Caffe Trieste

Location: 609 Vallejo St., San Francisco

Reviewed: December 16, 2006

Espresso: My single was served as a 1.5oz. lungo in a wide-brimmed cup with matching saucer. The crema was light-to-medium brown and even in color. It was suprisingly full-bodied for a lungo; the primary tastes were smoky and some fruity notes.

Atmosphere: Trieste is the original espresso bar on the west coast, having been located in North Beach since 1956. The shop is small with seating around most of the perimeter, next to the glassed-in walls. Very long lines on weekends.

Verdict: Once a legend, now mostly a historical novelty.

Lime Tree Espresso

Location: 171 Branham Ln., San Jose

Reviewed: December 10, 2006

Espresso: Lime Tree serves Barefoot's Sweetness blend in doubles and triples only. Oddly, each is served at around 3oz. in volume; thus, the doubles are lungo pours, and the triples are standard. They use a Swift grinder, and so each shot is ground & tamped to order. My triple had an even medium-brown crema of decent thickness. It had predominate tones of berry and some bitter/dark chocolate in the aftertaste. Somehow, a certain mouthfeel was lacking, and I'm less than certain why. Still a good espresso.

Atmosphere: Lime Tree is in the spot of the former Cool Beans Coffee. Not much has changed inside. It remains a cool location that is more coffee lounge than coffeeshop. I still like it a lot.


Verdict: Good, although not great. Stick with the triples.

Pacifico Primo Coffee

Location: 1683 Branham Ln., San Jose

Reviewed: December 6, 2006

I previously reviewed this place a year ago under the moniker "St. James Coffee". Since, they have undergone an ownership change.

Espresso: The place is now a wholesale customer of Barefoot and were serving Element 114 this morning. My request for a single turned up a shot of a little over 1oz. with an even, medium-brown crema. It was somewhat sour. Almost more important than the taste, though, is that the two employees there were seriously attempting to do things right. My shot was ground individually, the cup was preheated, and the barista spent some time on a very solid tamp. When I mentioned the sourness, the barista apologized and offered me a replacement (I declined because of the ratio of caffeine to food that I'd consumed).

Atmosphere: Not much has changed in the past year: the roaster is gone, and there is now a small collection of hot sauce sitting near the register (this is evidently for the empanadas).

Verdict: Despite the flaws, I'm optimistic about their improving.

Moon Beans

Location: 6221 Santa Theresa Blvd., San Jose

Reviewed: November 25, 2006

Espresso: My request for a single was fulfilled with at least 1.5oz. of liquid in a wide-mouthed ceramic cup of perhaps 3-4oz. total volume. The crema was a medium brown, mostly even in colour, but with a slightly lighter dot just off center. Not bitter, it tasted mostly of dark spice and was full-bodied with a nice mouthfeel. I didn't get a chance to watch the barista in action, as I was speaking to a companion, but I did notice that she brewed directly into the cup. I did not hear the running of a grinder (realizing that some grinders are actually and amazingly pretty quiet).

Atmosphere: Moon Beans is a small shop in a large strip mall in south SJ. Seating consists mostly of couches, and there is a coffee table with a burlap coffee sack as a tablecloth. They do roast on site. The walls are a shade of green that looks better than it sounds.

Verdict: Might be worth checking out more thoroughly, but the warning persists: here be lungos.

Bistro Maxine

Location: 548 Ramona St., Palo Alto

Reviewed: November 21, 2006

Espresso: Bistro Maxine is a wholesale customer of Barefoot, and they were pouring a single-origin PNG this morning. Of note, the barista properly ground and tamped the shot and poured directly into the (unfortunately not preheated) cup. The resulting double shot filled the cup almost to the rim; since the cup was probably 3oz. in volume, I fully expected overextraction, but I was happily mistaken. Although thin, the crema was an even medium-brown color, and the thinness was likely caused by the high temperature. The shot had a rich, buttery mouthfeel and tasted of caramel and vanilla.

Atmosphere: Bistro Maxine is a very small location. There are only three or four tables (and a couple of bar seats). Call it cozy if you like it or cramped if you don't. It's supposedly more of a restaurant/crepery, but they didn't have any menu posted (or a pastry case), so I decided it would be easier to stick with just an espresso.

Verdict: Not at all bad, though it would have been much better if pulled shorter.

Black Gold

Playing through Wednesday, November 22, 2006 at The Roxie (3117 16th St., San Francisco)

This documentary film about the manager of the Oromia co-op in Ethiopia is technically produced quite well. The problem is that it seems misguided: it doesn't present a definite solution to the obvious plight of the coffee farmers (other than raising the price of the crop, which we knew anyway, and all but the worst dullard could figure that out); it doesn't really present a definite source of the problem (though it does attempt to villify the WTO, and while I'll agree that there is plenty to villify there, I don't think they are the entire source of the problem); and it doesn't quite seem to know its target audience (is it the educated or the uneducated consumer?).

