Travel Muse Magazine

After working as a barista for a summer in Philadelphia, I’ve found myself increasingly selective about where I will spend $7 on a latte. Now that I’m living in Ann Arbor with an endless number of local cafes to choose from, I still find myself planted at the same one each weekend: Hyperion.

The Ann Arbor location on Liberty Street regularly satisfies my coffee cravings. Though students and professionals fill this coffeeshop on the weekdays as they attend to their work, Hyperion is a space of community and conversation. The “regulars” can be seen catching up at the counter, while long-time friends at the tables exchange laughter (and sometimes even tears).

You can find me at Hyperion most weekends, sitting on the living-room couch by the front window with a book in hand, or during the week, furiously chipping away at an essay. The window spot is perfect for people-watching on the street, but I love the counter; I’ll smell like Hyperion for the rest of the day if I sit in front of the espresso grinder, with the metal clanking of the machines fitting into the rhythm of the background music. The tables are a bit of a hot commodity on most days, but this leads to people sharing tables and conversations with people they don’t know. This is how I ended up in a three hour conversation about love, grief, and family with a random cafe-goer in May.

I’ve tried many of the specialty drinks here over the years. The “Cardi Boi” latte is a personal favorite, with a syrup composed of cardamom, cinnamon, and brown sugar. I’ve also indulged in several of their baked goods, including the bialy, rye tea cake, and pumpkin pie bar.

My go-to drink, though, has to be the miel latte. The honey-cinnamon duo in this drink tastes of comfort and warmth, without being overwhelmingly sweet. With a rich, dark espresso, made with the Titan blend on a La Marzocco machine, these miel lattes are consistently my favorite in Ann Arbor—and I’ve gotten my friends hooked too. Hyperion’s latte art is an added joy, often with layered, symmetrical hearts that I drink from bottom to top, not unlike the condensation hearts that a little girl finger-paints onto the window in the corner of my eye. 

Founders Eric Mullins, Dan Kubera, and Alex Merz created Hyperion Coffee Co. first as a retail and wholesale bean business in Ypsilanti, with the goal of producing ethically sourced coffee while maintaining personal relationships with farmers. It was only in 2015, after customers begged them to open a coffeeshop, that the Ypsi location was born, followed by the Ann Arbor location in 2021. 

Though many other coffeeshops in Ann Arbor brew Hyperion beans, no one does it like Hyperion. Everyone who knows me well, knows that they have a good chance of finding me at Hyperion on a free Saturday. As I look forward to moving to Boston when I graduate, I will definitely miss the comfort that this particular coffeeshop has provided me over the years. I am especially grateful for the 10% discount I got on my miel this time around, because I guess even the baristas know I spend too much of my money here.