There are good coffee smells and there are coffee smells that remind you of a dead animal....or worse. Unfortunately, the coffee brewed at Karma Coffee in Sudbury smells terrible.

It's that smell - which isn't always there, but which I've smelled enough to have associated with the place - which prevented me from trying out Karma Coffee before last weekend.

But Karma Coffee is tucked away behind the dance studio where my girls take lessons.

And, as I've told you, my new Saturday morning routine involves taking my daughter to her dance lessons at said studio.

So, based solely on proximity, all future Saturdays (and one past - I went there this past Saturday) will feature some kind of coffee from Karma Coffee.

It turns out the coffee may stink something awful - but it tastes something delicious.

The menu is relatively simple - there's coffee, cappuccino, espresso, iced beverages...for my debut I chose an iced mocha. (My only complaint - maybe I should have gone with something a little more caffeinated. I'm not sure the iced mocha cut it for my first coffee of the day - I had traces of a headache the rest of the day. But I think that's my fault much more than Karma Coffee's.)

I've had iced mochas at both Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks. This one was - by far - the best I've ever had.

That's a promising start for sure.

The space is interesting - there's a little seating area in the front, and there's a wide open space in the back, including the big coffee-making machine. (I think. I'm not sure exactly how that works.) It's a local coffee brewer - it's not a big corporation. I think that's part of what makes it so good.

There are roughly 30 more weeks of dance practices for my daughter...and visits to Karma Coffee for me.

The approaching autumn weather also means it's about time to switch back to hot coffees.

That gives me enough time to explore Karma's entire menu - first hot, then maybe cold.

It'll never smell like a pack of ground french vanilla from Dunkin' Donuts...but if everything else on the menu tastes like their iced mocha, I think I'll learn to live with that.