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.

Taking up the space that was formerly Daniel Creamery and its cheese production, the Summit has tall ceilings in a wide open space converted for café and art space use. The main seating area is littered with rectangular tables and chairs with plenty of wall outlets and laptop zombies — making you feel like you just entered a community college computer lab.

Around the edges are walls of artwork (aka the Peek Gallery) that currently feature various hand-painted signs from New Bohemia mocking the abuse of “real”, “genuine”, and “authentic” labels — and making us think of SF’s Eat Real Festival. Artwork celebrating the abuse of labels here seems more than a bit ironic, given that The Summit bathes itself in the labels “local”, “seasonal”, and “craft.”

Ahhh, craft. Previously the domain of garbage men restyled as “sanitation engineers,” wordsmithing is a growth market in today’s coffee industry. We have kiosks now being called coffee pop ups. And this year the term “artisan coffee” has been abandoned in favor of “craft coffee.” Which is not to be confused with Kraft coffee, otherwise known as Maxwell House. Are you sure you’re following all this yet?

The Summit offers a basic (seasonal) café menu and desserts in addition to a coffee menu that features Blue Bottle, using their 17-ft Ceiling blend for espresso. The Summit also features barista Seán Wilson, who trained under Eton Tsuno at the defunct (and much missed) Café Organica — arguably SF’s first real multi-roaster café back in 2005. There’s also a front counter with stool seating and a four-group La Marzocco behind it.

The barista takes his sweet time but produces a worthy shot. It could have a more substantial body, but it has a frothy, darker brown, even crema of some thickness. It manages also to avoid being too acidic until the bottom of the cup, otherwise exhibiting a balanced, herbal-leaning flavor with some sweetness throughout. Served in colorful retro cups made in Turkey for Ikea.

They’re not performing miracles with Blue Bottle coffee here. However, they are aiming for, and succeeding at, a flavor profile that raises The Summit above most other BB resellers.

Read the review of the Summit SF.

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 at the far side of the entrance. Otherwise this place is mostly serving space behind the counter and a small area to walk inside to order. It operates as a one-man coffee bar courtesy of the engaging neighborhood owner/barista, Nabeel Silmi. There’s little to eat, save a few pastries and chocolate bars, so the focus is on the coffee. They also sell French press coffee, Hario drippers, etc.

Using a three-group La Marzocco Linea, Nabeel uses Four Barrel beans to pull modest-sized shots with a mottled lighter and darker brown crema in classic brown Nuova Point cups. It’s not quite the brightness bomb you might expect from Four Barrel, but it is a strictly acidity-forward cup that’s lacking some body and balance. That imbalance is undoubtedly coming from Four Barrel’s roasting and blending preferences rather than how the shot itself is pulled. It has a good herbal pungency with some cloves and a bright molasses-like edge of sweetness.

While the shot lacks some breadth of flavor and the space is tiny, this is clearly one of the best options for a good quality espresso along Mission St.

Read the review of Grand Coffee.

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 Cape Town’s original gourmet food market (and hipster Mecca) that it hosts each Saturday — giving Espresso Lab Microroasters a little bit of the small-operation, gourmet-public-market-based origins familiar to the Bay Area’s Blue Bottle Coffee.

The periodic table of the chemical elements features heavily in the highly consistent theme of this roaster/café. It shows in the elemental-looking coffee drink menu printed on the white tile walls (those “atomic weights” in the photo are actually prices in South African Rands), through to the labeled chem-lab-looking buckets of unroasted green beans, and all the way to the company T-shirts packaged in silver ziploc bags labeled with the “element” Ts for T-shirt.

