Good Coffee Where? --- New Section on CS.

[takeaim]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS

Haha, I think that has already began in the VIC section. Everyone is always bound to have their favourites and itll become even harder when they are the employees of the various cafes.

Its going to become a whose *bleep* is bigger than whose *bleep*

Not at all, ive always recommended other cafes/roasters if they do it well, and if anything I wont feel right mentioning one of the cafes Atomica supplies because it may show bias.
I made many suggestions for the upcoming coffee guide, most of which are using other roasters.

[luca]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS

Hey guys,

Its great to see an attempt being made to do something like this. There are certainly a lot of pitfalls to be avoided, but this could also potentially be a very useful resource. I propose the following; please feel free to shoot this down and propose alternatives - hopefully this thread will produce some useful guidelines for the new section.

(1) Posts should be entitled "Suburb - Cafe"

This way all of the feedback for a particular place is grouped together and it is easy to find places in a particular suburb. I dont know if an alphabetical sort is possible, but if the threads have titles like this, an alphabetical sort would group the threads by suburb. Listing each cafe individually also means that the most recent reviews will be at the top and the older ones will fall to the bottom, which is important to both searchers and cafe owners.

(2) The first post in a thread should contain all the basic details

Yes, its usually pretty easy to google up the details, but sometimes its not. It would be nice if posters included name, address, location, opening hours, the types of food that are served, the coffee used and whether or not it is possible to buy whole bean coffee there. Im sure that some cafes will have uniquely important things to note, eg. difficult locations, parking, kid-friendliness, no soy, etc.

(3) Reviews should describe, not rate

I think that consumer cafe review web pages with ratings options usually provide suspect information. The vast majority of reviewers tend to just give out whatever the highest rating is, then you get a few reviews with the lowest rating. Ratings systems are not useful unless the reviewers are somehow calibrated. Ratings systems also give rise to the mines better than yours problem. To give you an example of how useless ratings can be, I remember that for ages, one cafe review web page had a top rating of a cafe that the reviewer had visited once ... for a hot chocolate!

It should be perfectly possible to work out whether or not you will like a cafe by reading a description of the coffee. Realistically, if you havent been to a cafe before, you probably only care about whether or not the coffee is good enough to justify the trip, not about exactly where it fits in the spectrum of things. The exception is if you are trying to make a pilgrimage to get the absolute best coffee that you can, in which case everyones opinions tend to differ anyway - as you can see from any of the "best coffee in X" threads. Avoiding putting up some arbitrary number also makes things a lot simpler for the reviewer, who then doesnt have to worry about whether or not they are being consistent with other reviewers, some of whom will invariably just give the highest mark anyway. People ought not feel anxious about describing coffee; honest opinions held by real people are a lot more useful than overly detailed and flowery language - I often feel that the more words, the more likely the writer has missed the point. (Which is why I hate proof reading my own work ;P) Personally, I think that some of the best espresso reviews around are on coffeecuppers.com.

Once you read a description, you should be able to work out whether or not that cafe is for you.

(4) Reviewers should state what their experience is based on

Consistently good cafes are gems, but even excellent cafes have bad days for whatever reason. It is important to know (ballpark) how many times a reviewer has been to a cafe to work out how reliable the review is. This might also aid in identifying shill postings, though hopefully the 50+ posts rule will cut those out.

Whilst I dont think that we would want to read an exhaustive list of each and every drink consumed at the cafe, it would be useful to know whether the reviewer had drunk espresso, milk drinks or both.

(5) Reviews should be discouraged, or prohibited, unless the reviewer has a reasonable amount of information

Reviews are not useful unless they are backed by actual experience. The coffee internet often degenerates into people parroting pearls of wisdom back and fort and it is not uncommon for them to turn out to be false.

We would need to work out what a reasonable amount of information is. My gut reaction would be something like three or four of the same type of drink on a few different occasions.

This policy would limit the overall number of posts, but would probably result in the quality being relatively high.

(6) Posters should declare any interests that they have in posting

Pretty self-explanatory and probably doesnt apply to most posters. I think that leaving it up to the reviewer to decide whether or not to ignore a post that isnt from an impartial person probably strikes the right balance, particularly in a country with so few people in the industry - know one and you know almost know em all ;P

(7) Threads should not be created to bag a place

The section talks about "good coffee," not bad coffee. I dont think that anyone really wants to read random criticisms. However, people should still feel that they can respond to positive reviews with their negative experiences, provided that their post complies with the above guidelines, otherwise the new forum could well become inaccurate.

Good move on giving this a shot, Andy. Reviewing coffee isnt rocket science, but, still, this could be great or totally crap.

Fire away!

Luca

[Shannon]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

That is a great post Luca

A number of your points ring true for me - well ALL ring true - a number REALLY ring true. First and formost it does not pay not to play nice (or even a little tongue in cheek I think) because at the end of the day it has right from the start been flagged as only a trial and if anything goes down the wrong path it may be canned and then we all miss out on something that could be of great benefit to a lot of people, both seasoned drinkers and newbies wanting to try out there coffee tastebuds for different types of good coffee.

