Great Coffee, Off Flavor

In a long strip mall in Culver City, my friend found a cute coffee shop called IMC.  IMC stands for Island Monarch Coffee.  They have won several awards for their coffee including best in L.A. in 2015.  Using organic milk and half and half, shade grown beans, GMO free and fair trade organic coffee, seems to all be very important things to this company.  Read more about it by clicking the link below.
http://islandmonarchcoffee.com/
My friend and I ordered the house latte.  The current flavor for the house latte was honey.  Sounded interesting.  Our barista was chatty with no real urgency.  My friend and I talked about how if this was a Starbucks or Coffee Bean we would be really put off by this but since it was a real coffee shop feel, it felt right.  The art on the walls was cool.  I'm sure there is pictures on their Yelp page.  It isn't very big on the inside so we sat outside.
The creamy top to our lattes and the coffee was delicious.  The honey is poured into the bottom of the cup before the 4 shots of espresso is added so you don't get to the honey flavor until you hit the bottom.  The barista said 4 shots because the espresso isn't as strong as it is at chain places.  My friend hit the honey before me and his face lit up.  "Mmmm... Honey", he said.  When I hit the honey, it was a sweet awkward flavor that, even though I ordered a honey latte, I wasn't expecting that taste.  I was not a fan.  Perhaps if I'd stirred it and let the flavors melt together?  Even though that flavor didn't hit me right, the coffee itself was still outstanding.
I'd definitely go back there again.  They have a couple of cute chalkboard menus that listed some pretty good sounding food.  Ample parking with a Target in the same lot.  I just don't find myself in Culver City that often.