Ritual's coffee is terrible: acidic, unpleasant to the palate and lacking in aroma. I hope your coffee is better than theirs.
- disclosure: I'm Italian and I believe espresso in San Francisco sucks almost universally
- disclosure: I'm Italian and I believe espresso in San Francisco sucks almost universally
To my taste as a non-Italian, Blue Bottle espresso is delicious. The baristas at the Blue Bottle location in the Financial District usually make a scrumptious cappuccino.
Having lived in Europe myself, I also know this to be true. Further, that it happens in many food categories gives credence to the espresso observation: cheese, wine, bread, etc. It goes both ways: hamburgers, Mexican food, Japanese food, etc, in Europe are not the same as you find in the US, Mexico, and Japan. It's not so much a critique as an observation about how hard it is to replicate cultural foods.
But I do have to add that people in the US have this attitude that they can borrow and replicate a cultural food, and then they hype it and get smug about--without realizing they haven't captured the essence of the original. How hard can it be to operate an espresso machine after all? Well, very hard if you include selecting and blending beans from around the world, roasting them right, grinding them just so, and dosing and tamping it right.
Maybe South Indian food is different, but I haven't had good North Indian food anywhere in the US.
And the selection of one be all and end all criteria, in case of beer hops, in case of coffee the pureness of the beans I guess, that everyone measures itself on, seems actually very American to me.
PS: Chocolate seems to be the worst offender, IMO. Good chocolate is pricy and has a poor shelf life, but tastes so much better than even expencive chocolate you can find in the US. Even when you can find a good brand companies just tend to make worse product over time, because that's how you maximize profit.
Person 1: Steak is the best food!
Person 2: No, pasta is the best food!
Person 1: I am from Kobe Japan and steak is best!
Person 2: I am from Italy and pasta is best!
And so it goes. Both people are right and wrong at the same time. Preferences aren't universal facts.
I also grew up with italian espresso and I always wondered why all these crafty, specialist roasters (all over the world) can't do a drinkable espresso and always end up with undrinkable acid in a cup.
A lot of italian espresso blends are a mix Arrabica/Robusta. Robusta beans create the sought-after strong/bitterish italien espresso flavor and probably also reduce/mask/balance the acidity.
Robusta beans according to the crafty roasters are low quality garbage, and they only care about arrabica beans. Clever marketing by the arrabica industry? Robusta beans have a bad reputation because they are majorly used by cheap coffee brands - but not all robusta beans are the same either.
So because third wave/hipster coffee shops only do arrabica, but italian style espresso needs a blend. That's why we can't have a good things.
I simply order espresso machiato when i want an espresso, the bit of milk foam reduces acidity to an acceptable level.
There is a longer article somewhere on nytimes about this topic. can't find it anymore.
Not sure about the authority of this page:
> Most of these Italian blends (Illy is the exception) clearly make effective and imaginative use of coffees of the robusta species
http://www.coffeereview.com/italy-seen-from-america-nine-gen...
http://www.lavazza.co.uk/uk/at-home/blends/caffe-espresso.ht...
(Lavazza has a number of other "100% arabica", including Qualità Oro that is more or less the golden standard - pun intended).
http://www.segafredo.it/it/a-casa/caffe/moka/emozioni-100-ar...
Illy we already said.
I personally don't wander beyond these three vendors (Segafredo is from my hometown, Lavazza is the most ubiquitous, Illy is the mainstream high-quality choice), but there are likely more. To be fair, there are also a lot of Robusta mixes as you go down, but the "100% arabica" brands is firmly at the high end.
Another difference is that American crafty houses are roasting lighter than in Italy. For whatever reason, Americans are following a different craft and not optimizing their espresso recipes nearly as well as the Italians and not using the same goals and procedures as they do.
And frankly I'm convinced some of the roasters simply don't know what they're doing. They've been told that roasting light is good, and they don't realize that light roasting with espresso brewing is risky. Especially with bean types that are known to be acidic.
Another note, isn't the ratio for espresso in the States different than in Italy. When I was a barista in Chicago we did 1:2 coffee to water. I thought I heard that in Italy 1:3 or 1:4 was more popular. I may be wrong
Just trying to have everyone get along and get to be right.
Pet peeve: high-end restaurants in the U.S. mostly don't care about the coffee they serve. A high-end restauarant will employ a bar tender, a pasty chef, a somellier, but not a barista. So you enjoy a fantastic meal and then when you order an espresso at the end, you get something the server pulled out of an automatic machine. Nooo, why!?
I'm just very used to italian-style espresso in the cafés and turkish at home, as that's the cultural norm around here (croatian adriatic coast; basically ex-venetian colony ;) ).
I'd like to give other styles a shot, but only provided they're worth a damn. Can't say I've been impressed by whatever the muck they serve at McDonald's is, or by home drip machines. Nor instant ofc...
I sometimes also make Turkish w/o the cardamon, usually with a bit of sugar, maybe with a splash of cream (blasphemy I know). But I will also occasionally use a French press, a Chemex, or make cold brew. My wife uses a Moka pot, and I will sometimes use that to make a Cubano, though it's not nearly as good as a Cubano made in a pump espresso machine.
It just depends on my mood.
I gave up trying to make good espresso at home after getting frustrated with a Gaggia machine. My fault, not the machine's, but in the end I decided it was too much effort for 1-2 oz of coffee. :-(
To answer your question: as long as the beans are freshly roasted and ground, and the coffee made with care, I'm not particularly partial to any technique. You can even have a mighty fine cup of drip coffee. I think espresso is just a much more demanding technique to make well.
About instant: I know Israelis and South Africans who prefer it, but no Americans.
Maybe the worst way to brew coffee: percolators. Oh the horror.
https://medium.com/@sinzone/why-is-espresso-in-america-so-ba...
In my opinion the only true Italian Espresso in the Bay Area is made at Cavalli Caffe. It’s a simple small bar with no interior design, no fancy coffee beans, and no extravagant machines. Cavalli is owned and operated by one man from Naples.