Common Cues for Recognizing Good and Bad Espresso
Posted by TheShot on 27 Jul 2009 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Barista, Beans, Café Society, CoffeeRatings.com, Quality Issues
For a few years now, we had an idea for a post that sat in our unpublished queue: how can you tell a good espresso shop from a bad one? (At least before sampling it.) Given the thousands of good, bad, and mediocre espresso shots we’ve reviewed over the years, we have definitely noticed some patterns worth sharing.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve recognized the value of shorthand rules. Back in the 1980s, I once (famously, in my circles) observed that the ghetto status of your neighborhood can be surmised by the fast food chicken chain nearby. (In short, Church’s Chicken = “wear Kevlar”.) Earlier this month, there were a couple of coffee-related posts from coffee professionals that inspired us to dust off this idea:
- Flavorwire » Blog Archive » The Kool-Aid’s in the Coffee: An Interview with David Latourell of Intelligentsia Coffee Roaster
- Detecting a Great Coffee Shop with the CoffeeMeister – Slashfood
But while coffee professionals know their establishments and their industry favorites best, few have subjected themselves to the horrors of many a bad espresso bar from a consumer perspective. Not that we at CoffeeRatings.com have a taste-bud death wish. But we’ve developed a sort of sixth sense about what to expect just by walking into a coffeehouse and having a look around. This post is an attempt to articulate both the positive and negative cues we get when entering a new establishment.
Some suggested rules are more obvious — like the wine enthusiast’s equivalent of “avoid wine that comes in a box.” Other rules are more subtle or outright unusual. For example, as a news story today had it, if the aroma from the coffee machine forces your plane to make an emergency landing, you might consider tea.
Encouraging signs of decent coffee ahead
In no particular order…
- They roast their own. Score extra points if they date-stamp their roasted beans for retail sale.
- They bother with latte art. Latte art is more gimmick than a sign of quality per se (sorry, Aussies). But it’s almost unheard of to find a place that bothers with latte art and yet makes a lousy cappuccino.
- A La Marzocco machine. Oh, sure, there are plenty of other great espresso machines out there. And there are places that can make great espresso from the most modest equipment choices. But shelling out the bucks for a La Marzocco is typically reserved for those who believe it will actually make a difference for them.
- They offer more than one kind of bean for espresso. This is a rare find. But when they do, they expect you to notice that the espresso there isn’t just some generic, nameless commodity shot out of a soda gun. Many other establishments think more like Homer Simpson’s tour of the Duff Beer factory, where a single spigot fills Duff, Duff Light, and Duff Dry.
- They serve a glass of water on the side. Despite the American obsession with the Big Gulp®, espresso should not quench your thirst. Better espresso can often be found at places that don’t expect it to.
- They take time to make it. You could have a really new, or really slow, barista. Or they could be a little bit of a perfectionist about what they’re doing. We never encourage our baristi to rush the job.
- Cleanliness is next to decent espresso. If the staff keeps their work areas clean, there are better chances that they clean their equipment of rancid coffee oil build-up — and that they keep their equipment properly tuned and maintained.
Signs of when to run — don’t walk — away
Now for the cues when you know things are about to get ugly. Call it coffee’s homage to Waiter Rant’s “Signs An Establishment Isn’t Going to Deliver the Service You Expect”.
- The roar and/or whine of poorly steamed milk. This is one of those cases where their handling of milk can translate to their handling of coffee. And milk that is steamed in the pitcher to the scalding sounds of a 747 takeoff or the squeal of a dentist’s drill is a major red flag.
- A superautomatic espresso machine. Superautomatic machines almost never produce an espresso better than “palatable”. Hello, Starbucks.
- The barista is wearing a company-issue hat or cap. One sure-fire way to non-verbally tell a customer, “How may I massacre your order?” is to require them to dress like fast food employees.
- They use a two-group La Spaziale 3000 espresso machine. Ouch. Do we really have that much against La Spaziale? They honestly make some good equipment, and a few cafés are quite capable with them. But in the Bay Area, the two-group La Spaziale 3000 is the machine of choice (namely: they’re inexpensive) among cafés looking to skimp and save a few bucks.
- America’s Best Coffee. Or Peerless coffee, should they admit it. The most common combination of the cheap-and-careless café is the two-group La Spaziale 3000 with America’s Best Coffee beans. A close second is Peerless coffee — which we’ve also found to be the coffee most likely for employees to say it’s Illy in an attempt to make up something that sounds better. Of course, almost as bad (it varies) is the café where the employees have no idea whose beans they serve. But the pattern here seems to be this: the more self-aggrandizing the coffee brand name, the worse the coffee.
- Portafilter handles are left cooling on the drip tray. This is often the kiss of death: a café that knows nothing about the importance of stable temperature control, and they could care less.
- Served with a lemon rind on the side. You’d be surprised how many restaurants still do this. Why? We don’t know, because it’s like a neon sign that says, “Prepare to spew.”
- Paper cups are the only option. There are times where even we want a coffee “to go”. But those conditions are so sub-par. For a café to serve their espresso only in paper cups, you may as well be greeted by a fiberglass clown head with a speakerphone in his throat at the drive-thru entrance. If someone’s idea of quality and class is the stemware at a four-year-old’s birthday party, we emphasize the “go” part of “to go”.
