I was sipping a cortado at newly opened Dinosaur Coffee on Sunset a few days ago when I noticed something different in the popular drink served in a gibraltar glass.  It was slightly sweet.  Not as sweet as a drink from Starbucks — it was more like a sweet aftertaste.

At first, I thought they had sweetened the milk because the foam tasted sweet.  When I asked the woman behind the counter what was different, it turned out that the regular cortado at Dinosaur Coffee is more like cortadito.  They add a pinch of turbinado sugar to the ground espresso beans so that when they’re brewed, the coffee that’s extracted also has some of the sugar.

I was not expecting the sweetness, but it was a pleasant surprise. It’s also possible to get just a regular cortado without the sugar, as long as you remember to ask for it.

On the other side of the spectrum, Dinosaur also offers a bitter cortado, doctored up with their house-made coffee bitters.  The only difference from a regular (non-sweetened) cortado I could taste was the more fragrant aroma.

Dinosaur Coffee
4334 Sunset Boulevard,
Los Angeles, CA 90029