Looks pretty good tabs. I dig those copper ones.
If coffee is not truely a passion, I suggest anyone reading skip the next bit otherwise I am going to seem like a total wanker.
This got me going on "Coffee in the USA" - a neverending source of amazement for me. Obviously, a lot of what I am about to say (pontificate) is pure opinion and personal taste. I'm really talking solely about shops which specialise in coffee too.
There is an amazing amount of effort expended (in the US) to get the perfect espresso. Dozens of websites extol the virtues of correct grind, tamping, water temperature etc. Even at Starbucks, the (heavily trained, if not well trained) staff can make a good espresso.
The coffee tastes awful though (personal taste). A lot of the blends and roasting favoured in the US is waaaaay off my preference. Lotsa overroasting IMO too. Pretty funny when the boss of Starbucks came down here a couple of years ago after opening Starbucks (burn those beans baby!) and said that our coffee culture was coming along well but that there were a lot of beans he would consider under-roasted...
I'm not the only one who thinks Starbucks os overroasted.
So espresso generally is well made (IMO), the coffee is suspect in flavour and... the milk (for milk based drinks) is TERRIBLE. Everywhere I have been and had coffee in the US (basically California and New York) has screwed up the milk. I actually wondered for a moment if your cows were the problem... but Starbucks here in NZ make coffee that tastes EXACTLY the same as the US. Every Starbucks is like an American Embassy
So, the point of this rant? I want to ask you guys a couple of questions. I'm taking the moral high ground 'cause I've been fortunate to also go to Italy and what they call a cappuccino (basically coffee with
lightly frothed, velvety textured milk - about 5oz in
total) is what good coffee tastes like here too.
The questions:
- how hot is milk usually in GOOD cafes in the US (I can only assume that despite trying very hard, I never found a good cafe)? Every coffee I've had their had burnt (boiled?) milk
- do you guys know what I mean by velvety foam (you couldn't take a heaped teaspoon of velvety foam)
- does anyone drink anything under 12oz drinks (which Italians would laugh their asses off at, but which we would call a latte here in NZ - our own crime against coffee)?
- why, oh why, drink a 20oz coffee milkshake?
FWIW, I searched around a little and I now know what I like exists in the US:
-
http://www.caffedarte.com/index.html
-
http://www.espressovivace.com/
in particular, on milk:
-
http://www.espressovivace.com/archives/9512scr.html
-
http://www.espressovivace.com/archives/9601scr.html
But could I ever find a decent coffee when I was there.... Noooooooooo! OK, not quite true - 1 very good, one ok, one bad coffee from Cafe Trieste, North Beach, SF (the fact that the coffee there made an impression, despite being worse than any coffee I've had in NZ in the past year, says something about my dedication to this topic
).
By the way, favourite quote from the articles I read:
Frank raises an issue that goes to the future of espresso drinks in this country: Will American consumers ever graduate from the oversized milk-based drinks popularized in Seattle to an appreciation for straight crema-laden espresso? Milletto is outspoken on the subject. "Americans think bigger is better," he says. "Many coffee bars are even getting rid of the eight-ounce cup. A single 12-ounce cappuccino is insane—an Italian cappuccino should be served in a four- to six-ounce cup. The recipe has been bastardized."
And, of course, this "big is better" mentality doesn't stop at the 12-ounce cup. Nearly all of the cafe owners interviewed for this article lament the fact that customer demand has forced them to add 20-ounce cups. Even Caffe D'arte, which is about as close to the Italian tradition as you can get in this country, has given in. ("We had to corner Mauro in a room," reports general manager Joe Mancuso.)