A Life Worth Eating

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Gocce di Caffè

posted by adam on April 11, 2010

Paris has a lot things, but great coffee sure isn’t one of them. It’s a bit counterintuitive to think that since Parisian café culture is so prominent. Images of sitting outside in wicker chairs in the cold winter under a gas heat lamp sipping a steaming hot drink in the smoke-filled air remind me very strongly of the city. Except that image is all about the ritual, not about the drink. Paris has a strong café culture, but lacks a coffee culture.

It’s incredible that a food-oriented culture which values so heavily elaborate sauces and delicate soufflés, can completely disregard the methods by which to properly prepare an espresso. Even simple ones. I was once thrown out of Café Amazone for suggesting that the doddering owner/barista use the tamp to compress the ground. He instead insisted on using the tamp as a measuring device, compressing the coffee into a spoon, and pouring the loose beans into the portafilter. Even La Caféothèque de Paris and Verlet, which both have fancy La Marzocco equipment and all Arabica beans disappoint. The city is like a parallel universe.

A lot of blame often gets put to the use of Robusta beans versus the more aromatic Arabica. France is able to import these beans from former African colonies at much less cost than overseas Arabica varieties. But frankly, I’m tired of this as an excuse. Even mediocre beans can taste reasonable when prepared correctly. With espresso, 85% of the flavor comes from the process and technique, not the ingredients.

I cannot count the number of “baristi” I’ve witnessed forget to tamp, under fill the portafilter, or even start the extraction and walk away to take someone else’s order. The result is pure culinary neglect. Parisians in general either don’t care or don’t know, as the undemanding clientele is more concerned with the trendy style-aspect of sipping espresso with a cigarette than the flavor. Paris needs a coffee revolution.

In this java wasteland, however, there is hope. Gocce di Caffè in the 2è is the sole consistently perfect espresso I have had in the city. Antonio Costanza, barista/owner from Milan, opened shop in the center of Passage des Panoramas, the oldest covered passage in the city. The covered passage resembles a miniature version of Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, with a humble espresso counter and its handful of seats decorating the center. Barista Costanza is the sole person pressing the espresso, so quality remains high and visitors are never at the expense of inexperienced trainees. As a former barista from the main café at Harrod’s London, Costanza speaks excellent English as well as French and Italian.

The beans from Gocce di Caffè come from Milan’s Caffè Guiducci, a family-run shop in existance for over 50-years. The beans are an Arabica-Robusta blend, 80% Arabica and 20% Robusta. Given that 100% Arabica blends are the current trend in US coffee houses, I raised my brows upon hearing of the 20% inclusion of what I was taught were inferior beans. Barista Costanza explained that robusta beans are included to add structure to the flavor. That without their inclusion, the flavor would be too sweet, oily, and one-sided. After doing some research, I was surprised to learn that the majority of Italian espresso bars intentionally include a small pinch of Robusta beans. Robusta beans have essentially become a scapegoat for poor technique.

Espresso at Gocce di Caffè most often tastes of dark chocolate, hazelnut, and at times has a hint of smokey almond. The texture is consistently thick with moderate crema. Barista Costanza’s milk-foaming skills are nonpareil. At times he adds a sprinkle of cocoa powder to enhance the contrast to his art, which with a teaspoon of brown sugar adds rich notes of caramel and milk chocolate. (Authenticity police can simply ask for no cocoa-powder.) Barista Costanzo’s espresso is delicious and can compete against Stumptown, Ninth Street, or Joe the Art of Coffee any day.

All visitors to Paris looking for outstanding coffee must visit. However be warned: if people-watching or fashion-spotting is the intended goal, this is not the place. For that any of Paris’ thousand cafés will do. This is a place for the coffee-obsessed who are tired of espresso with notes of ashtray. And go quickly; so far, it’s dominated solely by locals and Italian tourists seeking sanctuary. And while there, consider suggesting to Barista Costanza that he open a few more locations in the city; there’s a huge need.

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Tags: antonio costanza, best coffee in paris, best espresso in paris, cappuccino, coffee, espresso, macchiato, Paris, passage des panoramas

Stumptown Coffee

posted by adam on March 30, 2010

Drinking coffee is just as much about the ritual as it is about the flavor.

