For a few years now, we had an idea for a post that sat in our unpublished queue: how can you tell a good espresso shop from a bad one? (At least before sampling it.) Given the thousands of good, bad, and mediocre espresso shots we’ve reviewed over the years, we have definitely noticed some patterns worth sharing.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve recognized the value of shorthand rules. Back in the 1980s, I once (famously, in my circles) observed that the ghetto status of your neighborhood can be surmised by the fast food chicken chain nearby. (In short, Church’s Chicken = “wear Kevlar”.) Earlier this month, there were a couple of coffee-related posts from coffee professionals that inspired us to dust off this idea:

• Flavorwire » Blog Archive » The Kool-Aid’s in the Coffee: An Interview with David Latourell of Intelligentsia Coffee Roaster
• Detecting a Great Coffee Shop with the CoffeeMeister – Slashfood

But while coffee professionals know their establishments and their industry favorites best, few have subjected themselves to the horrors of many a bad espresso bar from a consumer perspective. Not that we at CoffeeRatings.com have a taste-bud death wish. But we’ve developed a sort of sixth sense about what to expect just by walking into a coffeehouse and having a look around. This post is an attempt to articulate both the positive and negative cues we get when entering a new establishment.

Some suggested rules are more obvious — like the wine enthusiast’s equivalent of “avoid wine that comes in a box.” Other rules are more subtle or outright unusual. For example, as a news story today had it, if the aroma from the coffee machine forces your plane to make an emergency landing, you might consider tea.

Encouraging signs of decent coffee ahead

In no particular order…

• They roast their own. Score extra points if they date-stamp their roasted beans for retail sale.
• They bother with latte art. Latte art is more gimmick than a sign of quality per se (sorry, Aussies). But it’s almost unheard of to find a place that bothers with latte art and yet makes a lousy cappuccino.
• A La Marzocco machine. Oh, sure, there are plenty of other great espresso machines out there. And there are places that can make great espresso from the most modest equipment choices. But shelling out the bucks for a La Marzocco is typically reserved for those who believe it will actually make a difference for them.
• They offer more than one kind of bean for espresso. This is a rare find. But when they do, they expect you to notice that the espresso there isn’t just some generic, nameless commodity shot out of a soda gun. Many other establishments think more like Homer Simpson’s tour of the Duff Beer factory, where a single spigot fills Duff, Duff Light, and Duff Dry.
• They serve a glass of water on the side. Despite the American obsession with the Big Gulp®, espresso should not quench your thirst. Better espresso can often be found at places that don’t expect it to.
• They take time to make it. You could have a really new, or really slow, barista. Or they could be a little bit of a perfectionist about what they’re doing. We never encourage our baristi to rush the job.
• Cleanliness is next to decent espresso. If the staff keeps their work areas clean, there are better chances that they clean their equipment of rancid coffee oil build-up — and that they keep their equipment properly tuned and maintained.

Signs of when to run — don’t walk — away

Now for the cues when you know things are about to get ugly. Call it coffee’s homage to Waiter Rant’s “Signs An Establishment Isn’t Going to Deliver the Service You Expect”.

