You'd think there was a market in the USA for coffee which doesn't taste like ash and ground insects ... but no.
I've watched Portlandia, all of it, and it suggests the place is run by a cabal of barristas, but I couldn't find one. The only place I could find downtown was a choclatier who offered me 'eXspresso'.
I nearly got into a fist fight with the barrista in MOMA's sculpture garden, when I could smell the milk burning during her cappucino steaming ... from 20 feet away!
I have avoided Starbucks 'pumpkin flavoured' coffee in SF (unsure where to put the scare quotes in "starbucks pumpkin flavoured coffee.")
But now I think I've seen everything, in San Marcos. I watched the barrista try to charge the head from a grinder that clearly hasn't been cleaned since it left the factory ... It kinda chugged and wheezed. I saw him hold both the head and the tamper in his hands, and apply basically no force, just enough to pat the surface down. I saw him let half the shot pour into the trough ... Called him on that, he insisted it was normal (and after I tasted the product, I have to agree with him that was the right place for it). After all this indignity I saw him lovingly ladle an ocean of froth over the resultant ash water.
What the hell is going on? He told me, when I quietly took him aside to ask, that he knows he's supposed to tamp the charge down with considerable force, but it hurt his wrist. I am speechless.
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