Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Ever eat a hamburger at a 1950s-themed American diner? In Hong Kong? Maybe their waffles didn’t taste like fish sauce, but it’s not uncommon to discover something lost in translation. (E.g., “Why does my hamburger bun taste like rice vinegar?”) On the spectrum of authenticity, this is the culinary equivalent to finding luxury handbags in [...]

Tags: acf_cups, coffee_chains, espresso_review, french_coffee, hario_v60_dripper, la_marzocco, ritual_roasters, Starbucks

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Yesterday’s New York Times published an article on the accelerating demise of the neighborhood French café: Across France, Cafe Owners Are Suffering – NYTimes.com. This time last year, we scoffed at the suggestion that France’s then-impending smoking ban would trigger the collapse of French café society. But sure enough, that collapse appears to be in [...]

Tags: cafe_society, france, french_cafes, french_coffee, paper_cups, third_place, to-go-coffee

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This French bakery and café resides across the street of a parking garage in a roadside “strip mall” of sorts. It’s in a very odd part of the city that consists of modern-yet-plain software company office buildings clustered together. Imagine if SF opened a theme park based on downtown San Jose, and you get the [...]

Tags: espresso_review, faema, french_coffee, mr-espresso, soma

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Just to prove my point about how the French get away with coffee atrocities while profiting from an undeserved reputation for being such café sophisticates, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in the new Sarkozy era: Artsick > Other > New Grounds in Coffee: The French Onion Roast. In an unholy [...]

Tags: bitterness, coffee_marketing, espresso_drinks, french_coffee, french_onion_roast

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Pim, of local Chez Pim fame, and I go waaay back. In fact, my very first blog post here cited her contrarian-but-oh-so-correct view that berets, croissants, and François Truffaut be damned — French coffee is crap. OK, she has no clue who I am and likely prefers it that way. But what I do like [...]

Tags: cortado, foodies, french_coffee, spain, spain_coffee, spanish_coffee

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It was a year ago that we posted a review of Cafe Madeleine on O’Farrell St., near Union Square. And since we’re overdue for a Trip Report, and since I’ve been terribly lax (inept?) about taking photos at some of my more recent café visits, it’s time to dust off some “old” photos for a [...]

Tags: espresso_review, faema, french_coffee, lisbon_coffee, mr-espresso, soma

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InsideBayArea.com published an article today by a self-employed writer (and cooking class instructor) who named some of her favorite coffeehouses around the country: Inside Bay Area – It’s more than just coffee — it’s a bowl for the soul. Yes, she unimaginatively resorted to the ever-popular, ever-tedious caffeine riff (calling coffeehouses “caffeine dens”). But she [...]

Tags: cafe_reviews, caffeine_riff, french_coffee, Starbucks, tartine_bakery

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Maktoob Business, the business arm of a popular Arab portal, published an article this week revealing some international consumer attitudes towards coffee and cafés: Coffee culture: a global phenomenon? by Synovate | Maktoob Business. Interviewing 5,806 respondents in the US, UK, France, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, Serbia, Morocco, and Australia, some of the survey’s findings [...]

Tags: cappuccino, coffee_chains, french_coffee

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The Pearlina tea shop shut down and was replaced by this French bakery/café. At its heart is a great artisan baker who makes extraordinary pastries and breads (and is a true artisan: no cookie cutter stuff here). This is the baker’s only retail outlet, as the French team behind it have supplied some 40 local [...]

Tags: equator_estate, espresso_review, french_coffee, la_spaziale, north_beach

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Those crazy French love their coffee, even if it isn’t very good coffee. A market research press release on Business Wire today announced a study of French coffee consumer habits: The Expansion of Coffee Bars is Expected to Change the way French People Traditionally Drink their Coffee. The short of it is that more French [...]

Tags: cafe_customers, coffee_health, coffee_pods, france, french_coffee, superautomatic_espresso_machines, tea

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