The imagery of escaping a hectic world to a calm coffee shop, nestling into an oversized chair, and sipping a drinkable work of art is the most inexpensive and cathartic 5-minute vacation money can buy. The added euphoria from high concentrations of caffeine is just icing on the cake.

However, good luck finding a seat in New York. Many of the newer coffee shops worth mentioning, like Abraço and Zibetto Expresso Bar, adopt the Italian stand-up counter-style concept of espresso whereby lingering is discouraged. And for the great shops with seats, like Joe the Art of Coffee and Ninth Street Espresso, it’s either tough to find one or the boisterous atmosphere doesn’t warrant productivity. This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but there are times where I’d like to have an intimate conversation, or conduct a meeting, and the above shops aren’t necessarily conducive to it.

Stumptown is different. Adjacent to the Ace Hotel in midtown off Broadway, Stumptown shares its seating with the hotel lobby. Yes there is still a counter for Italianophiles. But with the impressively fast complimentary wireless internet and abundance of seating in a dimly lit room, the Stumptown/Ace Hotel lobby is quickly becoming an entrepreneurial hotspot. As evidenced by the sea of glowing white apples, tight jeans, and headphones, the young atmosphere is opportune to both work and relaxation.

The coffee is excellent, too. The shop roasts its beans daily just across the east river in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The debonair baristi, dressed with rolled-up sleeves and fedoras, are well-trained with a low tolerance for imperfection. During my first visit, the barista threw out my macchiato twice before finally approving the third (heck the first two looked perfect to me).

The house espresso blend is called Hair Bender and is served as a double ristretto, fourteen grams of espresso per twenty-five second shot. The aroma is of semi-sweet chocolate with hints of toast and notes of roses. All milk comes from Hudson Valley Farms which is sweet enough on its own, not calling for the addition of sugar in a macchiato or cappuccino. All of the equipment is La Marzocco, accurate to within a tenth of a degree to extract as much natural oils from the beans as possible in twenty five seconds without burning.

The staff, so it seems, is genuinely kind too. Aside from conversation starters asking how my day has been and where I’m from, I once made a fool of myself by dropping my iPhone into my cappuccino, and without asking, replacement cappuccino was made immediately. I still felt pretty stupid, but they definitely didn’t have to do that.

And so Stumptown is now a member of my three favorite coffee places in the city, right alongside Joe the Art of Coffee and Ninth Street Espresso. But the comfortable seating and radiant energy makes me go there much more regularly than anywhere else. The environment is perfect for enjoying an espresso with a group of friends, or for sipping a cappuccino while coding with headphones. It is one of the first spaces in New York that, upon entry, transports me to San Francisco. And I highly recommend it.

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Tags: ace hotel, coffee, espresso, macchiato, new york city

Ninth Street Espresso

posted by adam on March 6, 2010

I always liked drip coffee. But it wasn’t until last summer that I began to enjoy espresso. I had a revelation sometime last June, at Joe the Art of Coffee, where for the first time my espresso didn’t taste sour or burnt; rather it was subtle and chocolatey with nutty hints of maple syrup. It was outstanding. And since that moment, I’ve become obsessed.

Frankly it wasn’t until more recently that I began to appreciate the tremendous skill involved with extracting espresso. I began pulling espresso daily using my Rancilio Sylvia modified with an Auber Instruments PID kit to help maintain proper brewing temperature. I started pulling some incredible shots, intermixed with some not-so-great ones. The hardest part, I quickly learned, was consistency. There are so many variables (like temperature, pressure, temping pressure, grind size, ambient humidity, and bean age) that turned this into a real science. What makes Ninth Street so impressive is its consistency: rarely have I had a poorly extracted espresso. Their baristi too, are obsessed.

Ninth Street Espresso deserves the credit of introducing New York City to a new wave of coffee brewers. Ones that took an eye to quality and taste, rather than quantity and dollars. Having opened nearly ten years ago in 2001 by Ken Nye, Ninth Street has brewed the coffee of every major American roaster: Stumptown, Counter Culture, and currently Intelligentsia, which roasts their own Alphabet City blend. And as such the attitude of the baristi is one of understated confidence: not pretentious; but they sure know what they are doing.