• The roar and/or whine of poorly steamed milk. This is one of those cases where their handling of milk can translate to their handling of coffee. And milk that is steamed in the pitcher to the scalding sounds of a 747 takeoff or the squeal of a dentist’s drill is a major red flag.
• A superautomatic espresso machine. Superautomatic machines almost never produce an espresso better than “palatable”. Hello, Starbucks.
• The barista is wearing a company-issue hat or cap. One sure-fire way to non-verbally tell a customer, “How may I massacre your order?” is to require them to dress like fast food employees.
• They use a two-group La Spaziale 3000 espresso machine. Ouch. Do we really have that much against La Spaziale? They honestly make some good equipment, and a few cafés are quite capable with them. But in the Bay Area, the two-group La Spaziale 3000 is the machine of choice (namely: they’re inexpensive) among cafés looking to skimp and save a few bucks.
• America’s Best Coffee. Or Peerless coffee, should they admit it. The most common combination of the cheap-and-careless café is the two-group La Spaziale 3000 with America’s Best Coffee beans. A close second is Peerless coffee — which we’ve also found to be the coffee most likely for employees to say it’s Illy in an attempt to make up something that sounds better. Of course, almost as bad (it varies) is the café where the employees have no idea whose beans they serve. But the pattern here seems to be this: the more self-aggrandizing the coffee brand name, the worse the coffee.
• Portafilter handles are left cooling on the drip tray. This is often the kiss of death: a café that knows nothing about the importance of stable temperature control, and they could care less.
• Served with a lemon rind on the side. You’d be surprised how many restaurants still do this. Why? We don’t know, because it’s like a neon sign that says, “Prepare to spew.”
• Paper cups are the only option. There are times where even we want a coffee “to go”. But those conditions are so sub-par. For a café to serve their espresso only in paper cups, you may as well be greeted by a fiberglass clown head with a speakerphone in his throat at the drive-thru entrance. If someone’s idea of quality and class is the stemware at a four-year-old’s birthday party, we emphasize the “go” part of “to go”.
• Flavored coffees on the menu. Or the word “gourmet”. In some parts of the country, and rare corners of the Bay Area, the 1980s are still alive and well and some people are still selling chocolate macadamia nut flavored coffee. If a café sells coffee that sounds more like a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, you’d be better off looking for ice cream. Same goes if they use the word “gourmet” in their branding — a word that has since become affiliated only with the mass-produced packaged foods that line the aisles of Wal-Mart, marked for quick sale to their morbidly obese loyal customers.

We really need to stop here before we are overcome with snarkiness poisoning.

Locals have raved about this indie coffee and espresso shop for decades. The owner roasts his own, and it’s been in operation since 1976. However, there is no mistaking that the espresso standards here leave a lot to be desired. We may be accused of being traditionalists from time-to-time. But this is an example where we’re that isn’t too likely.

For outdoor seating, there’s a single bench along the front sidewalk. But inside, there’s everything from a decommissioned organ and two Mrs. PacMan machines. The clientele here also skew to an odd lot: a combination of studious laptop users, high schoolers who avoid the Starbucks across 41st St., and more than a few neighborhood psychotics (one required us to avert our eyes to avoid stumbling into her boisterous conversations with herself). They offer food and fountain drinks, but it’s mainly about the coffee here.

Using a three-group La Spaziale, they pull their shots into odd metal cups with a minimal wisp of medium brown, splotchy crema that’s otherwise little more than massive bald spots on the surface. The cup lacks aroma and potency, but it has a generally not-unpleasant earthy flavor with some notes of pungency and spices. Served in chipped Crate & Barrel China-made porcelain cups. If this place is noteworthy, it’s certainly not for their namesake espresso.

Read the review of Gaylord Caffe Espresso in Oakland.

This modern glass storefront, built in 2008 on the site of the former, 70-year-old Brooks Camera, offers a modern, culturally diverse dessert café. The long internal space is characterized by a long bench on one side with simple-but-modern tables and modern, colorful acrylic chairs.

They offer frozen yogurt, crêpes, Vietnamese sandwiches, and a coffee bar featuring Four Barrel Coffee. Four Barrel’s new elephant-logo branding is printed out on photocopies throughout the store and out front on the sidewalk sign. But as progressive as this location tries to be, its espresso is a bit regressive.

The staff here originally lead us to believe that they used Four Barrel Coffee for both their filter coffee and their espresso (this is not as uncommon as it sounds). But thankfully someone in the comments below, and offline, helped identify and correct some of the misrepresentation: they use Peter James Coffee for espresso.

Chill has a two-group La Spaziale, but they favor a single-group, superautomatic Schaerer Ambiente machine to produce shots of espresso with a thin, pale crema with extremely large and erratic bubbles. It looks a mess. Fortunately it tastes a little better than it looks, but not by much: a mellow flavor of spices with enough body to the large shots to prevent it from being mistaken for filter coffee. As for filter coffee, the posted signs indicated they were serving Four Barrel’s Idido Misty Valley yirgacheffe (Ethiopia).

