Trip Report: Coffee to the People
Posted by TheShot on 13 Mar 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Fair Trade, Local Brew, Roasting
Fair Trade, organic coffee drinkers unite!
This former Holey Bagel shop has earned an extremely loyal (dare I even suggest “partially blind”?) following in the central Haight district. On their front door, they boast themselves as the #1 coffee shop in San Francisco on the basis of their reviews on Yelp.com. So they must be fantastic, right?
Well, the Upper Haight has a number of weak coffee shops. And when you’re in the Haight, there’s a certain socio-political expectation the locals have of neighborhood businesses. And as for Yelp, you can read my lone Yelp review for how CoffeeRatings.com was, in part, motivated by my frustrations with review sites like Yelp.
Coffee to the People is a huge space, a little on the mandatory drab & dingy side, with tables covered in socially conscious stickers and artwork: they know how to play to their customers. There is also a reading library with couches and free WiFi. So of course, there are the usual Haightsters sleeping at tables.
They roast their own coffee beans in San Rafael — all Fair Trade and organic, of course, as many of their clientele seem to be single-issue coffee drinkers. (Despite Fair Trade certification’s many flaws, many customers here seem to bestow it with a monopoly on ethical behavior. Of course, finding Fair Trade and organic coffee in SF is about as difficult as finding a good burrito…but nevermind.)
Using a three-group La Marzocco Linea, they serve espresso with a medium brown crema of decent thickness. It has a mild flavor of cloves and cumin, but it’s not terribly distinct from quality drip coffee — for example, there’s no uniqueness to its flavor profile nor special notes like sweetness. Served in cups from Espresso Supply, Inc.
It’s a good cup of espresso, and the baristas aren’t half bad. But this café is currently ranked tied for 78th on CoffeeRatings.com, far from #1, with better competitors even in the neighborhood. For a lot of socially conscious locals, it’s apparently pretty easy to let your mind short-circuit your taste buds. What else explains phenomena such as TVP?
We’re in training…come back soon
All that talk about what phenomenal coffee I expected of Coffee to the People made me homesick for Café Organica, across the (Golden Gate Park) Panhandle. So after visiting this past Saturday, I headed over to Organica, wanting to congratulate owner, Eton Tsuno, on placing third in last weekend’s Western Regional Barista Competition — and wanting to check out his new Mirage.
I was thwarted again, as it was closed with signs saying “We are training hard for the U.S. Barista Competition — wish us luck!” Almost as strange was seeing CoffeeRatings.com posted in every window on print-outs of this month’s San Francisco magazine article.
4 Comments »
on 13 Mar 2006 at 10:43 pm -06:00T 1.TB said …
Sadly, it looks like Organica is moving to the Financial District… I’m going to be depressed for weeks– the other coffee in this neighborhood just sucks by comparison. I’ve been told that the NOPA location will just be a training site for the barristas that work at the downtown store.
on 14 Mar 2006 at 4:41 pm -06:00T 2.TB said …
I heard Organica is moving to the Fin. District. The NOPA location will only be for barrista training, very sadly
on 15 Mar 2006 at 1:42 pm -06:00T 3.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Café Organica on hiatus said …
[...] Thanks to tips from some locals and fellow readers, I’ve recently learned that Café Organica has closed down momentarily for renovations. So unlike my initial presumption that Café Organica closed down this past Saturday in order to train for the U.S. Barista Championships, apparently last Saturday was the beginning of a larger project. San Francisco espresso lovers will need to get their fix elsewhere — for at least a little while. [...]
on 13 Jun 2007 at 7:25 pm -05:00T 4.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Why a five-star restaurant serves one-star food, or: Why I don't Yelp said …
[...] writer opens with an anecdote about Yelp — a review site that, in my experience, has long epitomized these flaws (see my lone Yelp review). He stepped into a weekend breakfast café that thirty-eight Yelp [...]