Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Today’s Toronto Star featured an article on the growth of Toronto area independent coffee shops (many of which call themselves “espresso bars”, per the article): TheStar.com - living - Toronto’s love affair with espresso bars heats up. Toronto now has a mixture of established independent espresso bars and a growing array of newer ones. (A [...]

Tags: barista_championships, canada_coffee, customer_service, espresso_drinks, Starbucks, superautomatic_espresso_machines, toronto, toronto_cafes, toronto_coffee, verismo

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Yesterday Scott Beale, of SF’s Laughing Squid fame, posted on his visit to The Elysian Room in Vancouver: Laughing Squid » The Elysian Room. I too hear they make a mighty fine espresso (boy, am I overdue for a Vancouver espresso trek). They not only have a Clover, but they’re also a dealer.

Tags: canada_coffee, clover_brewer, vancouver

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According to an article today published by the CBC News, more than one million pounds of coffee sold in Canada with “Fair Trade” labels last year were fakes: Fair trade supporters seek federal regulation. Lacking certification from the Canadian organization that independently audits and certifies Fair Trade goods, many of these certification labels on the [...]

Tags: canada_coffee, coffee_certifications, fair_trade

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Yesterday’s Toronto Star featured a few interviews on what it takes to make a great espresso — including the opinions of Stuart Ross, an award-winning barista and co-owner of Bulldog Coffee in Toronto, and Coulter Jones, the 2006 Canadian barista champion from Vancouver’s Caffe Artigiano.
However, only Mark Prince, of coffeegeek.com, was able to answer their [...]

Tags: barista_championships, caffe_artigiano, canada_coffee, coffeegeek, espresso_machines, home_espresso, quality_standards, toronto

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Knowing the difference between a good and bad espresso can be a curse to many a former barista. Or so says a former barista in today’s Georgia Straight, a popular Vancouver free weekly: Straight.com Vancouver | Best Eating | Locals have much to learn about espresso.
The author writes that, “The espresso, as it is pouring [...]

Tags: Barista, barista_championships, caffe_artigiano, canada_coffee, sending_back_espresso, vancouver_cafes, vancouver_coffee

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A guest column in yesterday’s Toronto Star concerned a European friend of the writer who feared travelling to North America for the dreadful coffee. She even packed her own espresso machine out of desperation: TheStar.com - A Eurocentric quest for espresso.
The writer was on a mission to convince her European friend that cosmopolitan Toronto had [...]

Tags: american_coffee, cafe_reviews, canada_coffee, paper_cups, quality_standards, Starbucks, toronto_cafes

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Today Waterloo, Canada’s The Record published a lengthy article on Phong Tran, an aspiring Canadian barista champ from Matter of Taste in Kitchener, ON: THERECORD.COM | INSIDER | ‘Barista’ rising to head of Canada’s coffee elite.
Eastern Canada just started their own regional barista championships last year, and there’s one going on right now in Toronto. [...]

Tags: barista_championships, canada_coffee

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Yesterday I came across a Toronto area blogger, StDan, who has picked up his own cause for finding some of the best espresso served in his fine city of Toronto: Espresso Hunt: Little Italy. Naturally, even at this early stage, he noted the following (familiar) problem: “most places put too much in it”.
Yes, the infamous [...]

Tags: canada_coffee, coffee_brewing, coffee_freshness, coffee_sizes, overextraction, quality_standards, toronto, toronto_cafes, toronto_coffee

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