The warm, nutty aroma wafting down Orchard Street literally stopped me in my tracks. It was like standing downwind from a roasted peanut cart on a cool fall day. I drink so many varieties of bad coffee during the work week (charred Starbucks, bitter Flavia, watery deli) that I’d forgotten this is how fresh-brewed coffee is supposed to smell.

Inside, my inner nerd feels right at home. Roasting Plant is pleasingly sleek and techy, like the Apple store for coffee. Choose one of seven varieties of beans stored in upright cylanders, and an attendant punches your order onto a touchscreen. Instantly, a cup-sized portion of beans rattles upward along the ceiling through a pneumatic tube into the “javabot“–which roasts, grinds, and brews, spitting out a perfectly-portioned cup of coffee topped with a layer of mocha-colored foam ($2 small, $2.50 large). Then it’s off to the milk counter, where you can choose from four different varieties of sugar, stored in salad-dressing bottles that permit no danger of heaping too much into your drink.

The coffee–at least the Ethiopian Harrar and Yirgacheffe–is smooth and the perfect drinking temperature, but not the boldest, most badass blend I’ve had in town (think Joe the Art of Coffee, or Ninth Street Espresso). The attraction here is having my coffee made by a javabot, which runs the entire length of the store. If you like robots and free wi-fi you’ll probably dig this place; if you prefer having your coffee scooped by humans from a burlap bag on the floor, visit the hippies at Porto Rico (like the one who dissed me for accepting a “petroleum product”–i.e. plastic bag–for my half pound of coffee beans. Dude, my hands were full.)

Roasting Plant, 81 Orchard Street