Caffe In Coffee
In three OC cities, a Korean-styled coffee, tea, and pastry shop where execution exceeds its originality
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: A new Orange County cafe opens up with a cute, punny name and a mix of Asian-inspired drinks and pastries, largely focusing on trendy flavored coffees and matcha teas. Yes, you and we have experienced this concept many times around here – so many that we’ve lost count – but they’re not all memorably great; some aren’t even good. Thankfully, Caffe In Coffee is an exception to this rule, executing well enough on a combination of familiar Korean, Japanese, and other trendy recipes to stand out from the pack (and standing tall in cafe-packed Old Towne Orange even with distinctive neighbors such as Chaiwale & Co.).
Originally stylized as Caffe_In, and sometimes known as Caffe In Coffee Roasters, this small collection of cafes started with an Anaheim location in 2023 before expanding to Tustin (2024) and Orange (2026), the latter two seemingly now operated separately from the original. Their signature items – borrowed from Korea – are cream-topped coffee, matcha, and fruit/non-coffee milk drinks ($6.75 each), served alongside standard espresso-based drinks ($4 to $6.50), syrup-flavored lattes ($6 each), matcha lattes and tonics ($6.25 to $6.75), refreshers ($5 to $6), and cold brews ($6 to $6.75). A small display case holds beautiful-looking croissants ($5.25 to $5.95), pieces of banana bread ($4), buns ($5.50), and cookies ($5.50); no hot food items are available.
Quality is the reason we’ll unquestionably go back to Caffe In after our initial visit. Unlike many if not most of the cafes we’ve tried in Orange County, there were no misses and no notes across all of the items we sampled at the Orange location: their “signature” ube lava cream top with a shot of espresso ($0.75) was one of the most complex and beautiful takes on this drink we’ve yet had, balancing strong purple ube cream with thick white milk cream and rich espresso, winning us over in both sight and flavor. An earl grey matcha latte layered two separate teas together, each strong enough to be distinctive on its own when separate, then alternating on the tongue once mixed. Caffe In’s passion fruit ade refresher ($6) had actual passion fruit seeds and pulp inside, adding texture and intensity to the mix of juice and soda, while a jumbo matcha cookie with a marshmallow core was intense with green tea and white chocolate chips – fun for two of us to share.
Additional flavors such as maple, banana cream, rose matcha, and Korean Jeju green tangerine caught our attention on the menu – if we hadn’t had other plans for lunch, we would have considered ordering additional drinks just to sample them. We’ll be back to try more, and will update this article with additional impressions.
Stats
Price: $
Service: Counter
Open Since: 2023
Addresses
162 N. Glassell St. #A
Orange, CA 92866
2512 Walnut Ave. #3
Tustin, CA 92780
5642 E. La Palma Ave. #112
Anaheim, CA 92807
Instagram: @caffeincoffeeroasters