Opening a little over a year ago, they have three internal benches for seating plus a couple of outdoor patio tables. In back is a black & white Diedrich IR-7 roaster. In front they offer Hario Buono kettle/V60 drip coffee — their “Artisinal Brew” (Ab). Renato, co-owner with Helene, noted how the locals still haven’t made a leap to filter coffee just yet. However, he is assisting in the opening of a pour-over bar (with Espresso Lab Microroasters’ coffee) in Stellenbosch — part of Cape Town’s famed nearby winelands and their associated fine dining establishments. (Stellenbosch is very much akin to the Napa Valley when compared to Cape Town’s San Francisco.)

Although the pour-over uptake may be slow at this location, there’s plenty of espresso to be had from their two-group La Marzocco GB/5, where you have the choice of an espresso blend or (on the day’s visit) a single-origin Kenya. The Kenya, Gichatha-ini from the Gikanda Farmers Co-Operative Society, won the SCAA’s Best of Kenya. Cup of Excellence still doesn’t exist in Africa outside of Rwanda.

Their Esp008 espresso blend (rated here) uses 40% Serra do Boné Brazil as a base, 40% Puente Ecológico Tarrazú Costa Rica for the midrange, and 20% Guji Ethiopia for brightness and “wildness”. Their espresso blends vary mostly by different African varietals for that last 20%, and they emphasize changes in blending ratios — rather than using additional microlot farms or roasting the coffees differently for different blends or uses.

The Esp008 espresso blend shot (R14, or about $2 US) is dense without being too syrupy — with a textured dark-to-medium-brown crema and an upfront sweetness that’s not too off-putting. Still, its citric bite on top of an herbal background makes for a uniquely layered espresso flavor — one that Renato says is influenced by the lighter roasts of his Oslo, Norway coffee upbringing combined with his Portuguese roots and what Africa adds to the cup. Renato’s Norwegian influences include former WBC champ, Tim Wendelboe, and it shows in the lighter roasting styles and the feel of this space.

Their shot of single-origin Kenya (also used for their “Artisinal Brew” pour-over) was super bright with a pleasant floral and citric base — but without being a brightness bomb. They also offer something they call a cortado, which is pretty much the same as an American Gilbraltar out of a Gibraltar glass. And for milk-frothing, they produce rather exquisite latte art with fine surface bubbles. This is a fine and somewhat unique example of what South African espresso has to offer.

Read the review of Espresso Lab Microroasters in Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa.

One of the most important, and most tragic, stories of human history since the age of the Portuguese explorers is the story of Colonialism. Today the vestiges of Colonialism are apparent everywhere from globalization to the impact of slavery and race relations around the world. For example, to look at the history of Cape Town, South Africa, is to look at the Dutch East India Company and the forced migration of slaves not from Africa but from southeast Asia — i.e., primarily modern day Indonesia and Malaysia.

Fast forward to modern times. It has been less than two decades since South Africa has been free from apartheid, and the “Rainbow Nation” has done a remarkable job at overcoming cultural differences and burying grudges over the many wrongs of the past. (Contrast this with, say, the recent history of the Balkans.) Fortunately, Colonialism in South Africa today has been reduced to more of the corporate variety. Take retail coffee chains, for example.

Last month, coffee colonialists Starbucks blew their vuvuzelas to announce their arrival in South Africa in time for the 2010 World Cup. It was as if to tell the many global tourists to the Rainbow Nation, “Don’t worry. We will save you from the scary coffee backwaters of South Africa. Rest assured that good coffee will be made available during your stay, thanks to us — your Starbucks rescue team.”

Not unlike South Africa’s Commonwealth sisters, New Zealand and Australia, Starbucks lacks a presence here partly because a typical espresso in South Africa is better than most of what’s typically available in a Starbucks haven, such as the U.S. Hence Starbucks’ announcement elicited little more than a yawn from the locals.

Another reason why this wasn’t news was because smaller regional chains, such as Vida e Caffè (“Life and Coffee” in Portuguese), have captured the market with better coffee and a far more relevant environment. Vida e Caffè is one of the best local chain examples — branding itself through a Portuguese theme, bright red colors, and a lively, youthful image. In American cultural imagery parlance, think artsy, ethnic skateboarders gone hip hop. This is not the café chain for anti-social laptop zombies.

