Moja Coffee a “Hidden Gem”

urlMoja Coffee was recently named a “hidden gem” by a customer who wrote up his experience on TripAdvisor. The contributor, who calls himself a “full-time foodie” on his profile, had some wonderful words to share:

“Most cities have hidden gems and Moja is certainly a North Shore gem. There aren’t many examples of businesses that pull it all together…. great concept, design, human capital and products. From the coffee, roasted only a few metres away to the syrups, plating, packaging, staff, decor, and Thomas Haas (another North Shore hidden gem) baked goods, Moja has it all. I get a sense the staff is proud of where they work and what they do….. a result that only comes from doing things very well.

Keep up the great work!”

Thank you for the review! This was our first review on TripAdvisor, adding to other review-sites such as Yelp, Urbanspoon and DineHere. We love hearing from our customers, so if you have something to say, we’d love to hear from you too!

Holiday Open House for 2012

Big news! The famous Moja Coffee Open House sale is Saturday December 22th 2012 this year. The big sale only happens twice a year and is a great time to stock up for the holidays. We’ve arranged the sale nice and close to Christmas so all those bags of coffee stay fresh as gifts under your tree!

  • $10/bag 400g coffee
  • Purchase any $20 dollar gift card, and we will add $5 bucks to the total
  • Cappuccinos are $2
  • Drip coffee is $1
  • Many prizes to be won!

Doors open at 7:30am sharp. To avoid line-ups at the bar, we will be opening the back of the shop for cash only sales of coffee beans. Head to the warehouse door on the North side of the building.

Happy holidays from everyone at Moja!

UPDATE: THANKS FOR COMING TO THE 2012 OPEN HOUSE!!

Life at the Moj’

So I guess I should post here on occassion.

I love the idea of having this blog, I just have to tear myself away from the cafe to post on it more often. Maybe it’s just that I psyche myself out, and figure nothing I publish online is worth reading, stuff like “Today I rocked out a cappuccino and it was killer” isn’t really the inspiring internet literature one desires to send forth into the world. But I’ve got a few things to say that I think are half-decently interesting, and I’ve made several coffees this morning and sitting down at the staff computer doesn’t seem all bad.

First of all, thank you to all the Moja crowd that came out and supported the last theatre show I performed in. As some of you may or may not know, when I’m not slinging lattes I’m pursuing a carreer in the performing arts in so many different disciplines I figure one of them’s got to work out. The last show ended on the 24th, was called ‘Forty-Deuce” and went really really well. I’ve got another show coming up in a few short week, I’ll make sure to post it here.

Tristan as a crackhead.

That’s me on the far right, there. A change from jeans, a bar towel and collared shirt, no? Fun fact: Those are my girlfriend’s pants.

But seriously: Working in a place that cares about its employees is an amazing thing. I get nothing but support from Doug and Andrew who will let me tear out of the cafe at a moments notice for auditions, classes, shows, you name it. It’s a stellar thing. The icing on the cake (the crema on the ‘spro?) is that the customers, some of whom I see 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, show up and support. To those of you who came out: Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It moves me to see a community like Moja support their own. I could be just a coffee maker to you all, but you chose to make it more than that. It moves me beyond words, and I am proud to come to work every day to simply make coffee and hang out with my friends, whether I’ve known you for years or you just walked through the door.

That being said I’m glad the show’s over because playing a crackhead every night and coming to work every morning was wearing me out.

In other news? Other sad news: The wonderful and incomparable Eva Simcikova is headed back to the Czech Republic early next month, and her last day in the cafe is… tomorrow. Out turnover is really low, and it’s always sad to see someone as passionate, uplifting and simply good at her job leave us, but homesickness and work permit expiration is somewhat understandable, and we all wish her the best.

In other, better news: We have a brand new hire! Shelby joined the team as of a few shifts ago, and is getting used tolife at the moj’. So be nice, she’s new. Or don’t, and tip big. I’m gonna leave that one open.

The best news of all? El Salvador has finally made it’s long awaited appearence on the Back Shelf. We ran it as an espresso, but it was so finicky and acidic that it made no sense. But in the French Press, this coffee sings: Beautiful spicy orange fragrance off the dry grounds, while in the cup the aroma leans towards the floral but not wihout depth. Caramels, a medium body, and a good (almost berry?) sweetness are supported by a firm orangey acidity. A complex coffee, but some of the coolest El Salvador I’ve tried this year. We’ve also still got some Tanzania AA as well, with all it’s blackberry-y goodness, sitting there. I think it’ peaking out pretty quick though… we pressed it today and got a lot of blackberry juice with a nice upfront acidity and a cocoa tail, but I can feel it fading away. Get while the getting’s good.

Moja Open House a Success

Last Saturday we held our Summer Open House, our chance to thank our loyal customers with some great deals. We put 1lb bags of coffee on for $10/lb and more than 500 bags walked out the door! We were busy from the moment we opened at 9am. We were pleased that lots of people purchased gift cards (they were $20 for $25 in value), and hope that many Dads received them on Father’s Day the next day!

Congratulations to the winners of all our gift baskets and stay tuned for our next sale – just in time for Christmas!

Welcome to Moja

To celebrate the launch of the new Moja website, we asked Tristan to give a little welcome to everyone on video. Sporting his playoff facial hair and with only 30 seconds to prep, he does a pretty good job introducing our little cafe and what makes us special:

Stay tuned for more videos from Moja! We plan to take you on many coffee adventures in the coming weeks!

Happy Holidays from Moja!

This Saturday we held our bi-annual Open House to celebrate the holidays. And what a turnout! Thanks to everyone who came!! We were surprised by a line up around the block before we even opened and our cafe had a zig-zagged line non-stop all day. We sold so much coffee in our 1lb bags – more than double or previous years’ totals for a single day – that we had to roast and bag coffee throughout the day. If you can believe it, more than 300lbs of coffee walked out the door in just 1.5 hours!

Our prize pack, filled with Thomaas Haas treats, coffee and tea, was a big hit – we had hundreds of entries before mid-day! Also a hit was our special Christmas Espresso, roasted just once a year in celebration of our open house… we were sold out by noon!!


It was fantastic to see so many new and old faces in the cafe and we hope you all have fantastic and safe holiday celebrations for the year. Just a reminder that the cafe will be closed from December 24 – January 3 so we too can celebrate with our families!