Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Perhaps the biggest irony is that nobody should ever need a CoffeeCON. As we posted last year, on the same day as the inaugural CoffeeCON 2012, we were instead attending the Grand Tasting of La Paulée de San Francisco: a $300-per-person consumer Burgundy appreciation event backed by a tremendous amount of wine industry support and [...]

Some Mission residents are enthralled that they finally host a decent coffee shop that doesn’t require disinfectant. Opening just this month, this corner café has bright, large windows and decorative touches: wooden counter seating in front, a converted salon room in back with a marble fireplace, a decorative sofa, and ornamental flowers. Also towards the [...]

Two years ago, when we first encountered this café chain on Via Garibaldi in Torino, Italy, we had no idea how few of them exist. For one, turns out it was the only one in all of Italy. For another, there is only a dozen of them in the world. Oddly, four of them are [...]

Not a day goes without us coming across a story about how the sky is falling on retail quality coffee. For example, ABC News laments, “How do you save on coffee in tough times?” Today the Chicago Tribune ran a semi-humorous column titled “Brother, can you spare (buying) a double latte?” Each one of these [...]

Yesterday we returned from our recent travels in Northern India. Whereas many Asian cities such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, etc., have culturally enlightened us in the past, none of them have enamored us the way Delhi has. Unfortunately, our infatuation with India has nothing to do with the local coffee, but more on [...]

Yesterday’s Independent (London) interviewed Giuseppe Lavazza, the “crown prince of the world’s biggest independent coffee company” — a.k.a. Lavazza: The family that grew rich on the other black stuff – Business Analysis & Features, Business – The Independent. The coffee story from Lavazza is that, at least in Italy, espresso is not a commodity but [...]

Occasionally this Web site can be the source of a real life story, and the story of Caffè Mokabar is a good one. For a little background, after a couple weeks of espresso research in Piemonte, Italy last October, we were most duly impressed with Caffè Mokabar among all the coffee roasters we encountered. So [...]

It’s been a long time coming. After three years of laziness, I found a clean way to add non-SF espresso bars to the online database without having them muck up the SF sorts and ratings. It’s not a lot, and there are still a few kinks to work out, but it’s progress. And the timing [...]

Here’s an appropriate story, given my current location in Alba, Piemonte — about 40 miles from Torino. Earlier this week, Reuters published an article on Michele Mastrantuono, one of Lavazza‘s official coffee tasters: A day in the life of an Italian coffee taster | Lifestyle | Living | Reuters. Mr. Mastrantuono performs quality control on [...]

A Peninsula people-watching Mecca, typically filled with large crowds throughout the day and skirmishes over available outdoor tables. It’s been that way here since I first entered this place 15 years ago. They have large indoor and outdoor seating areas, local art, occasional musicians, and obligatory patrons in bike shorts. One of the most indelible [...]