The basic format of the film plays scenes from Ethiopia against scenes of the coffee-drinking 'yuppie elitists' in Europe and North America in a back-and-forth manner that can seem like the viewer is actually watching a tennis match. The format seems jarring, as the viewer is taken to London, Trieste, New York, and Seattle within about 25 minutes. A scene of the World Barista Championships seems oddly placed and pointless within the context of the film. I don't know how many of the people in the audience actually had ever heard about the WBC or knew just what was going on (it was not well-explained); the confused giggles in the audience during this scene were clearly indicative that most of the people watching had no clue about barista competitions. Shoutouts to Mireya Jones (who had a speaking part), Marcus Boni (who was seen at the judges table), and probably a few other people I've met but neglected to spot through the rapidly-moving camera lens.

An interview with Dr. Ernesto Illy was possibly one of the best moments in the film. Dr. Illy was coherent and intelligent and quite fluent in English. He obviously knows and cares about quality coffee a great deal. Again, however, this scene had little to do with the basic premise of the film.

The film hits the "Big Four" pretty hard for buying commodity coffees and for utilizing the New York "C-price" in their purchasing decisions. Of course, it was never mentioned that the Oromia co-op doesn't produce commodity coffees; they produce top-quality Sidamos and Yirgacheffes (stuff that will never make an appearance in a can of, e.g., Maxwell House). Other than the WTO and the C-price, no other potential problem-sources are mentioned (perhaps excess Vietnamese production could be discussed, though again that doesn't really affect the price of top-quality Ethiopian arabica).

The final scene took place in a wheat-packaging and exporting center in Djibouti. A strange place to finish this movie; I thought the film was about coffee in Ethiopia.

Hallmarks of quality?

I would tend to think that most people would favourably regard a shop that: 1) grinds and tamps each shot individually; 2) uses espresso within 10 days of roasting; 3) rotates through a few different espresso blends and bases this to some degree on the crop calendar, 4) can differentiate between short and normal/long pulls, and; 5) brews drip coffee every 30 minutes.

So why is it that so many people dislike Peet's? While I will agree that they certainly aren't what I would call top-tier, I do think that they're of an acceptable level of quality. Give me your thoughts on this.

The Coffee Roaster

Location: 536 Davis St., San Francisco

Reviewed: October 19, 2006

Espresso: My requested single was served full in a tall ceramic cup of ~3.5oz. in volume. The cup was grey and had a gold & blue pinstripe; the otherwise matching saucer lacked this pinstripe. The pale crema was thin, yet persistent. The barista brewed directly into the cup, but did not grind or tamp, nor did she preheat the cup. The shot was thin-bodied, and sour; it left an astringent aftertaste.

Atmosphere: The Coffee Roaster is a very small shop inside a mixed-use building. There are but two tables inside the location, with the bulk of the seating being outdoors on the ample (and covered) sidewalk. Of note, the chairs here have a wicker seating area, though they are metal-framed. They are not very comfortable.

Verdict: How they manage to get away with the name is beyond me, since they don't roast coffee here.

Printers Cafe

Location: 320 S. California Ave., Palo Alto

Reviewed: October 18, 2006

Espresso: My requested single was served in a nearly full cup ~3oz. in size. The barista did not grind or tamp and poured initially into a shot pitcher. The thin crema was nearly white and was in a high state of dissipation by the time it got to a table. The shot was fairly heavy-bodied and tasted somewhat muddy.

Atmosphere: Printers is a large shop that also serves lunch fare. There is a substantial patio area in front.

Verdict: Pass on this one.

Spike's Coffee & Tea

Location: 4117 19th St., San Francisco

Reviewed: October 8, 2006

Espresso: My request was for a single, and it yielded what was probably a ~1.5-2oz. shot in a wide-brimmed cup (with matching saucer) of ~3.5-4oz. total volume. The crema was a medium brown color and even in tone except for a smallish lighter colored dot in the center; it was of moderate thickness and persisted well throughout the cup. The taste was primarily smoky and chocolatey. Although I couldn't quite tell if the barista ground my shot specially to order, he did run the grinder during the process, and so at least a portion of the coffee was freshly ground. He also spent a good deal of time tamping, and it seemed like he was using a lot of force to hit the portafilter to prevent clumping of grounds. He also preheated the cup, and although I couldn't tell if he brewed directly into it, I suspect (based on the relative thickness of the crema, among other things) that he did.

Atmosphere: Spike's is a long and narrow shop with the ordering and serving counter at the far end. There are three or four small tables inside and a patio seating area out front. Hardwood flooring is present. Crowded with dogs and their owners.

Verdict: I wouldn't call it top-tier, but it's not at all bad for a trendy neighbourhood with lots of disposable income.