Vida e Caffè @ Wembley Square Review

This installment of Vida e Caffè is located in the high-security Wembley Square mall. “High-security” is sort of redundant in much of South Africa, but this place takes it to another level. For those who recall the transformation of SF neighborhoods such as the eastern Mission District — where, in the 1980s, metal bars and gates once covered every street-side window and door along Bryant St. — imagine going in the complete opposite direction.

South Africa takes its security so seriously, to an outsider it feels like a cross between paranoia and a people under siege. Barbed wire and electrical fences are as ubiquitous as the security systems advertising “Armed Response”. Half of Cape Town’s 3.5 million residents seem employed as private security. Yet despite the ominous signs of eminent danger, and despite the country’s criminal reputation, in reality there are rarely signs that the alarm is justified. A 1970s New York felt far more dangerous. Whether their cultural response is overkill is good fodder for a separate debate.

The newer Wembley Square mall, frequented by the perfect bodies entering and leaving the Virgin Active gym inside, is built like a fortress. Pedestrian entry is next to impossible to find at street level, and where it does exist there are interlocked double security doors. But once inside the fortress, in a small mall court, you’ll easily recognize Vida e Caffè by the red plastic tables and chairs along with logo parasols (what for in an indoor mall, we still don’t know). High-energy baristas/servers decked in Vida e Caffè gear will shout out the orders in their ethnic tongues while Brazilian samba plays overhead.

Using a four-group, white WEGA Nova machine, they pull shots that are also decidedly Portuguese. It has a thinner layer of a medium brown crema and a somewhat thinner body. The flavor profile is weighted more in the tobacco end of the spectrum, though they are quite excellent at producing dense microfoam with their milk. Served in a Vida e Caffè-logo Protexca cup with a 70% Lindt chocolate on the side. A decent deal at R10.50.

Read the review of Vida e Caffè at Wembley Square in Cape Town, South Africa.

Coffee is as universal a beverage as you can find in this country, and yet countless special interest groups seem to identify with coffee as it were their own exclusive thing. This identification may have a lot to do with a modern culture that values hype and hyperactivity — and associates that most with caffeine and coffee. As for exclusivity, who isn’t subject to today’s active lifestyles? Perhaps there is nothing more quintessentially American than a mass market of people who all somehow believe that they are uniquely different from each other.

For example, take the ubiquitous dot-com and tech industry workers in the region: the Bay Area’s equivalent of the Detroit auto worker. These folks (and I’m one of them) are marinating in tiresome coffee-themed product and technology names. It’s gotten so bad, there’s even a joke product name generator on the Web that has a coffee-themed option.

We’ve also written previously about the whole velo set — i.e., bicyclists who lay claim to coffee as their official beverage. But espresso bars show up in the strangest of places these days: laundromats, video stores, runners shops, bicycle shops, motorcycle shops, gardening supply stores, pirate radio stations, churches, kinky erotic shops, and now we have the comic book store.

We can only see the coming wave of espresso bars in yarn shops/knitting stores, Bikram yoga studios, nail salons, and pet shops with doggie espresso bars for Fifi. We already have political activists now calling themselves the Coffee Party. With the baseline standards of up-and-coming coffee shops reaching a recent plateau in quality, perhaps the best way for a new one to differentiate themselves and garner attention is to now fetishize it.

Graphic Novelty

This comic book store and espresso bar sits several doors south of the California unemployment office on Mission St. They offer seating among several benches outside along Mission St. Inside there are several old, diner-style small tables and chairs. Plus a lot of plastic-wrapped comic books.

Besides the racks of comics and toys, there’s a two-group La Marzocco GB/5 at the front counter with Four Barrel beans for sale on the side. They pull espresso shots with the Friendo Blendo blend, and here they do a very good job with it: a healthy, darker brown layer of crema and a strong brightness to the cup (which is actually made of glass and metal). It tastes of some wood, spice, and pepper blended with earthier notes. One of the better Four Barrel shots served outside the mothership.