Read the review of Chill.

The Peninsula offers little in the way of great espresso. This is supposedly one of the better examples, but it’s not something we would be proud of. If someone was visiting us in San Mateo and wanted a good espresso, we’d still send them all the way to Palo Alto first.

The Peninsula Coffee Roaster & Deli has two main seating areas, separated by what appears to be a deli business that was grafted on to both the roaster and it’s name. The main — and we can only guess, original — space is dominated by their coffee bar, jars of their own roasted coffee for retail sale (and way too many of them flavored coffees), and a bit of stool seating with some tall café tables by the front windows. As if the flavored coffees weren’t cheesy enough, this spot plays a lot of KKSF smooth jazz/saxophone music — i.e., the soundtrack to your root canal.

In the next room over is their deli. In front are a couple of tiny outdoor sidewalk tables.

Using a three-group La Spaziale 3000 at the bar, they pull shots with a semi-thin, even, pale crema. It’s made from a classic, middle-America over-roasted blend, leaving the cup (filled a bit high) with a cross of flavors between ashiness and some harsher tobacco.

The end result is kind of a flashback — like a San Francisco espresso circa 1984, when we knew so much less about good espresso than we do now. Is it any wonder why Starbucks rules the suburbs? Independents like this should rightfully fear Starbucks, because the quality here isn’t much better.

Read the review of the Peninsula Coffee Roaster & Deli.

Thankfully we’ve got something to report on this week that isn’t some idiot blogger — with a second-grade science education, mind you — telling us medical research suggests that coffee-drinking shrinks women’s breasts. (And yet some people still think we’re making this medical infotainment thing up…)

Last weekend we caught a Tiburon ferry on the final day of its summer schedule. Passing by the charred remains of Angel Island, we made a stop at Tiburon’s Caffe Acri.

Since 2003, this café and modest wine bar — near the Tiburon ferry pier — has served ubiquitous weekend bike riders and locals alike. A former Boudin Bakery & Cafe outlet, they have dark café tables indoors and, for people watching, they have plenty of outdoor seating under parasols on the corner out front.

Besides serving gelato, panini, and other Italian-themed edibles, here they serve espresso from a four-group, ornate, eagle-capped copper La Spaziale. (Yes, they actually make such a thing.) Unfortunately the espresso doesn’t look nearly as good as the machine they use to prepare it.

The staff here pulls shots of espresso with a faint, balding medium brown crema with a lighter body. It has a somewhat “funky” flavor of pungent spices, some caramel hints, and a slight medicinal edge. It’s tastes a little better than it looks — as it’s partially saved by the modest pour size.

Read the review of Caffe Acri.

Many of the new espresso joints in town have fortunately helped raise SF’s quality bar. But these new places also seem to monopolize all the love. It’s no wonder that crackpots spouting theories of some Third Wave are often taken seriously rather than laughed at, because this obsession with the new and devaluation of everything that got us here is supported by a complicit media — both bloggers and traditional.

So allow us to introduce a radical departure from coffee’s tiresome wine analogy: call it a footwear analogy. Decent coffee places and roasters that have been slugging it out for years are often treated like last year’s Uggs by a public that today seeming only cares about Crocs. Yet a few of us know that Crocs are really just next year’s Uggs anyway.

So what better excuse to get in touch with last year’s Uggs than jury duty? (*needle scratch*) Huh?

Because unless you collect traffic tickets or often find yourself springing cousin Clem from SF’s Glamour Slammer, Caffè Roma’s SOMA location is inconvenient at best. If you’re fortunate, SF’s Bail Bond Row isn’t something you often seek out, and it had been five years since we were last called for jury duty at the Bryant St. location (less so for the McAllister St. location). It’s no coincidence that CoffeeRatings.com had not rated this Caffè Roma since last visiting it on June 20, 2003.

