Tea time! /  by amy weiland

Hello hello!

As the winter temps settle in, we’ve been craving more and more tea. We invite you to revisit our tea menu, and explore what’s new.

Each of our botanical blends are designed to mimic a favorite style of caffeinated tea - for those craving a Green, we have Meadow, an earthy sweet combination of tarragon, lemongrass, and spearmint. The fresh, clean taste and aroma snaps you right back to the spring season!

If you’re hankering for a white tea, consider our Marshmallow blend. Bulgarian marshmallow root, German chamomile and domestic orange peel is smooth on the palate with a citrus finish.

For bolder flavors similar to a black or red tea, consider the Carrot blend. This one includes dried carrots and burdock, South African honeybush, Chinese ginger and Indonesian sweet cinnamon. Reminiscent of a masala chai, this one is great for an afternoon study session.

Our oolong selection is one of Pittsburgh’s finest - Ruby, a qing xin, or clear heart cultivar, has extremely high oxidation, almost more akin to a red or black tea. This tea is complex and rich, but also tropical, tangy and fun to drink! A great option for folks who enjoy the anaerobic coffee selections.

One of our most popular teas has been Buddha’s Hand. Named for the distinctively large leaves, which when fully unfurled are about the size of a hand, and also for it’s soft citrusy scent, similar to the Buddha’s Hand fruit. This tea is oxidized to about 60%, through cool temperature withering, allowing fruit and honey notes to shine. Song Tea then sends this maocha to a roaster for over a week of low convection roasting. This is where the magic of dark chocolate and sugar browning notes begin to appear.

Buddha’s Hand is the ideal tea for daily specialty coffee drinkers - not only is it sweet, complex and rich in texture, the large size of the leaves means many, many extractions are available for this tea. We’ve enjoyed up to ten steeps of this tea in a sitting - plenty to share with friends and enjoy the buzz!

We have a few canisters of this high-grade tea available in store, and we are currently running them on winter special. It is $60 for a can of this tea for home brewing and an origami ceramic mug to accompany. A great gift for yourself or the deserving tea lover in your life. We also always have this tea in store, so feel free to pop in and relax with a few steeps!

Enjoy the winter season, and we hope to see you soon!

Open for indoor enjoyment! /  by amy weiland

Hello hello! As much as we love watching the leaves turn, and are enjoying the last of the warm days in the garden, we are beginning to prepare for the winter season. We’ve been stocking up on retail beans and brewing equipment for home use. Check out our fresh selection of coffees and espressos - we are always happy to help you find the perfect brew buddy!

We have a variety of coffee making equipment, such as beehouse, v60, and chemex brewers and filters. We also have a fresh restock of Origami Japan Aroma mugs - these specially designed mugs are perfect for wafting fresh scents from your delicious beverage of choice.

Additionally, we are open for indoor seating again. As we are a small cafe with limited occupancy available, we ask all guests to be respectful of other patrons and manage their time spent at a table mindfully. We value creating an environment that is inclusive, social, and, as always, filled with tasty tea, coffee, and espresso. We thank you in advance for helping us further our mission as a place of community and conversation. The garden will be open as long as weather permits!

If you’re making a special trip in and are worried about catching a seat, we offer appointment times as well. We are doing our best to ensure the availability of the Constellation experience no matter where you’re flying in from.

Cheers to a wonderful and healthy fall season!

Re-introducing our Roaster Lineup /  by amy weiland

We are fortunate to be able to work with some of the best roasters in the game. At any given time, you’ll find beans from…

  • Little Waves - 2022 Micro-roaster of the Year

  • Mother Tongue - owned by 2019 US Tasting Champ, Jen Apodaca.

  • Maquina Coffee - 20 years of specialty coffee expertise, spanning sourcing, buying, training and roasting

  • Regalia - precision roasting and sourcing representing some of the newest frontiers of coffee,

  • Brandywine - custom screen printed bags containing intentionally sourced and extremely unique coffees.

We choose coffees to serve based on our current menu and seasonality, and work with all women and POC owned roasteries.

Each of the roasters we work with have been extensively vetted through brewing a variety of blend and single origin offerings. Not only does the coffee need to be delicious and perform well, it needs to be sourced well, with transparent information about it’s origin. Assurances that farmers are being treated fairly, and the coffees are grown with sustainable practices are also necessary requirements. We don’t sell anything we don’t believe in.

We want you to be happy with your purchase and will do our best to get your home brewing skills up to snuff - we even offer lessons on how to brew. Contact us for details if you’d like to book a session or need some help getting your brew bar set up. Whether you’re brewing Chemex, v60, moka pot, or even home espresso, we love to help you pick the perfect match for home brewing.

Have a great summer! /  by amy weiland

With Summer approaching, we have been so happy to see many of you out and about more frequently. Thank you, always, for your patronage, whether you’ve been a customer since we opened or more recently. We appreciate you! If you haven’t made time to take a break in the garden, allow me to remind you to stop and smell the roses (or peonies, or geraniums…!). Even when it’s very hot outside, we get a bit of breeze and some shade that make it a habitable spot most hours of the day.

Lately, we have been relaxing some of our policies around Covid-19. We can make drinks in ceramic cups for those of you who are lingering around the outdoor areas. Masking is now optional (but remains encouraged) for those of you popping in to make a quick order. We want to keep our community safe and thank you for respecting our approach.