My favorite way to drink espresso is a triple macchiato. It’s what I make at home every morning. A 21-gram puck tamped with around thirty pounds of pressure, extracted for just over 25-seconds and “stained” with a dollop of whole milk. The ability to create art (a “rosetta”) while pouring the milk indicates the perfect texture and temperature of the silky smooth micro-foam: too thin and and the milk will just blend, too thick and it will sit on top of the espresso with large bubbles. While I do enjoy this drink by itself, a pinch of Sugar in the Raw brings out the caramel and chocolate flavors even more.

When I’m in the mood to linger for a longer conversation, I order a triple cappuccino. It uses the same twenty-one gram shot of espresso, only significantly more milk. The wider cup and added milk gives the barista more flexibility to make artwork on the top, usually in the form of a heart or olive leaf. The sweet whole milk needs no additional sugar.

All of Ninth Street’s espresso drinks use triple shots. But don’t get scared, this is not the same as a triple espresso. It’s actually a triple ristretto (Italian for “restricted”), meaning three times the beans but for the same extraction time yielding the same quantity of a single shot. (A traditional double espresso has double the quantity, and a triple espresso, triple the quantity.) So here, the result is a more luxurious shot (extra wasted beans) with more natural oils. The caffeine content is something in-between a single and double espresso. By contrast, Joe the Art of Coffee does something similar but with double-ristrettos (14g) instead of triples (21g).

So make a morning out of it. Being located in Alphabet City means the original Ninth Street is not so easy to get to. But this can be a good thing: there is always ample seating and a laid back atmosphere filtering out all but the most dedicated coffee cognoscenti. Don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation with the baristi. Even if they appear a bit quiet or even austere at first, they enjoy educating customers about their coffee and technique. It’s a learning experience that won’t be forgotten. And what better way to learn something new, than with a rich chocolatey macchiato?

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Tags: alphabet city, coffee, espresso, intelligentsia, ken nye, macchiato

Joe the Art of Coffee

posted by adam on October 18, 2009

Coffee fuels the city that never sleeps. Unfortunately, most of it is terrible. But there are exceptions.

It would be unfair to not give Starbucks tremendous credit for raising awareness of coffee and its many forms; however, most of its products remain heavily sugared and over-diluted with milk, cream, and syrups. It’s become fast-food drinkable dessert. And even assuming that its beans are of decent quality, its computerized machines over-extract them while many of its unskilled “baristas” continue to flip on the milk steamer and walk away to help other customers, leaving the milk burnt and undrinkable. What was once a trendy logo to carry in your hand is now a red flag for poor taste.

However, a better educated coffee-craving public now has higher demands that Starbucks cannot fulfill in its current form. For this new demand, boutique coffee shops have been opening up and thriving. So much so, in fact, that Starbucks has been opening unbranded, clandestine shops with a community feel to trick consumers into thinking they’re local shops. But no matter how hard they try, it will be hard to emulate what’s available at Joe the Art of Coffee on Waverly.

In looking back at my summer in New York, this small corner shop at 141 Waverly is the one place I kept re-visiting over and over again. Not only is this the best espresso in New York; but frankly, it’s better than anything I’ve had in Italy. I can’t get enough of it.

Espresso here is really a misnomer, since all shots are double ristrettos; instead of 7 grams of ground beans extracted for 25 seconds, 14 grams are extracted in the same amount of time. The net effect is half the stress on each bean resulting in a richer, rounder, thicker pull with more of the natural oils. The resulting taste is of rich dark chocolate and caramel with an intoxicating scent of butter popcorn.

I have noticed that each barista here leaves his own unique signature on the coffee. But whether you get more or less milk in a cappuccino or a heart versus an olive branch in a macchiato really comes down to preference: all the barristas here are highly trained and skillful. Granted the La Marzocco equipment used here, accurate to 0.1 degrees farenheit, narrows the possibility of error a bit. But great coffee is no easy task, and consistently great coffee, as found here, requires the unique blend of deft barristas, great beans, and careful machinery, everything which can be found only here at Joe’s.