This location is a landmark café/roastery across the S.F. Hall of Justice — where naturally all of SF’s Super Friends hang out. (Look for them running for various city supervisor offices on the November ballot, including the likes of Starchild — SF’s Libertarian answer to Richard Simmons.) Sister to the North Beach institution, inside they pay homage to Rome and coffee roasting.

Given its proximity to the courts, the clientele here typically includes many lawyers in suits. For seating, they have several dark café tables beneath wide, bright, windows and a row of stool seating along the Gilbert St. windows. Considering the neighbors on the block, it’s quite clean and modern. Their roasting operations are at the rear, courtesy of a huge Probat roaster. They sell roasted retail beans in old school bins that look nice but unfortunately allow the coffee to oxidize and grow stale rapidly.

Using a two-group La Spaziale at the bar, the pull modestly sized shots of espresso with a thin layer of richer crema that dissipates somewhat quickly. It has a bold, complex taste of spice and earthy elements and a pungent edge of cloves. For millk-frothing, they produce good microfoam with very even, consistently fine microbubbles (it’s actually slightly better than their espresso). Served in classic brown ACF cups.

With jury selection continuing next week, something tells us we’ll get to know this café pretty well over the coming month. It’s time to share the love.

Read the updated review of Caffè Roma in SOMA.

We recently reviewed a couple of solid espresso options when you head just south of the Bay Area — in Santa Cruz and Monterey. But what if you head further south through Big Sur? Sure, more of your options involve camp stoves and dodging cranky, caffeine-addicted black bears, but there are a few exceptions. One of them is the Big Sur Bakery & Restaurant, which was featured earlier this year in a New York Times Magazine article.

Heading south on Highway 1, just past the Big Sur deli and post office, you’ll encounter a sign for the place. Driving up a dusty, dirt driveway to a Shell station, you’ll find it atop stairs — likely pouring out smoke from their wood-fired pizza ovens. They have several indoor restaurant tables and extensive outdoor patio seating. And it’s definitely rustic here, alright: going to the restroom involves a trip to a plumbed-in outhouse past rusted old Coca-Cola signs like something out of a John Cougar Mellencamp video.

The Big Sur area is rough country for good espresso, of course. And this place seems to take complete advantage of that fact — offering espresso at near-Ritz Carlton prices. They have their own Big Sur Bakery blend from Berkeley’s Uncommon Grounds, and they were selling their Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade organic blend. (The signs of the great Big Sur fires of 2008 were noticeable just across the highway.)

Despite the astronomical prices, they do a good rotation of espresso throughout the day here, and the baristas grind to order. Using one of two La Spaziale two-group machines at the front espresso bar, they pull shots as extra large doppio pours served in a regular coffee cup. It has a patchy coverage of congealed, medium brown crema — though its texture runs thin relatively quickly. And despite the huge pour size, it surprisingly has a decent body. It has more of an earthy, herbal flavor with strong hints of smoke, and it can be served with some grit at the bottom of the cup.

If you thought the espresso was expensive, just wait until you see the pizza prices. Of course, shipping supplies to a remote area costs money. And then there’s labor. And then the seasonal nature of business here doesn’t help — especially when one of those seasons is “fire season”. But we can confirm that we were not accosted by any angry bears while getting our espresso here — unless you include the pack of burly, grizzled motorcycle riders who made it a pit stop for brunch.

Read the review of Big Sur Bakery & Restaurant.

This café is something of a neighborhood favorite for its quirky atmosphere and ridiculously cheap (though not that great) coffee. Inside there’s found art everywhere — plus painted café tables, a couple of seats from movie theaters (with cup-holders), juicers on display, wine for $9 a bottle, and a few outdoor sidewalk café tables under parasols.

Using a two-group La Spaziale, they pull fuller shots that sit tall in a Lavazza-branded IPA cups. It has a medium-to-dark brown crema that runs a bit thin. And given the pour size, the flavor is not surprisingly a little watery as well. But the flavor of the cup is one of the limitations here: it’s more a mixture of mild pepper and a bit of water.

