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 back is a handful of square tables and the occasional laptop squatter. There’s also a few wooden chairs on the sidewalk out front.

Using a red, two-group Rancillio at the front counter, they pull shots of espresso with an even, textured crema of modest thickness. Pulling (imported and thus notoriously stale) Lavazza coffee, there is some notable freshness missing in the cup: the crema runs short and the flavor profile runs more narrow.

That said, the owner/barista is methodical and improves what would otherwise be a weaker cup. It has an herbal pungency that differs from a typical Lavazza shot in this city, but it’s not necessarily that much better. It has less of the distinctive Lavazza flavor and a bit more smoke and toast. Served in Lavazza-logo IPA cups. That a popular SF neighborhood, just a half-mile from the original Ritual Coffee Roasters, could be excited about a coffee shop like this proves that good coffee is far from ubiquitous, even in a town like San Francisco.

Read the review of Fiore Caffè.

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 in Chicago — three more than any other city.

This one is located next door to the historical Drake Hotel. Inside it is a modern café vehicle for promoting Lavazza coffee, right on down to the Lavazza retailing and the modern photographic artwork on the walls suggestive of their annual commercial art calendar. It’s a spacious and modern café that also offers a number of edibles.

The not-very-competent barista serves espresso shots from a three-group Faema Stylema, and the resulting cup is a bit tall with a thinning medium brown, even crema. It’s a little thin-bodied and on the stale side: the herbal Lavazza flavor here is more residual and subdued than anything up front on your taste buds

However, they do exhibit rather decent milk frothing and microfoam, which is better than the brewing standards here. We therefore recommend the cappuccino over the espresso here. But curiously enough, the receipt for our cappuccino said “no flavor” on it. We surmised that was a statement about the lack of syrupy additives, but the alternate interpretation of the phrase isn’t too far off either.

Read the review of Espression by Lavazza at The Drake Hotel on Chicago’s Gold Coast.

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 stories reference both the tougher economic times and Starbucks‘ 97% decline in their most recent quarterly profits. Posters invariably comment on these articles, claiming that pricey coffee was just a faddish aberration akin to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s. All of which leaves us with the impression that the era of quality coffee is over now that we’re eating canned cat food. Right?

Except that this story is a load of crap. In fact, this is precisely what Starbucks’ PR team wants us all to believe: that “it’s the economy, stupid,” and that Starbucks’ problems are all external and not internal to the company.

The truth is far different from that. Starbucks is now paying the price for selling out its soul a decade ago — by making more automated, mass-produced, and ubiquitous coffee to meet its insatiable desires to grow as gargantuan as possible, as quickly as possible. But to believe Starbucks’ version of events, we need to conveniently ignore that rival Peet’s Coffee & Tea continues to grow — and that many other Starbucks competitors, such as Café Bustelo and Lavazza (both cited in today’s news), continue to expand their operations in this economic climate. And today, the future of quality coffee has less to do with Starbucks than ever.

And please — don’t get us started on the media myth that home espresso is the way for consumers to both have great coffee and save a lot of money. At least without spending a lot of time on it. We do propose that home espresso is about better quality, saving money, or saving time. However, consumers can choose at most two of the three — and quite often they can choose only one.

UPDATE: Feb. 12, 2009
Sure enough, the day after Starbucks announced thousands of additional job cuts in the face of mounting losses, Peet’s Coffee & Tea reported a 21 percent jump in quarterly profits. And while Peet’s has stuck to their upscale espresso beverage formula, Starbucks continues to bleed as it announces more downscale plans to offer fast food value meals and instant coffee.

Talk about a Dickensian Tale of Two Coffee Fortunes…

UPDATE: Feb. 15, 2009
Apparently it’s not just competitive chains that haven’t chucked their quality standards (such as Peet’s Coffee & Tea) that are growing while Starbucks falters. According to an article from the Associated Press yesterday, many higher-end, neighborhood cafés are also enjoying double-digit profits, baffling many economists: Many small cafes holding their own in recession | Business | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

One theory is that this represents more of a consumer backlash against large corporations — and that consumers are more judiciously spending their dollars on what they perceive to be higher-quality coffee beverages made by the neighborhood café’s well-trained barista. Given our longtime comparison between Starbucks and Mikhail Gorbachev’s rule of the Soviet Union, could the quality revolution among mainstream coffee consumers finally have reached a Boris Yeltsin phase?

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 the general topic of coffee in India in a future post. For now, we’ll kick things off with a review of the Barista Crème in New Delhi’s Khan Market (aka the “Khan Market Crème”).

It’s been noted that the Khan Market is the “costliest retail location in the country” — and 24th globally. But to us, it honestly looked like a Sunnyvale strip mall in great disrepair. But as with a lot of India, its big rupee rents are invested in nicer interiors and the area’s inexpensive labor supply rather than exterior paint jobs. The Barista Crème here, like many other storefronts, affords a private security detail in front to keep out the riff raff. (Unfortunately that does not extend to the market’s “free” parking lot, where Westerners are frequently hassled by squatters angling for payouts.)

