New App Coffee Shots Helps You Find Coffee Anywhere

In cities like New York and L.A., excellent coffee is rarely more than a few blocks away. But what if you're stuck on a highway or hiking across the country? Or on vacation in a tourist trap of a town in Europe? Enter the new app Coffee Shots.

Developed by a Dutch team, the free app helps devoted coffee drinkers find professional and novice baristas who are nearby and interested in serving a cup to a stranger. Users may find themselves at an office, store, bar or in someone's home—anything in the name of a good cup, right?

As cofounder Arnoud Aalbersberg explains to Sprudge (which calls it the "Tinder for coffee"), the app is inspired by a Netherland coffee tradition: "Thirty years ago it was very normal for your kitchen door to be unlocked, and your neighbor would walk around your house, open the door, say, 'Hello. Hey, let's have a coffee.'" Though there will be no unlocked doors here—users must request a visit and be approved by a host—the idea is to help revive and modernize that tradition. "To bring that back by facilitating the [ritual] in a modern way."

Part of that means payment is through the app and so is a reviewing process. And while the team suggests prices for different coffee drinks, costs are up to the hosts, with 10 percent going to a coffee farming project chosen by the organizers of the app.

The app's still fairly new, so the team of hosts is growing. Still, the idea of never having to settle for a highway rest stop coffee again sounds good to us.