Read the review of the Caffeinated Comics Company.

The Mission is one of SF’s best neighborhoods. We don’t necessarily mean Mission Street, however: home to BART’s Plasticuffs Station and a decent assortment of angry heroin addicts. We’re talking about 24th Street — a working class neighborhood with a strong immigrant community, but without many of Mission Street’s rougher edges.

Decent coffee is now on the list of this neighborhood’s amenities. Along 24th Street, east of Mission St., a series of independent cafés opened in recent years — Sugarlump, nearby Mission Pie, Sundance, Dynamo Donuts, and also Haus. (We’re deliberately excluding the coffee atrocities down at L’s Caffé.) These may not be coffee destinations in their own right, but they offer several options for a decent shot, or cup, among these few city blocks.

Not being big fans of the coffee in Germany, the Haus name doesn’t carry much appeal for us. This fortunately doesn’t apply to the coffee here. The former El Mexicano Restaurant converted over to this airy espresso bar in May 2009. There are concrete floors, a tall ceiling, unfinished wood chairs and tables, and a lot of sunlight through the large glass panes in front and back. In back there’s also patio seating among several tables.

They use Ritual Coffee for espresso (their Evil Twin Brasil blend for our visit) and De La Paz for their filter coffee — and there’s a lot of varieties stacked up on the shelves behind the service area. They were also playing France Gall when we first came in, which immediately signals, “this isn’t your average coffee shop.” (And it scored points for good esoteric tastes.)

Btw, Kanye, this is one of the best videos of all time — France Gall’s “J’ai retrouvé mon chien”:

Using a three-group La Marzocco GB/5, they pull shots with a medium brown, even crema of decent thickness. It’s a smooth-bodied shot with strong characteristics of the underlying coffee blend: sweetness, brightness, and the sharp potency of lemon peel. It’s a solid, flavorful cup — but it may vary based on your favorite flavor profiles. Served in classic brown Nuova Point cups.

Read the review of Haus.

The brightness bomb profile

These citrus shots — aka, brightness bombs — seem to be a highly popular flavor profile for new espresso bars these days. And it’s not just this and our last SF café review. While we like the experience of a brightness bomb now and then, we hope that this doesn’t become more and more routine. Sameness is already a very real issue in the flavor profiles among some of the Bay Area’s best espresso purveyors.

As Stumptown exemplified with their Hairbender shots, espresso doesn’t have to have a smooth, rounded flavor profile to achieve lofty heights. That was a good thing and a break from what might be called a more traditional Italian espresso. But these days it seems more and more shots from new, notable cafés target just that narrow range of the flavor spectrum — whether through medium-roasted single origin Central American shots or simple blends that make an all-out assault on acidity. Coffee simply does not advance by replacing one monotone flavor profile for a different one.

Some stories are too easy to predict. Like in our Trip Report to Pirate Cat Radio Cafe & Studio back in March. Back then we had heard the rumors that chef-turned-author-turned-TV-glutton, Anthony Bourdain, stopped in at the Pirate Cat to try their bacon maple latte. So naturally we suspected that Pirate Cat might make the national airwaves in due time.

That time was tonight, with this evening’s episode of No Reservations set in San Francisco.

As for Mr. Bourdain? Sure, the guy has a pretty tiresome schtick about being some bad-boy of dangerous food. Meanwhile, milquetoast BBC hosts such as Stefan Gates are foraging for food among the Karen people in landmine-rigged jungles with the Burmese Army in pursuit. (The milquetoast Mr. Gates even has the distinction of appearing on an album cover of Mr. Bourdain’s beloved Led Zeppelin.)

