Trip Report: Contraband Coffee Bar
Posted by TheShot on 06 Jan 2011 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Local Brew, Machine, Roasting
This neighborhood coffee bar had been unusually hyped in the local presses, and on Facebook, for more than six months before it opened. This in a town where online foodie blogs make daily fodder of vacant, stripped-to-the-studs restaurant and café spaces with indefinite opening dates slated sometime before the next presidential administration.
We can attribute some of the hype to Contraband taking over the same spot as the former John Barleycorn bar, a local bar that developed a Nob Hill neighborhood love affair before closing in 2007. Contraband already had several 5-star Yelp reviews well before its opening on Christmas Eve 2010. (Underscoring one of the reasons why Yelp’s ratings are, well, stoopid.) But it’s hard to blame the locals when there aren’t a lot of great coffee bars nearby — even if co-owner Josh Magnani looks to Oakland for his coffee bar’s off-site roasting operations.
They have a couple of sidewalk tables in front. Inside there’s a short counter lining the front window for stool seating, two seats at the coffee serving bar, and a few inside chairs centered around a long, tall table with flowers growing out of its center. They offer 3-4 different coffees for Hario V60 pour-over (Ethiopia, Guatemala, etc.) plus two kinds of espresso from their two-group Synesso Hydra machine.
They have a Compak grinder for their regular espresso blend (rated in our linked review below), which uses a Costa Rican base among some 5-6 other varietals. It comes with a good thickness of heady medium brown crema and is served in a shotglass to show it off. It is lighter bodied for an espresso and has a molasses-like sweetness (very much in the North American style).
Their Organic Kintimani Bali ($3) is more of their single-origin espresso treat — and a favorite of Mr. Magnani. They grind it with a separate Versalab M3 grinder, with its alternating dosing hoppers, and pull shots with a ridiculously bountiful crema. The resulting cup is practically effervescent, like a prosecco, and its lightness and subtle brightness spins the dark, heavy-bodied stereotype of Indonesian coffees on its head. They have access to a few hundred pounds of the stuff, so it’s bound to be in supply for a while.
In all, Contraband is a great local coffee bar — even if it doesn’t quite rank among the city’s elite.
Read the review of Contraband Coffee Bar.
While you were staring at that Coava Kone in a box, you missed the Versalab M3
Contraband’s Versalab M3 is worth a passing mention. Much of the local press has zeroed in on Contraband’s use of a Coava Kone. Now we love what the Coava guys are doing. They may yet even displace the Hario V60 this year for all we know. Be we still don’t quite get the industry hype over the Kone.
Sure, it’s clever in that it sort of takes a Finite Element Analysis approach to emulating a paper filter out of stainless steel. But that makes it a second-rate imitation of a paper filter. In our experimentation, and we’re not alone, the Kone hasn’t improved the taste of Chemex-brewed coffee. In fact, the one of the better complements we’ve heard about it was, “It’s almost as good as with a paper filter.” Not that less waste doesn’t have its merits and virtues, but the Michelin guides don’t hand out extra rating stars if a restaurant uses a more water-efficient dishwashing machine.
Yet the local press fails to make any mention of the Versalab M3 here. At least we should expect articles with naïve headlines like, “The $1,700 grinder!” The M3 may not be the greatest grinder on the market — or just maybe it could be. You have to give it serious points for grind consistency. In any case, it is quite a novelty — made by a Florida-based geek who makes only speakers, turntables and coffee grinders. And it’s about time grinders got their due over espresso machines and the pour-over method du jour.
7 Comments »
If you could please tell Mr. Magnani, it’s “Kintamani”, not “Kintimani”.
The Versalab M3 for me looks unusual; two bean containers and one exit?
Why would the Versalab grinder be notable? It has a fairly unique burr configuration (with the old DRM conical-flat combo set) and it’s relatively rare, but it’s less expensive than the more common Mahlkonig or Ditting grinders and with some strange design quirks.
FYI, Trish and I just relocated to Redwood City. Hope to meet up for a chat some time!
@Enrico: You would know your Indonesians!
@Nick: It’s notable for the first two reasons. The part about it being $1,700 was a joke — like when media outlets went gaga over the Slayer’s $18k MSRP tag, not knowing that a typical loaded Marzocco costs even more.
Redwood City?! Welcome! Up for a chat anytime, Nick.
I personally would like to try the Kintamani as an espresso. I’ll go roaster-hunting then, hehehe…
BTW FYI, this afternoon (1700 hrs Indonesian local time/GMT+7), Indonesia’s SCAI will have a cupping event. I’ll try to give a (rudimentary) field report on this if you wanna.
I’m pretty sure that Four Barrel has been using their Versalab for well over a year at their Single Origin bar in the front.
Thanks for the heads-up, Thompson. Given our last visit was March 11, 2010, we have to chalk this up to, “Too many coffee bars, too little time.”
wy’s nick having a go at Versalab – wasn’t he offered a free one years ago?! This grinder has nearly everything on a geeks want list. Its unfortunate that its not more widely embraced.