Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com

It’s been a rather sad week for coffee news. An embarrassment, really — with headlines dominated by the ridiculous. There’s Racheal Ray’s TV commercial promoting both Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee and her Death-to-Israel Hamas credentials (though who hasn’t wanted to go jihad on her?). There are vocal members of Christian groups that we now need [...]

Tags: acf_cups, blue_bottle, coffee_backslide, dunkin_donuts, espresso_review, flying_goat, frog_hollow_farm, james_freeman, la_marzocco, napa_cafes, ritual_roasters, Starbucks, torrefazione_italia

No Comments »

Starbucks executives bristle at the suggestion that their corporation represents the fast food of coffee. (This despite lamenting memos from the chairman to the contrary.) But when was the last time Starbucks made a corporate decision that favored quality over quantity?
Case and point … the new chocolate partnership Starbucks announced this week: Starbucks, Hershey to [...]

Tags: chocolate, coffee_prices, coffee_quality, drive_thru_coffee, fast_food_coffee, Starbucks, torrefazione_italia, verismo

No Comments »

Every once in a while it becomes necessary to celebrate an arbitrary milestone. And we have one today: for the first time, CoffeeRatings.com reached 500 active espresso ratings for San Francisco.
What’s so arbitrary about it? For one, the 500 milestone was actually passed many months ago. While CoffeeRatings.com’s focus has been San Francisco proper, there [...]

Tags: cafe_organica, san_francisco, sf_cafes, torrefazione_italia, verismo

3 Comments »

This is an old story to those in Oregon (it was announced last week), but it’s also an all-too-familiar story across the country.
Oregon’s Coffee People started in the late 1970s as a hippy-friendly mom & pop (Jim and Patty, where Jim is now a regional barista judge). It was ahead of its time — with [...]

Tags: coffee_chains, coffee_people, seattles_best_coffee, Starbucks, torrefazione_italia

1 Comment »

This is the sister café to the one on 15th Street in Potrero Hill by the same name. It just barely opened this week on the former site of a shut down Torrefazione Italia. It’s so new, the cash register wasn’t working when I visited, and the staff were making receipts with pencil and paper.
Inside, [...]

Tags: caffe_umbria, deruta_cups, espresso_review, financial_district, la_spaziale, torrefazione_italia

1 Comment »

This swanky, authentic, Italian-style bar/café is located at the Stockton St. Pavillion, atop the Union Square plaza. Say hello to Italian marble and mahogany. They have a decent amount of indoor seating along large windows and a vast swath of exposed outdoor seating beneath Pellegrino parasols. They even feature some bar counterspace for stand-up espresso [...]

Tags: emporio_rulli, espresso_review, faema, torrefazione_italia, union_square

1 Comment »

Far too often, I find myself reviewing espresso because it’s necessary for completeness rather than something to which I look forward. Most Starbucks Coffee retail stores (the emphasis, of course, being on “retail”) elicit the same reptilian brain response in me. Not that most Starbucks have bad espresso at all, mind you. They’re often pretty [...]

Tags: best_coffee, espresso_review, financial_district, Starbucks, starbucks_entertainment, superautomatic_espresso_machines, torrefazione_italia, verismo

3 Comments »

With my kitchen currently getting the bulldozer (i.e., reconstruction) treatment, home espresso operations have come to a screeching halt. What better time to forage for espresso? Last week I reported that Caffé del Doge opens in Palo Alto, and this morning I decided to pay a visit.
This chain of Venetian cafés opened in 2003 (thanks [...]

Tags: barefoot_roasters, cafe_organica, caffe_del_doge, coffee_choices, coffee_freshness, coffee_roasters, elektra, espresso_review, palo_alto_coffee, torrefazione_italia, venice

5 Comments »

Over the past couple of years, San Francisco has undergone something of a revolution in great espresso. Although the quality revolution has yet to trickle down to the typical corner café, great changes have taken place at the upper eschelon.
At the forefront of this revolution is a troika of relative newcomers: Blue Bottle Coffee, Café [...]

Tags: barista_magazine, best_coffee, blue_bottle, cafe_organica, cafe_reviews, coffee_roasters, deruta, duane_sorenson, elektra, embarcadero, eton_tsuno, hayes_valley, la_marzocco, mission, panhandle, ritual_roasters, san_francisco, sf_cafes, Starbucks, stumptown, third_wave, torrefazione_italia

4 Comments »