Q & A with Ambrose and Guy Pasquini: L.A.’s Single Espresso Origin
Posted by TheShot on 09 Nov 2011 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Machine, Starbucks
Today’s L.A. Weekly featured an interesting bio-piece on father and son L.A. espresso pioneers, Ambrose and Guy Pasquini: Q & A with Ambrose and Guy Pasquini: L.A.’s Single Espresso Origin – Los Angeles Restaurants and Dining – Squid Ink. You might recognize the Pasquini name for some of their excellent home espresso machines. But the Pasquini family is credited with first introducing espresso to the L.A. area.
Some of the more interesting details from the piece:
- Their initial business was first frequented by espresso-starved Hungarians.
- In the early days, they even got some of their espresso from SF’s Caffé Trieste.
- From the beginning, only about 3% of their customers ordered espresso. The bulk was cappuccino and caffe latte.
- Starbucks coming on the scene helped popularize their business. Well, it was good for business, but “it wasn’t good for quality.”
And while the Pasquinis are rolling with the superautomatic and Nespresso machine punches, we were particularly intrigued by their reaction to La Marzocco. To quote:
La Marzocco did a wonderful job convincing people that only certain machines can make a good coffee. … They did a wonderful job convincing the [specialty] barista that that is the state of the art.
It’s a bit of a back-handed compliment — less to their equipment-building prowess, and more to La Marzocco’s marketing ability to build anxieties and insecurities within specialty baristas.
Which explains a little of the ambivalence we feel when we witness the likes of a Sightglass fawning over the latest coffee toy fads on the market. It’s one thing to be enamored with trendy equipment. But it’s another to rely on it as a cover up for a lack of sweat and hard-work that goes into optimizing with the equipment you’ve got.
1 Comment »
I think we all get a little giddy, at least to some extent, when it comes to new coffee toys – it’s only natural when you start immersing yourself in specialty coffee. But I couldn’t agree more that the exclusivity of ‘coffee toy’ marketing is pretty counter intuitive to the actual craft.
I’ll have to check out that Sightglass article so I know what you’re talking about with them – but I think I picked up the gist from the context.
“But it’s another to rely on it as a cover up for a lack of sweat and hard-work that goes into optimizing with the equipment you’ve got.” Pure truth here. It’s too bad, really, because I think a lot of people would actually get more enjoyment and a more vibrant coffee education if they went back to the basics – both with brew methods as well as roasting.
Sorry for the ridiculously long comment, this article just resonated with me a lot.