitted out in vintage gear that plays on nostalgia and brings them back to their responsible-free days, like cildhood...and last week.