55 in 55: Black coffee and blueberry scones on the road – Charleston Gazette-Mail

As she was getting ready to pour, the young barista with the pink hair and the nose ring looked over at me and asked, Room for cream?

Just the coffee, please, I told her. And let me get a scone.

Stone Tower Brew in Buckhannon didnt have a whole lot in the baked goods case. They had a couple of muffins and a peanut butter and banana scone. It was the very last one, so I took it.

I love a coffee shop. I love a good scone.

Coffee doesnt need much of an explanation, but a scone is a crumbly quickbread, similar to a biscuit.

I buy most of mine at Charleston Bread.

You can get a sweet or savory scone. Sweet scones are made with raisins, berries and/or nuts. Savory scones can be made with cheese, spinach and/or bacon.

Over the summer, I have been to a lot of coffee houses and eaten a fair number of scones.

Many times, Ive started my day in a coffee shop or else taken a break in the middle of the afternoon just to get off the road.

Occasionally, Ive stood outside coffee shop doors after dinner, wishing they were still open, that they could sell me one more cup of coffee and let me use the Wi-Fi to check my messages.

One of the marks of a nice place to live, maybe, is that it can support at least one independent coffee house the kind of place where the daily specials get written on a chalkboard. If the handwriting is good enough, they can almost sell you a white chocolate pumpkin spice latte offered in the dead of summer.

Coffee shops are creative and social hubs.

Whenever I go into a coffee house, I look around for that space by the door or next to the restroom thats dedicated to flyers for the Tuesday night poetry slam, the show with the angsty teen singer/songwriter doing his/her originals or the nude figure drawing class.

Bring $20 cash and your own materials. Tips welcome.

It might be something about a vegan potluck, a local meeting for atheists, wiccans, or an Ayn Rand book club.

These are always for people looking to find others, for people trying to make friends or to share.

That these messages hang on the walls or windows here send a message: Youre not weird. You just havent found your people yet.

To me, a good coffee shop isnt too sunny, but is well-lit enough to read a newspaper, a book, or the cracked screen of a laptop. Most of them have music playing somewhere in the background. That can be anything from jazz and indie bands to bluegrass or classic rock.

You seldom hear top 40 country in a coffee shop. Most of that stuff is already loaded with sugar and caffeine, anyway.

I always order a black coffee a dark or medium roast, no sugar. In a pinch, if they only do espresso drinks, Ill take an Americano with an extra shot.

Over the summer, Ive gone into over 20 different coffee houses, doughnut shops or bakeries that also sell coffee.

A general (and not particularly surprising) rule of thumb is that the coffee is better in the coffee house and the baked goods are better in the bakeries or the doughnut shops.

There are always exceptions.

So far, my favorite cup of coffee was at Queens Point Coffee in Keyser. They serve Black Dog Coffee, a roaster based in Jefferson County. I got a large cup of the dark roast, which was rich, flavorful, and made me feel like I could wrestle a Buick.

The morning I went to Queens Point Coffee, they didnt have scones, just cupcakes left over from a beer and cupcake pairing event from the night before, and oats.

After some deliberation, I had the oats, which were loaded with berries. It was probably the most sensible breakfast Ive eaten while traveling around West Virginia.

My favorite blueberry scone came from The River House in Capon Bridge in Hampshire County. I bought it after lunch, intending to have it for breakfast in the morning after I spent the night tent camping at Cacapon Resort State Park.

I wound up making it part of dinner when my dinner plans fell through.

Also, I used a paper cup from The River House to start my campfire. It worked like a charm and was sort of like recycling.

The best tasting blueberry scone came from Fairfax Coffee House in Berkeley Springs. It had just the right crumbly texture, an ample number of blueberries and wasnt overly sweet.

I got it just after it had come out of the oven.

Not every coffee house or bakery serves scones or they dont always have them for sale. Occasionally, Ive made do with something else.

In Bridgeport, at Almost Heaven Desserts, I bought a pistachio cannoli to take with me on the drive to Grafton. It didnt make it out of the parking lot.

For those of you who havent had one, a cannoli is an Italian pastry made with fried pastry dough thats shaped into a tube and usually filled with some kind of cream.

In Charleston, I usually get them at Sarahs Bakery on Bridge Road or at Rock City Cake Company on Capitol Street.

That pistachio cannoli was probably the best cannoli Id ever eaten and regret eating in the front seat of my car. It deserved to be eaten at a table on a plate.

Thats how much I loved that cannoli.

At Crossings Coffee Bar in Elkins, they had cookies and brownies, but no scones, so I wound up taking my coffee and going a few blocks over to Byrds House of Donuts.

They didnt have scones either, but they did have an amazing banana split donut, which was maybe the best filled donut Ive ever eaten.

I love walking into a new coffee house. I love taking the place in and seeing what the room is about.

Some coffee houses are all business. Tables and chairs are uniform. Everything is very shiny, with plenty of plug-ins for computers.

The Wi-Fi password gets changed every day.

These places remind me of Starbucks, which isnt a bad thing. Ive been to Starbucks more times than I can count, though not once since I started traveling throughout the state, even when I couldnt find any other coffee shop.

On my trips, Ive tried very hard to eat at small, locally owned places. So far, Ive done pretty well. The only chain restaurant Ive had anything from was at a Dairy Queen in Keyser, but circumstances demanded that I get an M&M blizzard for dinner.

My favorite coffee shops this summer have looked like something in between a yard sale and a wizards living room.

The tables maybe wobble precariously. The chairs dont all match and the baristas are all writers, students, musicians, and aspiring tattoo artists.

Theyre unfailingly friendly to groggy strangers who may not entirely know where they are or where theyre going. They dont seem to mind answering a few questions, though when I say, Whats the one place I shouldnt miss while Im in town, they always tell me the same thing.

Youre already here.

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55 in 55: Black coffee and blueberry scones on the road - Charleston Gazette-Mail