My friends thought it was odd when I told them the highlight of my vacation was a cappuccino I had in Scottsdale.  We visited in December and were staying nearby at the Westin Kierland and were just walking the mall. Stopped in for a coffee as it was pretty chilly that night.  The barista was super nice and eager to share his passion for coffee. We were interested in just picking up a half a pound of beans.  I wouldn't expect great help from such a small sale but he had several recommendations and had us smelling all sorts of roasts before we settled on the one we wanted.\n\nI ordered a cappuccino which was probably the best ever, and I'm a pretty avid coffee drinker and try to visit some well known coffee places when I travel. They showed us some of the tricks to doing latte art, which I've since been unable to duplicate on my home machine - we'll chalk it up to not enough frothing power, not operator error :).