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OK I cant say I really expected much but the other options didnt look much better so my wife and I ended up there for morning tea. I wasnt feeling too adventurous so we got some food and an iced chocolate, all of which was quite nice. Anyway I saw they had a collection of different roast level beans on display, a few hessian bags full of roasted coffee that just happened to get dumped artistically on the shop floor and also a brief writeup on the Costa Rican coffee they were using, its sparkling acidity and encouraging all to Try One Today!, information about their cupping and coffee making courses and so on which all lent a slightly positive appearance to things. Having sat there for a while and never actually tried their coffee for myself I started to feel a bit more adventurous and decided to find out for myself what it was really like. So up to the counter and asked the girl for a double ristretto. "A what?". Thinking (hoping) she just hadnt heard me over the background noise, I repeated "A double ristretto". She looked a bit sideways at me and replied, "Uhh, whats that?" :
. Oh dear. Fair enough, not everyone agrees on what a ristretto is, but surely youd at least have heard the term, especially if youre supposed to be teaching other people how to make espresso-based drinks! I explained how to make it as an espresso cut short (for this purpose anyway), what to put it through the till as and (to be on the safe side) to cut the shot at about 15ml. I then hung loosely around the end of the counter trying not to make her feel under pressure but wanting to see how it was made. The shot started pouring, and pouring, and pouring at which point I turned away and gave up. What came out was an espresso at best, average amount of crema but fairly pale, and volume was probably more like 40ml! The taste was definitely Central American in its intensity (in my experience anyway), reasonably balanced but quite thin and moderately bitter. It was by no stretch of the imagination a ristretto, or even a good espresso for that matter.
I didnt really expect much else, but at least now I know!
. Oh dear. Fair enough, not everyone agrees on what a ristretto is, but surely youd at least have heard the term, especially if youre supposed to be teaching other people how to make espresso-based drinks! I explained how to make it as an espresso cut short (for this purpose anyway), what to put it through the till as and (to be on the safe side) to cut the shot at about 15ml. I then hung loosely around the end of the counter trying not to make her feel under pressure but wanting to see how it was made. The shot started pouring, and pouring, and pouring at which point I turned away and gave up. What came out was an espresso at best, average amount of crema but fairly pale, and volume was probably more like 40ml! The taste was definitely Central American in its intensity (in my experience anyway), reasonably balanced but quite thin and moderately bitter. It was by no stretch of the imagination a ristretto, or even a good espresso for that matter.I didnt really expect much else, but at least now I know!
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