TopoTail

I don't have a problem with peeling carrots or favas. It just takes time. What about peeling shallots? That's what I find a pain. Seems like the only way is to sacrifice the outer layer, yes?

I agree with hosinmigs - the milk plays a large role. I just got back form Paris 3 days ago, and really miss French coffee. I think people who appreciate black coffee or espresso have better experiences in Italy, but those of us who like cafe au lait (or cafe creme, as they seem to call it in Paris), find the Parisian versions so fulfilling. Afraid I can't agree with hosinmigs or V. The milk is different, yes, but there's no getting around the fact that the "cafe" the French make in the espresso machines found in cafes around the country is bitter and watery, which seems to result from a combination of robusta-laden blends and overextraction. I immediately give up on ordering straight shots when in France, in favor of cafe creme, but the milk, which is almost always scalded rather than properly texured, only succeeds in making the coffee slightly less offensive than it would otherwise be. I kind of remember that ordering cafe creme seems to get one different drinks in different areas, but can't comment on what parts of the country serve what. Maybe things have improved since the last time I was in France. After all, coffee is definitely improving in the U.S., so why shouldn't it improve in France? --Richard

My coffee experiences in Paris have been much as Owen describes them, but then those expeiences have been mainly in cafes that were preparing coffee (badly) using espresso machines. When I spent a month in Paris about 30 years ago I mostly got cafe au lait, where I would be presented with a pot of brewed coffee with a pitcher of heated milk and would blend them at the table for a very nice coffee. I think Chef Carey may be on to something here: If you want good coffee in France, avoid the espresso and look for brewed coffee. As I remember, many restaurants serve "cafe filtre," and if they use freshly ground coffee and make it to order it will be way better than any espresso drink you're likely to get there. It is very stange to me, but this culture that is obsessed with food serves up the worst espresso I have ever tasted. It's even worse than what you get in a typical American cafe. --Richard

Two things stick out for me: That you don't personally drink much coffee and that you have a couple of years. Seems to me the first thing on your list is to start experimenting yourself. Coffeegeek.com is a good resource, as is alt.coffee. Lurk in these places for a while and you'll learn a lot. After soaking up information for a couple of months you might want to buy a home espresso machine and grinder and learn about espresso drinks first hand. If you do this, you'll be well versed in espressodom by the time you start planning your bakery, and you can work into your plans a quality espresso program that will set you apart from the competition. The vast majority of cafes and small restaurant/bakeries don't have a clue about how to make espresso drinks. There are challenges, to be sure, but it ain't rocket science. --Richard

I would agree with Owen's recommendation of Black Cat decaf, which is one of several decaf espressos I sampled for an article in the July issue of Fresh Cup magazine. You can find the article Here: http://www.freshcup.com/back-issues/2006/2006-07/decaf.htm Like Owen, I can't comment on how any of these coffees might taste prepared in a mocha pot, but there has been tremendous improvement in decaf in recent years and there are some very nice decaf espressos out there--still they work better in milk drinks than as straight shots. --Richard Reynolds

We like to think that the old guy who's been doing it for ever really knows his stuff, but I've run into quite a few old guys in the coffee business who just keep doing it the same way they learned it and have no clue what's going on in the larger coffee world. If you want something really interesting to try out in your machine, get yourself to Monmouth Coffee Company on Monmouth Street near Leicester Square. I was there a couple of weeks ago and had a terrific macchiato. They're the real deal. --Richard Reynolds

There’s a new foodie magazine out of Portland, OR. Or maybe I should call it a drinkie magazine. It’s called Imbibe: Drinks Culture Life, and covers everything from wine and spirits to coffee, tea, horchata, and pechuga (we’ll come back to that). The main focus is on wine and spirits, and issue #1 includes a fun profile of Ted Haigh (a man obsessed with cocktails, otherwise known as “Dr. Cocktail”), features on organic wine and Trappist ales, the obligatory “12 Great Hotel Bars” roundup with lots of cool photos, plus front-of-the-book bits on home mini bars and Angostura (and other) bitters. The biggest feature is on Oaxaca and the many beverages produced in the region: local “village” mezcals, hot chocolate, agua de Jamaica, tejate (a brew that includes toasted corn, cacao, cinnamon, and mamey seeds and flowers), and pechuga. Pechuga means “breast” in Spanish, and this is a mezcal whose recipe includes wild apples, plums, mangos, red plantain bananas, almonds, uncooked rice and . . . a chicken breast. For coffee lovers, there’s a feature on “Coffee’s Third Wave” (full disclosure: I wrote it), a bit on Canadian barista champion Sammy Piccolo, and a two-page spread called “How to Ace French Press Coffee.” The magazine is beautifully designed. I especially like the two-page spread that opens the organic wine story. On the left hand page a vineyard shot occupies the bottom half. On the top half a huge orange “O” appears as a sun rising over the horizon. The “o” is the first letter in the title, which runs across both pages: “Organic Vineyards Make Great Tasting Wine.” Inside the big “o” are the words: “No Longer Reserved for the Eco-Obsessed.” They haven’t posted any articles online, but you can do a virtual flip-through: Imbibe Magazine --Richard Reynolds

