Bean and Leaf cafe is a small cafe located on South Main Street in Rochester offers an assortment of coffees, teas and pastries, but is it worth spending time and money on?

    The Bean and Leaf cafe atmosphere is expected to be relaxed, and it lives up to its expectation strongly. Indie music plays softly around the room at the perfect volume for conversing and working. The cafe aroma smells pleasantly of coffee. There’s a fireplace and many sofas and stools to sit on and even board and card games in a basket for customers to use.

    The customer service at Bean and Leaf is nothing out of the ordinary. Workers sometimes greet customers and won’t ask more question than they need to. The customer service could be better, but what needs to be done is getting done. They could improve their service by going the extra mile with how they treat customers.

    The small caramel mocha coffee, which contains caramel and chocolate as a base, espresso and steamed milk with a whipped cream and chocolate caramel drizzle topping, seemed most intriguing out of all the coffees offered. The coffee was a bit disappointing because of the expectation that it would taste more caramel, but the flavor was overpowered by the espresso. The coffee was still very enjoyable and unique to this café and is worth purchasing.

Out of the selection of teas, the ginger jasmine tea, which contains honey, ginger, lemon and jasmine tea, seemed most appealing. The tea was smooth and subtle with a ginger flavor not as overpowering as expected, which was a fortunate surprise. The tea was exceptional but wasn’t different from something a customer could make at home. All in all, it wasn’t worth spending the time and money on.

    Choosing this classic treat from the variety of vegan pastries offered, the airy; light croissants were not disappointing to say the least. They were the perfect size. The pastry goes amazing with some coffee or tea and leaves oneself feeling satisfied.

    The bathroom, an awkward yet necessary part of this review, was quite uncomfortable. It’s made for the use of one person at a time and is so odd; it doesn’t feel like it was made to be inside of the cafe. Having one bathroom made for one person at a time is quite an inconvenience for a cafe that receives plenty of business. The bathroom was overall not pleasant to use.

    Overall Bean and Leaf earns ⅗ stars because the atmosphere, coffee and croissants were very pleasant and marvelous. The customer service, tea and bathrooms were not special nor enjoyable. Bean and Leaf is doing very well for a small corner cafe.