Barista Coffee is an Indian chain of coffee shops recently acquired by Italy’s Lavazza. Specifically, Barista Crème represents their luxury brand — featuring single origin and estate coffees in a “premium lounge” format. And inside, the interiors are quite nice: a lot of dark wood, comfortable furnishings, and a TV and music lounge upstairs.

Using a two-group La Cimbali M22 Plus on two different floors (floors 1 & 2 of the building — i.e., floors 2 & 3 in U.S. terms), the pour has a (disappointingly) very thin layer of medium-to-light brown crema served in preheated Barista Coffee fine porcelain logo cups. It has an astringent smoky tobacco and deep herbal notes (as the French would call it: “tight”). So fancy, even 1-liter bottles of water are complimentary. All for a mere Rs. 65 ($1.65).

Read the review of Barista Crème – Khan Market.

UPDATE: June 10, 2009
Lavazza has completed their “brand integration” with the Barista chain, as all Barista Espresso and Barista Crème outlets across India will be known as Barista Lavazza and Barista Crème Lavazza respectively: Barista completes brand integration with Lavazza.

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 rather a true pleasure. “It’s like running a clothes boutique, where you choose certain clothes to give a look, philosophy and style. We do something similar with coffee,” said Mr. Lavazza. High concept indeed.

Like Starbucks, Lavazza has focused on building their brand through ownership more than partnership. Except in Lavazza’s case, they have funded these efforts by reinvesting profits rather than turning to the public stock market.

As noted in the article, Lavazza most recently acquired the Barista and Fresh & Honest coffee chains in India. Within a couple of weeks, yours truly will be in India to check out the local coffee scene for himself. We will be sure to report back.

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 when I wanted an authentic regional import to serve with a Piemontese meal my wife was planning for the private supper club she operates in the city, I scoured the Internet for Caffè Mokabar…but to no avail. Back then (unlike now) they didn’t even have a public Web site. So I settled on a U.S. distributor of Caffè Costadoro that I found.

Not long after, a comment appeared on this blog from Andrea Bertolino, Marketing Manager at Caffè Mokabar and grandson of company founder, Ermenegildo Bertolino. We later connected over e-mail and exchanged our mutual appreciations for great coffee — and immediately discovered that we were both are rabid fans of the Torino-based soccer club, Juventus F.C.. (In fact, Andrea descends a long family line of season-ticket-holding juventini.)

No coffee hooliganism allowed

Andrea then introduced me over e-mail to his childhood friend from the ‘hood, Roberto Cauda, who was swinging by SF as part of his travels to a Las Vegas technical conference and could bring me a stash of Caffè Mokabar — which is unavailable in the U.S. However, there was one catch. Roberto was born an avid Torino F.C. fan, a granata, the cross-city rivals who would love nothing more than to see Juventus burnt to the ground in flames if not for the fact that both clubs have shared Torino’s Stadio Olimpico (i.e., 2006 Olympic Stadium) for the past couple of seasons (and for many, many years prior to 1990).

For a little context, a lifelong friendship with an inherent football (soccer) rivalry like that is not far off from the Montagues and Capulets of nearby Shakespearean Verona fame. It’s ten times worse than the 49ers vs. Raiders fan rivalry. And just before our October travels to Piemonte, Juventus played Torino at the Stadio Olimpico for the first leg of the season’s Derby della Mole — which was spectacularly won by Juventus with a last-minute thriller of a goal by David Trezeguet that had me jumping on my sofa at home (but also ruing that I didn’t schedule my trip for a week earlier so I could attend the match).

Last month I met Roberto at SF’s Grand Hyatt, and Roberto unloaded a kilo and a half of precious Caffè Mokabar on me. And upon seeing me in my Juventus jacket (of course I had to wear it, as much as Andrea wished he could have witnessed that), Roberto made it clear under no uncertain terms that no word nor photographic evidence of himself fraternizing with a guy in a Juventus jacket could ever come back to Italy. (So hopefully there are no granata reading this. )

In all seriousness, Roberto was great company and I showed him around town for the evening. Being on neutral turf in America, perhaps it’s a bit like the truce between Israelis and Palestinians at Camp David. After all, I have good friends in Italy who are granata (“some of by best friends are…”). Though Roby shot me an e-mail upon returning to Malpensa afterwards: “P.S. you need a decent jacket ”.

Now about the coffee…

Given my home use of Caffè Mokabar’s best arabica-only blend, did it compare favorably with my experiences in Piemonte? One rule of thumb we’ve long held is that virtually any locally roasted coffee can be superior to even the best imports — given the freshness difference. Illy is a perfect example of quality that is outstanding in Europe but yet doesn’t translate as well in the U.S. — once shipped for many days and thousands of miles to SF as an oxidizing roast. This no matter how much inert gas or other freshness measures the roasters might take.

However, we were surprised with how full its flavor was — and how much it held up, including its volume of crema it produces (the canary in the mine for coffee freshness), over time. Given that it was an all-arabica blend (as is Illy), it produced a surprising amount of crema and managed to have a rather well-rounded flavor profile. (The typical Italian coffee blend for espresso leverages some quality robusta for these merits.)