Mr. Bourdain’s Web site even says that the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market is in “Fisherman’s Wharf.” (Huh?) But he does make a fairly good case that for every food-hating vegan and overly-precious yuppie in this town, there are plenty of beer-guzzling burger joints and animal-eating animal lovers (such as Chris Costentino, of Incanto fame … and now pretty much a professional food TV whore).

Regardless, it was good seeing DJ Monkey and the Pirate Cat Cafe getting a little love between TV commercials for bing.com and Frosted Mini-Wheats.

This is the kind of place that makes you proud to live in San Francisco. We knew we were in for a treat when we walked in, saw the black-and-red paint all over the space, saw the radio studio with its skull-and-crossbones banner that looks out over the café, and heard the DJ airing Motörhead and the Dead Kennedys (DKSF, as we like to call them, in contrast to DKNY). Now this is a true SF neighborhood café.

Although the associated café has only been in operation since last year, the actual Pirate Cat Radio radio station has been in operation for several years — broadcasting locally in SF at 87.9 FM, but also in L.A. and Berlin. (The FCC battles are a story in itself.)

We first stumbled across the café just a couple weeks ago — when dropping off a friend to pick up his car at one of the area’s many low-profile auto repair shops. But word can travel quickly. Last week NY-based Nicolas O’Connell of La Colombe mentioned stumbling on the place, saying how much he loved the vibe and that its coffee service was quite decent — even if it was a little in spite of itself (we concur). And rumors have it that celebrated traveling TV chef, Anthony Bourdain, stopped in last week to sample their famed bacon maple latte — likely as a segment for a planned TV episode of “No Reservations”: San Francisco?

And you can see why it warrants some of this attention. We may lament some of the tiresome hipster clichés at many SF coffee houses, but these guys seem about as genuine and authentic as they come. Operated by a station manager named Monkey (that’s now his legal name), this is a fiercely independent media novelty that runs on $30/month membership for those who want to operate their own radio shows. (Members also get a $0.50 discount on their espresso shots — and can get a beer in the back.) But it’s community-supported radio, so anybody can become a member.

In the past year, Monkey (as he told it to us) has really gotten into coffee. So much so that it inspired him to recently tour Portland and visit every Stumptown in town. Monkey has brought many of these lessons and obsessions back into Pirate Cat’s coffee operations. Their standards are a little bit all over the place (bacon maple lattes?), but yet it somehow still works for the most part. They have a modified two-group Rancilio (with two boilers and an eyebrow-raising mercury switch) and use Mission-based De La Paz Coffee.

There are a few café tables out front and several tables inside. Inside it’s black and red with artistic oddities, such as the string of gas cans along the ceiling — painted fingernail-polish red and strewn with bullet holes. At the back of the small space they even have a screen for projecting movies. One wall inside is effectively the radio booth, where café patrons can view the on-air DJ through the glass.

When we first visited, the barista on duty was brand-new and just learning the ropes with real customers. Tony, a Native American who says he represents one of the 10,000 Mayans living in the Mission, just started his own radio show playing “Red Blues” (as it’s known). He self-consciously followed all the steps — except for pouring my “for here” shot in a paper cup. Bad, bad form — but you have to give the new guy a break.

Other baristas here are obviously more experienced (we just had to revisit that same day). Even so, they tend to pull large volume shots with a medium brown, even crema. Despite its volume, it has surprisingly decent body and is quite flavorful: an interesting, mellow herbal mix of spices. (Served in red ACF cups and no saucer when they get “for here” right.)

Clearly one of SF’s most unique cafés this side of Trouble Coffee. Support your local radio … and café.

Read the review of the Pirate Cat Radio Cafe & Studio.

At CoffeeRatings.com, we believe that what the end consumer experiences is what matters most, regardless of who is behind the results. But often the story about coffee becomes more of a story about people. Rodger’s Coffee & Tea is a good example of this — where knowing a little of the back story helps provide a reference point describing some of what goes on in the cup.

