Find the best local craft coffee shop from your smartphone

We can’t be the only people who make finding the best coffee one of our priorities when visiting a new city. Frankly, it’s become a bit of a mission.

You could do some research in advance, scour websites and recommendations, but there’s an easy way of finding the best location for a good coffee without requiring tedious pre-planning. We’ve collated three of the most popular apps for searching, locating and enjoying the best coffee in your new city.

First up is Beanhunter, which is a simple tool for searching for the nearest (but, sadly, not necessarily the best) local coffee shop. We were recently on a business trip in Dallas, Texas, and it displayed some potential coffee shops in the local vicinity. Ready to walk to the best recommendation, we realized the 'coffee shops' displayed aren’t necessarily a true coffee shop. For instance, top recommendations included Hard Rock Café and a local crepe shop. Hardly the place to pick up a decent flat white.

If you’re into something a little more exclusive, Cupper is another option. Although not available in every US city, it provided an opportunity to try decent coffee in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles. If you want to create the craft coffee experience at home, Cupper has launched Cupper Market, which means you can purchase freshly roasted coffee from a whole range of independent speciality coffee shops.

Cupper is almost the polar opposite of Bean Hunter, where availability is extremely limited, meaning it’s tough for us to recommend. Enter Best Coffee, produced by the guys over at Best Coffee Guide, and this app is definitely one of the most popular tools in this space. Location wise, it cannot beat Beanhunter for choice, but the quality of results are higher.

The filter option alone is a great feature -- prefer cold brew? Non-dairy? Or a cafe with outdoor seats? Best Coffee has you covered. There is also a premium version which enables you to explore coffee shops in other cities, create auto-updates of new coffee shops near you, save your favorites in a list or share with friends and colleagues.

Which coffee shop apps would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below.