Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

As we last left our story, SOMA‘s ever-morphing Sightglass Coffee was glacially executing on its grand designs to become a major SF roastery and a spacious coffee destination. It had been over a year since we last walked among the spent heroin needles of nearby 6th Street, so much of our new Sightglass experience had [...]

Tags: acf_cups, barefoot_roasters, brightness_bomb, coffee_roasting, espresso_review, four_barrel, laptop_zombies, probat, sightglass, soma, supermodel_cappuccino, third_wave

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We published our first trip report for Sightglass last July: Sightglass Coffee, Version 0.3. Back then, Sightglass was a tiny espresso-serving kiosk at the front of a vast, 4,000-sq-ft space with a 14-kg Probat roasting operation planned to start in the Fall of 2009. We revisited Sightglass this week to see how much things have [...]

Tags: acf_cups, chemex, coffee_roasting, consistency, espresso_review, fourth_wave, four_barrel, la_marzocco, pressure_, slayer_espresso_machine, soma, third_wave, verve

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This neighborhood café opened in late 2009 with the idea of serving sexual perversions and coffee in the same location. This is one of the more obvious examples of how coffeeshops are being fetishized in the Bay Area. We’ve written about espresso bars in bicycle shops, laundromats, video stores, runners shops, motorcycle shops, gardening supply [...]

Tags: espresso_review, fetish_coffeeshops, kopi_luwak, la_marzocco, ritual_roasters, soma

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This is the flagship kiosk of a series of hole-in-the-wall cafés named after Lambretta scooter models (the others being Cento and Special Xtra). There’s even a yellow Lambretta in back with the Cafe Lambretta logo written across its windscreen — a remnant from the owners’ first, and now defunct, café foray. There’s even a Cento [...]

Tags: blue_bottle, coffee_posers, conceptual_art_cafes, espresso_review, fetish_coffeeshops, la_marzocco, nuova_point, soma

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This is one of the latest in a chain of hole-in-the-wall coffee kiosks from locals Kirk Harper and John Quintos. After Kirk and John got out of operating the defunct 330 Ritch Street nightclub after many years, they took their obsession with Lambretta motor scooters and opened Cafe Lambretta in Nob Hill a few years [...]

Tags: blue_bottle, coffee_posers, conceptual_art_cafes, espresso_review, la_marzocco, nuova_point, soma, third_place

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You can make coffee hot or cold, weak or strong, and even good or bad. But one thing you shouldn’t make coffee is scary. And what’s making coffee scary today — in a way that mysterious substances such as Jamba Juice‘s “immunity boost” only used to scare us — are con artists who now target [...]

Tags: antioxidants, coffee_health, coffee_marketing, espresso_review, healthy_coffee, soma

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In the Mint Plaza, right across the Blue Bottle Cafe mothership, this café provides some pretty good outdoor dining options — albeit without much shade on sunny days. There’s also a but of limited indoor seating upstairs and a homier cellar below. Alberto Avalle, a founder of New York’s Il Buco, partnered with others to [...]

Tags: caffe_umbria, elektra, espresso_review, restaurant_espresso, soma

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Thanks to a reader tip (which are always welcome and encouraged, btw), we were alerted to the opening this week of Sightglass Coffee in one of the danker parts of SOMA. Note that by “opening” we mean “unlocked” — and not much more than that. If this sounds a lot like the “modest” opening of [...]

Tags: acf_cups, blue_bottle, coffee_roasters, espresso_machines, espresso_review, four_barrel, la_marzocco, slayer_espresso_machine, soma, verve

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Opening up in the latter half of 2008, this café may serve salads, soups, wine, and even light dinner plates, but don’t let that fool you: this is a serious coffee destination. Which is not surprising, given that Andy Newbom of Barefoot Coffee Roasters personally tipped us off to check this place out. Just a [...]

Tags: acf_cups, andy_newbom, barefoot_roasters, blue_bottle, coffee_roasters, espresso_review, espresso_sameness, four_barrel, la_marzocco, ritual_roasters, soma, stumptown

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It’s not often that a lone double shot of espresso warrants a post here. But last month (hey — we got lazy) we had a rather rare espresso experience. We alluded to this espresso shot in a previous post, and it was among the best we’ve had in the Bay Area. (And we’re including the [...]

Tags: blue_bottle, bosco, espresso_machines, four_barrel, james_freeman, mistral, single_origin_espresso, soma

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