I asked the barista what beans they used, and he noted that they use the el cheapo America’s Best Coffee for espresso and the el cheapest (OK: la más barata) San Francisco Bay Coffee (available at Costco) for drip — but only after a long pause.

It’s hard to know whether the pause reflect that he couldn’t remember or if he was sheepish about the café’s choices. But what do you expect for $1 espresso? Perhaps it was appropriate that I had to reach the place on foot once my 38L Geary Express Muni bus transformed into a front-seat brawl, grounding the entire bus for a long while to take down police reports.

Read the review of Café Murano.

Given that our headaches with our Web hoster are resolving themselves at a snail’s pace, we’re itching to get back to business as usual. So we are carefully returning to publishing here (saving copies of our databases as frequently as possible) — even though we risk a future “blackout” at any given time. How better to do that than with a classic CoffeeRatings.com Trip Report?

This is a quiet, local place that gets many SFers worked up as if they’ve experienced the Real Italy here — or at least something that authentically makes you feel as if you’re someplace else. And they’re not entirely off the mark. There are often authentic Italians speaking the language inside. And this has been in operation since 1905 — with the Lucchese Gamdaccini family now running the place (as proudly painted on the front door). They are a very friendly lot and offer fresh-baked Italian breads, biscotti, other baked goods, and typical café lunch items.

The café itself occupies a nice corner not far off of Columbus Ave. at Bannam Pl. There are some sidewalk café tables in front, large glass windows, and several indoor café tables and chairs.

Using a two-group La Spaziale machine, they pull shots with a thinner layer of a medium brown crema, served in modern Miscela d’Oro IPA cups. The body is a touch thin, the Miscela d’Oro flavor leans towards the smoky/tobacco side with some pepper notes, and the cup has more of a potent aftertaste than an initial flavor. But overall, it’s a decent espresso. And drinking it in a location such as this only helps.

Read the review of Danilo’s Bakery BaoNecci Caffè.

Sometimes coffeehouses can earn rave reviews, in part, because their most vocal customers don’t venture much beyond Starbucks or Fisherman’s Wharf. Coffee Adventures is your typical, low-frills, family-operated café — but with far more than its fair share of ravers (ignoring their coffee credentials). Some rave by word of mouth, and others rave via user reviews on Web sites. But in either case, they all contribute to a sort of irony about their own coffee experiences through the café’s name (e.g., half the raves end with “…and it’s not a Starbucks!”)

As anyone who has lived here long enough realizes, San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf is something of a tourist concentration camp — a way to efficiently keep the tourist dollars flowing into the city’s coffers while keeping most of the chaos and unsightly crowds confined to a reservation of sorts (call it SF’s “The Rez”). As a result, the locals venture into Fisherman’s Wharf about as often as they visit traffic court.

So we expect many of the user reviews to come from distant visitors who might have little besides a neighborhood Starbucks to compare with it. And the raves from the locals likely stem from neighborhood residents and workers who really appreciate the personal touch of a friendly, comfortable, family-owned business. (And given the Myanmar-inspired locales for some recent cafés in town, who can blame them for raving?) Because otherwise the coffee here is, at best, average for SF.

Coffee Adventures has the typical discount sofa and chairs seating you would expect from a 1990′s SF coffeehouse interior design catalog. They also have a few café tables and some limited outdoor sidewalk plastic chairs. In addition to various forms of coffee (this is no understatement), they serve stale pastries and smoothies.

The family-run business scores points for service and charm, but that only goes so far with coffee quality. Using a three-group La Spaziale S3, they serve a properly short with a whitish dot hotspot (they don’t cut off the pour soon enough). With a medium and lighter brown crema of very modest thickness — with some larger bubbles suspended in it. There’s the classic Mountanos Bros. ashier aroma and a flavor of some tobacco and a somewhat bitter, ashy edge. They also sell their own (Mountanos Bros.) beans as “CA at Home”, and they do offer cold press coffee.

Unfortunately, for good coffee near the Wharf, we still recommend that you leave The Rez.

Read the review of Coffee Adventures.