I agree that this should be for the good cafes rather than it ending up being dont go here or there, because at the end of the day if I am going out on a day trip somewhere in Sydney, or am on holidays somewhere, I would rather know where to go rather where not to go as I accept if I am out of my comfort zone I may end up with somthing not to write home about if I cant make it to one of the recommended places.

To go along with the above, I personnally still feel that coffee and all that goes with it is a very subjective thing. I am not an overly big espresso drinker so I would never feel as though I could rate anything on shots. Put some sort of milk in it and I might think about saying something. Also what I like in a coffee may not be what someone else likes. I would be willing to take a lower grade coffee if the area/ambience was good and the family liked whatever else was on offer, but there would be a lot here that wouldnt care if they were watching haleys comet pass over niagra falls on a moonlit night - if the coffee was crap they would tip it out in front of the barista and high tail it out of there

Even though most here have far more experience than I and I would definately listen to a lot of people about what is good, we still need to take it with a grain of salt. I have about 170 posts and could easily say something here and if a new person did not know me they would look at the posts and might take what I have to say highly. If that same person saw a review by hazel (who still cannot post yet) and went on posts, they might not take what she says as high I know who I would defer to ;D ;D

I really hope that this section gets to stay here as a good resource and am confident that we can keep it here as long as we stay positive (and maybe not post until we have been a few times to make sure it was not a one off etc.

[Thundergod]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

Ive already passed on a few recommendations to a work colleague is is going interstae for twoo weeks for training.

Shannon mentioned "subjective" and as I havenr personally tried any of those places, I used the same word but hes going to give some a go.

I wouldnt be recommending them to him if I didnt trust you lot just a little.  


P.S. Funny point that Hazel doesnt qualify to post in the new section.   ;D

[yeeza]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

P.S. Funny point that Hazel doesnt qualify to post in the new section.   ;D

The other snobs and I can see if she qualifies to be put in the new section when we goto her "Flint & Steel" store-front opening on Saturday ;D A big stab in the dark here, but Im guessing shell pass.

[yeeza]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

One other thing that ive just picked up, is that its a "Good Coffee Where?" guide, not a cafe/espresso bar guide. Theres a difference there. So maybe things such as food and ambience arent so important..... I know some great specialty roasters around where itd suck to have a sit down coffee next to the shop roaster, but would fit nicely into the Good Coffee Where part.
Just a thought anyway.

[Scorpion]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

Thanks to Luca for an excellent "how to do" guide. I agree completely that if we focus on what is good, without using a formal rating system, and also avoid any bad reviews, then it should be a great resource. Hopefully the mods can idenntify any posts which bbreak these two golden rules and immediately remove them. Looking forward to using this even though it will be some time before I could post to it.

S

[island_girl]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

Wouldnt it be fantastic if every cafe served up a close to perfect shot every time. Im out and about a lot and get so peeved at the quality(lack of) of most places I go to.
When I find a goodie I want to do the big rave but alas most of my friends would drink anything,. Unfortunately It will be a while before I can post an opinion/review.
IG

[Andy]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

Unfortunately It will be a while before I can post an opinion/review

True, the other thing you can always do is to get another CSr with >50 posts to post for you.... a buddy system if you like.

[Identity]

Re: Good Coffee Where?  --- New Section on CS.

Im only going to disagree with luca on 1/7th of his points, but I could just be playing Devils Advocate.

For the Not AU places, e.g. non-local haunts, I think creating reviews to bag a place isnt necessarily a bad idea. For if youre travelling to an area and are a coffeesnob, you dont try the random cafe assuming that it

a) wasnt found
b) was found but wasnt tried
c) wasnt to person Xs taste but might be to yours.

If we assume that the basis of a review is the Sydney or Melbourne artisan cafe standard, so a latte is served in a glass with milk more stretched than a flat white, that a ristretto is shorter than an espresso and that a single espresso is 25-30ml of coffee, and that review points are more about extraction (over-extraction/blonding/no crema) and meeting some kind of standard or local interpretation of the standard, then a review which says "in this rural place, this cafes coffee was this way and this cafes coffee was another way" is a useful indicator to us.

Personally, and Ive got a few motives for cafe reviewing, I try to make sure any review I do carries a picture, even if its a poor one. This picture ideally has

1) The drink Im sipping on
2) The cafes name on their business card, menu or decor
3) A shot which makes the location identifiable and verifiable.

The reason for this is that while my opinion is always subjective, I think its a positive to show that I went in, bought a cup and drank what I reviewed (or tried to), which prevents me from slating a cafe based purely on reputation.

cheers

John

PS. The picture is of a Cafe Latte in Wannabes in Barmouth, Wales, UK. This is the only place in Barmouth that serves espresso, and it uses a boutique roaster to produce......icebergs! Isnt this worth knowing before you order three of them?