I Hate New York (coffee): Brew ha ha in city that falls short on espresso
Posted by TheShot on 11 Sep 2007 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee
Today’s The Sydney Morning Herald ponders how Australia’s Italian immigrants could bring a culture of appreciation for some of the best espresso in the world, and yet New York City — no stranger to Italian immigrants — is such a puzzling espresso wasteland: Brew ha ha in city that falls short on espresso - Opinion - smh.com.au. This is a different angle on a theme we’ve touched on before. (We have also touched on the rare exceptions in recent years.) The Herald even takes its inquiry to the heart of New York’s Little Italy and finds, “a cafe latte in Little Italy is a sad anaemic thing, devoid of flavour and aroma.”
The outsiders’ view of the scourge that is American coffee can sometimes be quite revealing. For example, the article raises the all-too-common occurrence of the great Italian restaurant meal finished by the pathetic Italian espresso. It cites a story where the espresso was sent back and replaced with something pretty decent. When asked why the restaurant didn’t do it right the first time, the barista replied with the exasperated, “They wouldn’t know the difference here.” Ouch. (This might also be the Theory of Consistently Bad Coffee in action.)
The critical subject of how America’s “bigger is better” culture ruins our espresso is also echoed in the article. But what mystery it fails to address is perhaps the greatest one of all about New York City: why is it that an international megacity, with a diverse and wealthy enough population to afford the best of everything in this world, cannot make espresso as good as you could find in, say, Kansas City?
UPDATE: Sept. 13, 2007
Just as New York City required imports from Seattle and other cultural “backwaters” to show the embarrassing local espresso scene how things should be done, London has faced the same problem: Kiwi cafes dominate London Time Out awards - Yahoo!Xtra News. Time Out magazine’s short list for the best cafés in the city apparently include a number of imports from New Zealand.
UPDATE: May 19, 2008
The Sydney Morning Herald published a follow-up to this article, identifying some of the better coffee spots in NYC: A good roasting - Food & Wine - Activities & Interests - Travel - smh.com.au.
3 Comments »
on 12 Sep 2007 at 2:56 am -05:00T 1.Tim Styles said …
While as a whole, NYC might be an ‘espresso wasteland’, there a nuggets of pure delight to be found in this city. I’ve travelled back there several times, both from Melbourne AU and London simply to taste and learn some of the things that NYC has to offer.
Ninth St Espresso would have to be one of the finest espresso experiences of my life, and never disappointed with it’s offerings. Gimme, Joe, and Grumpy all produce truly excellent drinks, also, and certainly leave a city like London a long, long way behind.
on 12 Sep 2007 at 6:47 am -05:00T 2.TheShot said …
Those three definitely belong to the few exceptions to which I was referring. And it’s true that Seattle, for example, profits from a stellar reputation for coffee — yet past a select handful of notable exceptions, the quality baseline in Seattle is generally rather poor.
But for a city the size, population (Italian immigrants included, vis- -vis Australia), and availability of high-end quality standards of New York, it is unquestionably a national laggard with regards to general coffee quality and the number of exceptional options in town (and we’re not even talking “per capita” either).
Not to mention that only a few years ago, NYC’s finest was cited as including the likes of Higher Grounds in the East Village, Cafe Edison, Espresso Madison, Via Quadronno, Tarallucci e Vino, Terramare Cafe, and even Burektorja Dukagjini in the Bronx. That was the best it ever got — and some of them are long gone.
on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:33 am -05:00T 3.Rowan Tuckfield said …
I came and fell in love with NYC only four years ago and, like so many, was at a loss to explain the general state of espresso here given the city’s long and rich Italian heritage, it’s truly multicultural nature, celebration of excellence and it’s proximity to the/some of the largest coffee harvests in the world.
My current hypothesis is based on a combination of timing and government policy…
The first major wave of Italian migration to New York was at the turn of the 19th century and, one might take the view that, the US government has historically encouraged assimilation as opposed to a more formal policy of multiculturalism seen in some other high migrant destination countries.
Now. Mr Gaggia didn’t invent espresso machine technology until 1946 (Him and others). The first wave of Italian migrants to New York didn’t have espresso technology culture to bring with them. Those who arrived in the post war wave of migrants from Europe were confronted with a pre-existing, instant coffee based, coffee culture. An American coffee culture to be embraced at the expense of the new espresso culture?
Post war Italian migrants landing in countries whose cultures were not as influential, hung onto, nourished and ultimately shared the new espresso technology/art with the locals, when they were ready for it.
It’s an hypothesis…