In more delicious news, it’s iced tea season! We have a refresh to our tea lineup with new arrivals from Song Tea. With new oolongs sourced from Taiwan and organic blends of unique botanical components, we’re certain you’ll find something to enjoy.

We hope to see you soon, and have a safe and happy Summer season!

Sweata Weatha /  by amy weiland

The temperatures are starting to officially dip, and we’ve brought many of our less hardy plants indoors.
We wish we could provide a warm environment for you to enjoy your coffee, but with the pandemic continuing to rage on it seems most appropriate to continue in the same fashion that has been keeping our staff and customers safe since the beginning - we remain take out only, with masks required indoors, and with outdoor seating in the patio. Cheers to bundling up and making the most of the cold season!
For those in the holiday spirit, we’ve got tons of great options for your coffee loving friends and family. Brewing equipment, beans, new tee shirts and gift cards.
Wishes for a bright holiday season and peaceful end to the year from your pals at Constellation!

Batlle Selection /  by amy weiland

If you’ve been a fan of our pour over program, you may notice that we’ve been featuring some peculiar coffees. Many have been exquisite, rare, or hard-to-find, and none have been available for sale by the bag. What gives? We have been working with Scott Rao at Facsimile Coffee - a monthly subscription program designed to make folks better coffee tasters. This relationship has allowed us to get our mitts on beans a small shop like us wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

We are extremely honored to be able to serve a coffee from Finca Kilimanjaro, the farm in El Salvador run by Aida Batlle. The beans are composed of 70% Kenya mix - SL-28 & SL-34 - and 30% Bourbon. Aida Batlle had made waves in the coffee community by winning the Cup of Excellence competition back in 2003 - her first year producing coffee. She was also the first woman to win this award. The merits continued to pour in, as she was also the first person to win the El Salvador Cup of Excellence, and her coffees were continually selected by competition baristas.

Ms. Batlle’s relentless curiosity has led to developments across the industry. Thanks to her, coffee processors experiment with cherry selection as well as fermentation techniques to increase quality and flavor rather than just prepare beans for export.

The coffee we are serving has been processed four different ways, giving us four different options for brewing. The washed version is depulped, dry fermented for 18 hours, washed and dried for nine days on shaded beds. From the Facsimile website, the “Burundi-style” process “undergoes two 24-hour fermentation cycles--one dry, one wet--interrupted every 12 hours with a rinse of cold water. After washing, the coffee soaks for another 24 hours before drying for nine days on shaded beds.” The natural process includes soaking the fruit to remove any unripe fruit, then leaving the beans to dry on shaded beds for 10-11 days. The fourth process is called an “Iced Cascara Tea” process, where the hot cascara (which is made from spent coffee pulp/skin) is brewed, brought to room temperature, and then frozen into giant iced tea bricks. The coffee is depulped and the cascara ice cubes join the beans in the fermentation tank for an 18-hour soak. Unwashed, the coffee is happily put to bed for nine days.

As you have likely surmised, the different styles of process enhance different qualities inherent in the beans and fruit of the coffee. The washed process reveals classically dark chocolate, nutty, and stone fruit notes. The Burundi process encourages a more pronounced floral character, with a clean finish and amazing aroma. The natural process is incredibly fruity, showing off with notes of pineapple, banana and chocolate. The iced cascara is perhaps the most complex – with the processing becoming both colder and more wet, the floral, orange, blueberry and red apple notes are dynamically connected flavor experiences.

All four processes create standout coffees. We are selling these as a set – two pour-overs in about 6oz portions are available of the washed and Burundi style, as well as the natural and cascara style. They are available as online order only coffees on our website, www.constellationpickup.com.

These coffees will be brewed to order, so we thank you in advance for your patience and using our online ordering system.

Beans on Sale! /  by amy weiland

The Summer is winding down. We wanted to take the opportunity to offer a special - $5 off your retail bag purchase from August 22 through 29th. If you normally order online, use the code “TAKEFIVE” at checkout.

We’ve brought in a variety of roasters during the pandemic - this is a great time to find your new favorite offering. See you soon!

No gratuity necessary! /  by amy weiland

The past year has afforded us a lengthy look in the mirror. This reflective time has manifested in many decisions based on where we’ve come from and where we’d like to go. In alignment with our goals of being a world-class establishment for coffee quality while keeping our community in mind, we are happy to announce a no-tip policy at Constellation.

Tipping has always been an interesting part of the arrangement at a café. Coffee people have honed in a specific skill set that can take years to master, and even when we are tired, busy, or over-caffeinated, we are going to do our best to make your drink because we are proud of our craft.

Finances have been complicated for everyone over the past year. We would never want our customers to feel like they can’t come in and get a beverage or snack because money is too tight. Based on what we’ve heard and seen over the past year from many of you, safe trips out of the house have been a necessary diversion and anticipated delight.

We appreciate your business. Having people who understand our style and what we do is the most rewarding part of running a small operation such as ours. Seeing familiar faces and catching up daily then adding a gratuity feels, well, gratuitous. We hope for increased equity among all our service industry folks, and with that in mind, we’re doing what we can to get our establishment up to par with our ideals.

There are some of you who took to leaving large tips to help the business during the pandemic. If you love what we do (thank you!) and want to make a donation to support continued operations, there is a paypal link on the website, or, just visit us more often! Cheers!