Coffee Magic and the Birth of Philz Coffee

The story of Rodger’s Coffee & Tea centers around its owner and founder, Rodger Bories. Mr. Bories started a wholesale coffee business in the Bay Area going back to 1982, which later evolved to become Coffee Magic. In that time, Mr. Bories recognized how coffee freshness is a big determinant for whether brewed coffee tastes any good — or not.

While Mr. Bories remained a background figure, in 2002 he partnered with Phil Jaber of Gateway Liquor at 24th & Folsom Sts. And here is where the versions of events can start to vary, depending on whom you ask. According to Mr. Bories, he was invited in to fix some rather awful coffee operations at Gateway Liquor. The fruits of their partnership inspired a successful coffee quality turnaround at Gateway Liquor, which in turn inspired Phil Jaber to strike out on his own to launch Philz Coffee.

Mr. Jaber, being the ultimate showman that he is, took the path of becoming the P.T. Barnum of SF’s specialty coffee world. Meanwhile, Mr. Bories focused on the back-office details of producing quality roasts, ensuring freshness, and using the right equipment. However, as is now blatantly clear, that partnership ultimately ran a bit sour. Mr. Bories has since opened his first retail café at this location in January of this year, bringing with him the “One Cup At A Time” filter coffee concept he helped develop for Philz Coffee.

A mix of the old and new coffee schools

There’s a lot to believe in Mr. Bories’ telling of events. His café exhibits a much greater knowledge and care of bean origins, roasting styles, preparation methods, and techniques than you will find at a Philz Coffee. It also explains why we’ve long felt Mr. Jaber loved the celebrity but couldn’t be bothered with the mundane back-office details of the coffee business.

However, Mr. Bories, with 27 years in the business, is hardly a “Third Waver” — and that turns out to be a good thing. While his roasts show an attention to quality bean sources and freshness (despite the open bins of stored beans in the shop), he’s also not afraid of roasting into the second-crack for darker roasts. Neither is he afraid of blends (just without some of Philz Coffee’s fairytale names for them).

This results in beans that have a combination of freshness and roasting style that are difficult to come by in the Bay Area. We purchased a pound of their limited edition Brazil Poco Fundo for home espresso use ($13/lb). And while it is a single origin coffee, it produced some attributes in body and flavor roundness that you can’t easily find in the coffees of so-called Third Wave roasters. Most importantly, the quality of the espresso it produced, while not necessarily superior, compared well with the same roasters.

As for the café…

The café is located in the ground floor corner of what looks like some Mission district condo gentrification. They have limited sidewalk seating out front on benches and plastic chairs. Inside there’s a bench and some limited window counter stool seating, but the main attraction is standing up at the coffee bar for service “Italian style”.

Standing at the bar, you can identify dozens of coffee varietals in plastic bins: some blends, but many with geographic designations. You can choose any kind you like for espresso — more than you would practically want, actually. This despite the main attraction of individually-made filter drip coffee. Their hot chocolate preparation is also quite a bit of Benihana-style visual entertainment. The staff is friendly and generally sarcastic, and we like that. Coffee industry rags cover the inside counters.

For our espresso shot, we chose the limited edition Brazil Poco Fundo, in place of the usual Brazil Fazenda. They are careful to grind to order and are conscientious about their beverage preparation. Using a two-group Synesso machine (another example that would never dawn on Philz Coffee), they unfortunately pull overly full espresso shots in a cup without a saucer.

Our primary complaint here is the large pour volume, as our home results with the same beans and shorter pulls proved much better. Still, the shot has a healthy layer of a medium- and light-brown crema, with a body that is somewhat thinner given the size of the pour. It has a simple herbal flavor with some spice and smoke, but you can tell it’s fresh.

Decent beans hindered by faulty pull sizes result in a cup that’s not all that much better than average. They should be capable of something better here — closer to what we produced at home. Perhaps given their young stage, improvements are coming. Cash only.

Read the review of Rodger’s Coffee & Tea.