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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The story of coffee at Specialty’s Café & Bakery reflects the story of San Francisco’s consumer tastes for retail coffee. In the beginning, there was Faema + Prebica — and it was weak A decade ago, Specialty’s ran a small chain of bakery/cafés with coffee service areas. Some locations, like this one on Pine St., [...]

Tags: acf_cups, big_four_coffee, blue_bottle, caffe_artigiano, espresso_review, faema, financial_district, franke, frog_hollow_farm, hario_v60_dripper, intelligentsia, la_marzocco, Starbucks, superautomatic_espresso_machines

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A couple weeks ago, a regular reader made a very relevant comment on our last post: “You have become very negative. When was the last positive post?” They were completely on target, and we have noticed this trend in ourselves for months now. (See: Coffee Commenter Archetype #10.) The reasons are worth a post here. [...]

Tags: coffee_crisis, coffee_prices, fourth_wave, hario_v60_dripper, intelligentsia, pour_over_coffee, scaa, south_africa_coffee, third_wave, usbc

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Locals rave about this coffee cubbyhole, which opened in July 2010, and you can see why. This colorful stretch of Mission St., in the heart of the Mission, has a dearth of decent coffee shops. At least ones that don’t serve ashy, overextracted dreck. This tiny shop offers four metal stools at a short counter [...]

Tags: espresso_review, four_barrel, hario_v60_dripper, la_marzocco, mission, nuova_point

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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 [...]

Tags: chemex, coava_kone, compak, contraband_coffee, espresso_review, hario_v60_dripper, nob_hill, versalab

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In what’s starting to look like a Spy-vs-Spy-like dance between a Starbucks acquisition and the unStarbucks set, Starbucks’ Clover Equipment Company’s latest move is the Precision Pour Over: Clover Pour Over « Why Not? Coffee. (Courtesy of Seattle’s Why Not? Coffee.) As we left off in our story, the once-independent Clover Equipment Company made waves [...]

Tags: clover_brewer, clover_pour_over, hario_v60_dripper, melitta_bar, pour_over_coffee, Starbucks

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Thanks to friend of this blog, Shawn Steiman, for pointing out this somewhat amusing article from today’s New York Times: Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip – NYTimes.com. In something of an ode to the Mr. Coffee automatic filter drip machine, the author — Times food critic, Frank Bruni — laments the many overly precious [...]

Tags: chemex, clover_brewer, french_press, hario_v60_dripper, la_pavoni, mr_coffee, pour_over_coffee, quality_standards, rancilio

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The name is “Ma’velous”. We’re not sure if this is a New Yorker thing — like when Monday Night Football legend, Al Michaels, tries to pronounce the ‘h’ in the word “huge.” But the owner, Phillip Ma, is a self-fashioned coffee geek with apparently enough money for high-end coffeemaking toys but no real prior training [...]

Tags: acf_cups, blue_bottle, cafe_organica, chemex, civic_center, coffee_choices, ecco_caffe, espresso_choices, espresso_review, hario_v60_dripper, intelligentsia, james_freeman, la_marzocco, pour_over_coffee, siphon_bars, wendelboe

4 Comments »

This past weekend, Barefoot Coffee Roasters celebrated their seventh anniversary. While the San Francisco Coffee Wars have clearly overlooked the South Bay, we’ve frequently traced some of our favorite coffee experiences back to this small microroaster and their tiny chain of cafés. Besides their flagship café in Santa Clara, they have recently expanded to a [...]

Tags: acf_cups, barefoot_roasters, brightness_bomb, coffee_roasters, cup_of_excellence, espresso_review, hario_v60_dripper, pour_over_coffee, probat, san_jose_cafes, san_jose_coffee, victoria_arduino

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In the transitioning Cape Town neighborhood of Woodstock, which out-Missions the Mission, this espresso bar and roaster perhaps looks like no other you’ve seen before. Located inside the newly-art-conscious Old Biscuit Mill, this small space is a pristine, stark black-&-white-themed coffee lab that exudes meticulous organization. The Old Biscuit Mill is known in town for [...]

Tags: aeropress, blue_bottle, brightness_bomb, cape_town_cafes, coffee_blending, coffee_roasting, cortado, cup_of_excellence, deidrich_roaster, espresso_brightness, espresso_review, gibraltar, hario, hario_v60_dripper, kenya_coffee, la_marzocco, mission, pour_over_coffee, south_africa_coffee, wendelboe

3 Comments »