Who says the Super Bowl has to be about pizza and wings? Celebrate your favorite team with roasts from the champion cities.

While game time is traditionally about chips, dip, hot wings, pizza, and beer, it wouldn’t be any fun for us coffee lovers if we didn’t find our own way to celebrate. For example, why not incorporate a local blend from one of the competing teams into your pre-game breakfast?

I thought I’d use today’s blog to look at two roasters from the champion cities themselves. Being a fairly new Pittsburgher, but a life-long Steelers fan, I’ll try my hardest not to be biased.

Everyone’s buzzing about Sunday in ‘Sixburgh’

We’re usually known for our giant Primanti Bros. sandwiches, but Pittsburgh shouldn’t be overlooked as a genuinely coffee-fueled city. The weather here is not unlike Seattle, the sun hiding behind the clouds all but 90 days a year. When it’s not raining and overcast here, it’s snowing and overcast. Except for in the summer, when it’s blisteringly humid…and overcast. So it’s no wonder that this hardworking town, and its academic background thanks to the brains over at Carnegie Mellon, turns to espresso landmarks like the Southside’s funky Beehive café to keep it going.

So if you’re a former Pittsburgher looking for a piece of home, or a local who wants to try something new, the folks at Pittsburgh Coffee Company are here to make your day. The local roaster mostly helps out with fundraising promotions, but online orders feature Pittsburgh-centric gifts that offer a little piece of home. The Pittsburgh Bridges package comes with four coffee mugs bearing the likeness of some of the city’s numerous bridges (we only fall second to Venice, Italy, for having the most of any city in the world) as well as a sampling of two of the company’s roasts.

The company’s signature Café Roast is described as reflecting the vibes of Pittsburgh’s diverse neighborhoods, “Assertive without being too aggressive, and always enjoyable.” As the late, great Steelers’ broadcaster Myron Cope would say, double oy!

Is winning in the Cards?

Phoenix, besides being a popular destination for transplanted Pennsylvanians seeking better weather and job prospects, always brings to mind stunning desert landscapes and images of sweltering days brought on by an ever-present sun. I don’t have much first-hand knowledge of the city (it was probably my fault for visiting in June, but I saw more of the inside of my friend’s car than any landmarks on my one-day visit), but I have friends who adore it so much they wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else.

Two guys who also love the city, the owners of Lost Dutchman Coffee Roasters in nearby Tempe, have taken inspiration from a local legend to name their variety of micro-roasted blends. The story goes that 40 miles or so east of Phoenix, there lies a gold mine hidden within the Superstition Mountains. A German immigrant named Jacob Waltz found the mine in the late 19th century, but it’s thought to have an Apache curse on it thanks to the mysterious death of another German immigrant who helped Waltz work the mine. Waltz took the mine’s secret location with him to the grave and attempts to find the Lost Dutchman Mine have met with foul play and sometimes death.

Mystery aside, the Lost Dutchman roasters offer single origin roasts from Sumatra and Brazil, espresso roasts, and blends like Mocca Java and medium roasts. Hopeful Cardinal fans might want to give their El Conquistador roast a try Sunday morning, but Steelers fans will be hoping that the company’s Superstition Sunrise will place a tradition of five previous wins on their side.

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