- Flavored coffees on the menu. Or the word “gourmet”. In some parts of the country, and rare corners of the Bay Area, the 1980s are still alive and well and some people are still selling chocolate macadamia nut flavored coffee. If a café sells coffee that sounds more like a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, you’d be better off looking for ice cream. Same goes if they use the word “gourmet” in their branding — a word that has since become affiliated only with the mass-produced packaged foods that line the aisles of Wal-Mart, marked for quick sale to their morbidly obese loyal customers.
We really need to stop here before we are overcome with snarkiness poisoning.
12 Comments »
on 28 Jul 2009 at 8:53 am +00:00T 1.matt said …
Thanks! I am in the process of beginning a business plan for my own coffeehouse 3-4 years down the road and have struggled articulating why latte art and stemware are so important (I am in the south, so both of those signs of quality are rare). This post really reinforces that I am on track and keeping with the vision of what a coffeehouse that takes their craft seriously should look like.
on 28 Jul 2009 at 10:45 am +00:00T 2.espressophile said …
I don’t know how reliable an indicator roasting their own really is. Think about places like Cappricco, Chocolate Fish, Bellano, Fraiche, Temple, Epicenter, none of which roast, but all of which produce stellar espresso from another top-quality roaster. Compare with places like Orchard Valley Coffee or Mission City Coffee Roasting, which produce very poor espresso.
on 28 Jul 2009 at 11:53 am +00:00T 3.TheShot said …
The absence of local roasting isn’t necessarily a sign of poorer quality. When Café Organica was around and earned our top rating for so long, they were importing roasts from all over the country.
But anyone who at least takes on the effort themselves is showing some baseline level of commitment to their coffee. Even if some local roasters are notably better than others.
on 28 Jul 2009 at 8:05 pm +00:00T 4.GaryH said …
Other bad signs. Sometimes a coffee house sells lots of trinkets like greeting cards, candles, to make money. Or they are mainly a sandwich or ice cream shop with espresso on the side. Or the roasted beans in the hopper look black. The vibe a barista gives out tells you if they care or know what they are doing.
on 29 Jul 2009 at 4:52 am +00:00T 5.Six ways you can avoid bad espresso | Espresso Machine News said …
[...] If you want to continue indulging your inner espresso geek, read the rest of the slightly snarky list here. [...]
on 29 Jul 2009 at 8:34 am +00:00T 6.Andy said …
Most cafes producing decent espresso literally hang a sign outside or inside to indicate to drivers or passers-by their product.
It is the SIGN of the Rosetta. If a cafe is aware of the rosetta, and so has signage, they are also aware of the “Encouraging signs” and implement many of them.
This is by far the simplest and most accurate method that I have found.
on 29 Jul 2009 at 9:31 am +00:00T 7.espressophile said …
One additional positive sign: they serve one size of cappuccino.
on 29 Jul 2009 at 9:59 am +00:00T 8.TheShot said …
…And preferably with a rational milk-to-espresso ratio that makes it something your sip, not something you nurse.
on 29 Jul 2009 at 2:51 pm +00:00T 9.Friction Jack said …
“Served with a lemon rind on the side: why?” Your instincts proved accurate. If you have a shot of espresso that makes you gag, throw a twist of lemon peel in it. Lemon and espresso taste great together, but there’s no point if your espresso is delicious to start with. Think of it as cream to coffee. It can be quite delicious, but in a completely different and incomparable category than black coffee.
on 03 Aug 2009 at 7:42 am +00:00T 10.Pressing Questions with Nick Cho | Coffee Hero said …
[...] that render that list irrelevant. This is the latest, and probably the best list I’ve seen: TheShot’s Common Cues for Recognizing Good and Bad Espresso, but same thing — I disagree with a bunch of them. Actually, come to think of it, maybe there [...]
on 04 Sep 2009 at 11:55 am +00:00T 11.cracklebox said …
I’ve been compiling a list in my mind as well so it’s nice to compare. I agree with espressophile about the sizes of their drinks or in general, the simplicity of the menu. I also look for signs of time saving and bulk preparation such as the grinder’s dosing chamber being filled with pre-ground coffee. I don’t know why they make the chambers big enough for this, it just encourages baristas to let the coffee stale. Extra-large milk frothing pitchers? Why, to steam a quart of milk in advance so you can let the milk sit and lose its foam? I’ve also seen pitchers of pre-made espresso. I feel pretty awful paying for a drink made with espresso and milk that have been sitting in a pitcher for the last few orders.
One thing I like (not a good or bad sign necessarily) is to have a view of the espresso machine. When my drink is being made with the machine’s back to me, I feel like the barista might be hiding something and in some cases they are. It’s nice to be able to watch the barista, and they should take some pride in their performance.
on 15 Dec 2009 at 2:25 pm +00:00T 12.Yerbouti Issasheikin said …
I think the bad list is more informative than the good. This is informed by my interest in epistemology: it is easier to know what doesn’t work than to know what does.
I also have to second my doubts about cafes that roast their own. It is not bad for an establishment to know their limits. As the Delphic Oracle used to say: Know thyself!
My big criteria is that the establishment displays what I would call love. If it is obviously just a business or if they are part of the latest coffee cult (there have been so many!), than consider yourself warned. But if they seem to have a sort of mother-child relationship to their product, then go for it! I do NOT count obsessive timers or measurements as signs of that relationship! Look for sensitivity, knowledge, attention, and if not outright smiles, at least serious contentment at their situation.