Andrea was quick to acknowledge Illy as a great quality product for anyone to aspire to. And he was quick to mention how it was worthy of its considerable expense — just as Mark Prince mentioned in comments here how Ernesto Illy would have wanted it that way. But price even aside, I’d take this stuff over Illy beans in a heartbeat every time.

The coffee holds up to a finer grind well. I tightened up my Mazzer Mini on it without the grinds “gumming up” together in the portafilter. Part of that is certainly due to the more modest roast depth of the blend. And as far as the flavor of the blend goes, that’s completely subjective — many people simply cannot stand the flavor of Lavazza, for example, regardless of freshness. But there are a few blends that really “wow” me in flavor even after the freshness fades, and this is one of them.

Caffè Mokabar needs a distributor in the U.S. — so if we don’t pick that job up ourselves, you’ll at least have us as customers. Because unfortunately we’re all out! A big thanks to Roberto, Andrea, and the Bertolino family for underwriting this post with great coffee carried thousands of miles to reach us. I’ll be thinking of them when the next Derby della Mole takes place this Tuesday.

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 may not be better, given that the city of San Francisco has canceled Halloween and declared itself closed for the evening. As SF Mayor, the honorable Burgermeister Meisterburger, put it bluntly, “Halloween costumes are hereby declared illegal, immoral, unlawful and anyone found with a pumkin in his possession will be placed under arrest and thrown in the Kink.com Armory!”

So take heart, San Franciscans. We begin with virtual travel out of this closed city by featuring the first non-SF café with this new resource…

San Tommaso 10 represents the birthplace of Lavazza, dating back to 1895. This café has also represented Lavazza’s flagship café to this day. This despite the Lavazza chain cafés around the world and their more recent Espression offshoot — both replies of a sort to Illy‘s Espressamente cafés. But make no mistake — this is no grand caffè. It’s all about modern design here.

Other than some branding revisions, this café has changed little since our first visit in May 2004 — when Lavazza had just started offering their èspresso mutation. It has a relatively modest façade on a mild-mannered street of downtown Torino. You can fetch your own pastries on the right in the glass case as you walk in, walk up to the tiny front bar with room for two (or by the single-person bar on the side by the newspapers) and have your morning breakfast. Though there is more stool seating further back, among the heavy Lavazza advertising section right before the lunch café starts.

The place is decked out with serious Lavazza accessories, especially centered around the Lavazza BLUE home/pod system. The space is now painted a sort of creme green/blue color scheme — and it’s still surfaced with many mirrors to make it seem larger than it really is.

Back behind the bar is a lone three-group La Cimbali. From it, they pull shots with a highly textured, speckled dark and medium brown crema that’s only hindered by it’s modest depth/thickness. As it is, it’s served more like a natural ristretto. Thus its flavor is relatively bold — suggesting the typical Lavazza profile, but stronger and also with some roasted woody spiciness. It also has a good, robust aroma. The cappuccini are large and have excellent microfoam. Served in Lavazza-logo IPA cups. A reasonable deal at €0.90.

Read the updated review of San Tommaso 10.

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 Lavazza’s coffee supplies, and he can guess the origin of any among some 100 different coffee varieties.

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 memories I have of this place is from a dozen years ago. A friend of a friend, who was visiting fresh from her compulsory military duty in Israel, asked us about it as we drove by. My other friend, himself a native of India, answered her, “It’s our local Eurotrash hangout.” To which she replied, “Oh, I love Eurotrash.” It may not be as Eurotrashy anymore, but the cyclist motif is still in full swing here.

They use Mazzer grinders and twin two-group La Marzocco Lineas at the heart of this operation. The coffee drink sizes here tend to be enormous, however, so bring a snorkel and fins.

They serve espresso with a very pale, blonde crema of mediocre thickness. Good Lavazza aroma. But with a pour to the rim of their Lavazza-logo IPA cups, it’s dominated by a weak body and a watery drip coffee flavor with some woody notes. Fortunately for most lactose-loving patrons, the milk frothing is much better — as everyone seems to particularly bathe in milk-based drinks here. The weak espresso can be hidden rather easily underneath it all.

Read the updated review of Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park.

Today’s Globe and Mail (Canada) surveyed the rise of coffee consumption among India’s growing middle class: reportonbusiness.com: Tea-drinking India warms to coffee house culture. We mentioned this trend a year ago, and today apparently one coffee company — Café Coffee Day — owns two-thirds of India’s coffee houses. This is a luxury that Starbucks doesn’t even come close to affording here, despite its joke-inspiring ubiquity.

Stranger yet is that India is trying to fuel more coffee consumption as a nation: India plans to boost domestic coffee consumption – The Hindu News Update Service. Regardless, all projections suggest a rapid rise in coffee consumption among India’s big cities.

UPDATE: July 20, 2007
According to today’s India Times, it may also be a while before Starbucks tries again to enter the Indian retail café market: Unsure Starbucks defers India entry.