Krisp Fresh Living

As long-time coffee, tea, and pastry fans, we’re always excited to check out different cafes in hopes of finding our next great morning or early afternoon destination. On rare occasion, we’ll fall in love, but most of the time, we’ll feel fine or pretty good; rarely, we’ll really dislike a place. Krisp Fresh Living – labeled Krisp Coffee & Juice Bar outside its Trade Food Hall-adjacent location – is part of the “fine” collection. Originally in Newport Beach before opening two cafes in Irvine, Krisp started life with a focus on acai bowls and juices, but now devotes most of its menu to coffees, teas, and brunch fare such as toast, sandwiches, burritos, and salads. A small collection of croissants and bagels are also in display in an enclosed case near the registers.

Rather than presenting its drinks as quaffable works of art, Krisp delivered the ones we ordered as fairly monotone cups with more interesting sleeves than contents. The pistachio rose latte ($7) was tan-toned and only discernible as having pistachio and rose flavors if we hunted for them – there was more evidence of pistachio syrup than promised pistachio paste. A light green blueberry matcha ($6.50) benefitted from a somewhat stronger-tasting blueberry syrup, but had little depth of tea flavor, overwhelmed by the milk.