Coffee Horror Stories

[Melbroaster]

Have you had a cafe prepared coffee that was memorable for the wrong reasons? Have you made a coffee at home and accidentally shattered the nearby fish tank with a flying portafilter handle? Well this is a thread to share the tale.....😃

[Melbroaster]

I will kick us off. I went to a cafe today and asked for a double espresso. This was prepared in front of me via letting one stream from a double pf basket extract into the cup, and the other side go to the drip tray. They stopped the shot after around 30 seconds and handed me the 'double'. Pointed out my confusion, and they apologised and with the same coffee still in the pf ran the pump for another 30 seconds to give me my ' 'double'. 😂.

Tried it for humours sake, and it tasted as bad as you would imagine it would. 😃😃😃

[LeroyC]

Dropped my PF on my toe once. That wasn't great. Took nearly a year for my toenail to fully recover.

[sprezzatura]

I was testing a machine's pump pressure at the group head and nothing was registering on the gauge ... nothing ... the café owner and I are waiting for something to happen and water starts pouring over our shoes off the counter because the OPV isn't holding anything back and the drip cup overflowed.

Oops...

[sprezzatura]

Best hot spot of the year contender!

[Roubaix]

Melbroaster....I can go slightly better. I ordered a long black and the entire drink went through the portafilter....

[Brisboy]

I ordered a flat white in a cafe probably six years ago. It was memorable. There were grounds in the cup. Nasty.

[MorganGT]

Best hot spot of the year contender!

....even better if you accidentally grab a new coil from the wrong box and fit a Cimbali 24V coil instead of a 230V one - makes a nice BANG when you activate it!

[sprezzatura]

....even better if you accidentally grab a new coil from the wrong box and fit a Cimbali 24V coil instead of a 230V one - makes a nice BANG when you activate it!

I kinda accidentally blew up a (the wrong) 24V contactor coil once.

[50mm]

Ordered coffee at a chain shop overseas once from desperation and they forgot the coffee

[sprezzatura]

Ordered coffee at a chain shop overseas once from desperation and they forgot the coffee

They did you a favour (?).

[flynnaus]

Ordered coffee at a chain shop overseas once from desperation and they forgot the coffee

Did you mean they served you with a cup of hot water or they didn't serve you at all?

[joanneebell]

I work in a cafe where my boss likes to put the portafilter handle into the group head, then prepare the milk, and only then extract the coffee shot. She's also not keen on backflushing, wiping the steam wand or purging the steam wand. She pre grinds a bag of coffee at a time, lets it sit in the grinder overnight. And to the best of my knowledge, the grinder is NEVER cleaned. She also heats milk to a good 80'C as that's the way she likes it. I'm no expert but....it makes me cringe. She's an older lady who doesn't like to be told. I bite my tongue a lot and just clean things up best I can when i work.

[noonar]

Went into an industrial estate café and ordered a flat white, I could see the twin group machine on the counter in front of me with lights on. "Yep no worries I just turned it on you'll have to wait about 5 minutes for it to warm up" No worries says me. The person then disappeared into the back kitchen whence I thought I could hear a kettle boiling but thought nothing of it. 3 minutes later the person appeared with a steaming hot polystyrene cup and presented it to me. I paid and left heading straight to the bin.

[Stu76]

That sounds eerily similar to a Welshpool lunch bar I had the misfortune of visiting...once