As Owen has indicated, even the finest restaurants in the country serve mediocre espresso, and there are lots of reasons for that. The fact is that no matter what machine you were to buy, your espresso drinks would not be much good unless you hired and trained a dedicated barista who made all the coffee drinks at your restaurant, which is not a realistic option for 99% of the restaurants in the country. So my advice is forget about espresso. Instead, get yourself a few French presses, find yourself an excellent coffee source, and offer your customers a coffee list with three choices, fresh ground and prepared to order. You can do this with minimal training and impress the hell out of your customers. --Richard

The most memorable espresso I've had was at Caffe Gambrinus in Naples. It's a famous old caffe that looks like the kind of place that could ride on its reputation and get by from the tourist trade. I sat down and ordered an esprsso, and the waiter brought me a beautiful ristretto that had a nutty quality with a bit of smokiness. It was a tiny thing, maybe a half ounce, but haunts me to this day. Re Sant'Eustachio in Rome, which several people have mentioned, I was seduced the first time I went there. But when I returned several years later I said to myself, "Hold on here. This crema is weird. It's more like egg whites than crema. There's no way this is a natural crema." That's when I noticed the shields they have set up so you can't see what the baristas are doing. The "crema" was delicious, I'll admit, but they're doing something weird behind those screens. And when I made my way to the tiny bit of coffee at the bottom of the faux crema, it really wasn't all that great. I bought some beans to take home and couldn't get anything drinkable out of them. (Has anybody else bought beans there and tried them out at home?) Re the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, Chris has it right: Ritial, Blue Bottle's Linden Street kiosk (with la Marzocco), and Organica (I haven't made it there personaly, but by all accounts they do a good job). The Trieste, where I once passed a lot of time, still has a wonderful Bohemian atmosphere, but the baristas are absolutely clueless and have been ever since Iolanda went back to Italy about 15 years ago. Another espresso that haunts me--well, actually it was a macchiato--is one I had at Victrola during the SCAA conference in Seattle last year. Incedibly smooth and sweet, and the blueberry notes from the harrar were dazzling. And I'll throw one more into the mix: a latte Joe Mancuso made me at the Caffe D'arte roasting facility in Seattle three years ago using their Parioli blend--the smoothest, richest, most delicious latte I've ever tasted. Unfortunately, when I ordered the same drink at their cafe in downtown Seattle it was almost undrinkable, but I'm told things have improved at the cafe. D'arte doesn't get talked about much in the online world of espresso fanatics, but it's the closest thing I've found to the espresso served up in Naples, which is my favorite espresso city anywhere. (This, of course, means it's darker than the northern Italian roasts that get most of the attention these days.) --Richard

Having fairly recent experience with espresso drinks in Rome, Naples, and the Veneto region in the northeast, I'd agree that Italy isn't necessarily an espresso Mecca, especially in the Veneto region, where I spent more than a week and found only one cafe that served espresso drinks I enjoyed (a place in Vicenza serving a brand called Cafe India). In that area lungos are the standard, meaning longer shots that I find bitter and weak. I also found that the baristas in the Veneto region were often young, and I didn't get the sense that they regarded it as a career. Between San Eustachio and Tazza d'Orro in Rome, I prefer the latter. If you go to San Eustachio you'll note that they have put up screens that shield the baristas' work from public view. They're doing something weird behind those screens. The espessos are delivered with a huge volume of a crema-like substance, which to my eye and palate simply isn't a naturally obtained crema. It's extremely light, almost like coffee flavored egg whites. When you get down to the small amout of coffee at the bottom of the cup, it's not much to write home about. Personally, I found I most enjoyed the espresso drinks in the Naples area, where short, intense ristretto shots are the norm and where you still find your coffee prepared by a guy in his fifties or sixties who's been at it for a long time. They take their coffee very seriously in Naples, and I had lots of excellent shots there. The distinction between shot volume in the Veneto and Naples brings us back to the cappuccinos served in the U.S. To my mind, the best cappuccinos and lattes are made with a ristretto shot and a moderate amount of well textured milk. A big problem with cappuccinos made in the U.S. is that they are built on top of bitter, over extracted shots. I see it all the time: three or four ounces of bitter swill topped off by an equal amount of airy foam scraped off the top of a pitcher of scalded milk. Ouch. But things are improving in the U.S., and we're seeing a slow spread of roasters and cafes from the Pacific Northwest, where lots of innovations have occured, to the rest of the country and places mentioned elsewhere in this thread. --Richard Reynolds

Hi Carolyn-- Just discovered eGullet and, among many other intriguing threads, your running tally of Gastronomica articles. So, of course, the first thing I do is look for my article, only to find it's MIA. Fall 2002 issue Borborygmus item right between "Scratch 'n Sniff" and "Gastronomic Encounters." The article is called "The Tamping Wars" and deals with the alt.coffee news group. --Richard Reynolds Borborygmus - Rumblings from the World of Food Scratch ‘n Sniff by Jim Stark Odd account a DJ duo named “German Cassis” and “Serena ‘Swiss Miss’ Jost.” Based in Brooklyn, NY, the duo mixes beats while baking sweets. From their website, www.djscratchandsniff.com: “Original sounds and homemade samples are cut with grooves featuring music created by the duo and their own pool of musicians and composers. The dj's simultaneously bake chocolate chip cookies, seducing the senses with sweet smells and ambient sound--the perfect mix on an audible and edible level.” Whatever. Tamping Wars goes here Gastronomic Encounters An announcement of some awards given via the Spring, 2002 contest.