the cappuccino review blog

Intelligent Conversation about Starbucks

2010-01-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

In the process of making my film, I noted a couple things:

1. EVERYONE has an opinion on Starbucks. I mean everyone. Even people who don't drink coffee.

2. Point #1 notwithstanding, it is extremely difficult to have a rational, measured discussion of Starbucks. If you utter any criticism of Starbucks, you are an anti-corporate hippie who is hopelessly out of touch with WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT. (If you doubt me, please view the comments section of my film's trailer on youtube.) If you praise Starbucks, you are a soulless capitalist stooge. In either case, your comments are immediately de-legitimized because you are assumed to have a position that is based on your politics and not on any kind of rational assessment of Starbucks' pros and cons. And if you are mostly interested in Starbucks not for Starbucks itself but for what its existence says about the society that gave rise to it? Well, forget it. That's too complicated. People would much rather size you up as either a Starbucks Hater or a Starbucks Cheerleader and leave it at that.

So one of my greatest pleasures in making my film was getting the chance to meet and interview Bryant Simon. Bryant is a history professor and Director of American Studies at Temple University, and he's also the author of the recently released Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks. I first learned about Bryant when he appeared in the pages of the New Yorker in early 2006. (Yes, I read the New Yorker. I guess that makes me a Starbucks-and-America-hating hippie.) I was intrigued by the thought of a man who made an academic pursuit out of spending days and days and days of his life in Starbucks, observing what went on around him. So I called Bryant to see if I could interview him for my film. And what I remember most about our first phone conversation is this: Bryant said that in his opinion, Starbucks is a mirror. It's a mirror of who we are and what we want. And by looking into that mirror, we can learn a lot about ourselves. I was gleeful when I got off the phone. Finally! Someone with whom to have intelligent conversation about Starbucks! My visit with Bryant in Philadelphia was certainly one of the most interesting days I spent shooting my film (and there were MANY interesting days).

I'm pleased to report that Bryant's book is a continuation of that intelligent conversation. Books about Starbucks tend to fall into the Cheerleader or Hater categories too - either corporate hagiographic fluff or anti-corporate rants. And while there are entertaining examples in both genres, Everything But the Coffee is refreshing in that it stays true to Bryant's notion of Starbucks as a mirror. Starbucks is not the point. We are.

Bryant will be doing some readings on the west coast this week, in Tempe, Seattle, and San Francisco. So if you happen to be in one of those cities, go check him out! You won't be disappointed. You can find out more about it on Bryant's blog. And if you are not in one of those cities... well, you can always buy the book. I highly recommend it.

The 2008-09 Round-Up

2009-10-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a ridiculously long time since I updated this blog. Reason #1 is right here in the picture.

This is my daughter Adele. She was born last April, in what was for me 16 hours of patient spectating while my body worked its evolutionarily determined magic. I have become one of those wacky people who walks around rhapsodizing about the incredible joy of natural childbirth to anyone who will listen. I think I am still high from the experience. Since then, I have accumulated a running list of all the parenthood clichés that have turned out to be true… about how childbirth was so transformative an experience that my whole life is now divided into Life Before Adele and Life After Adele… about how I didn’t really understand love to the fullest until I met Adele and experienced a shared love for her and our family with Michael… about how I am standing by ready to eviscerate anyone who breathes on her wrong. It has been a strange, intense hormonal trip-out.

Nothing like having a baby to remind you that you are an animal.

But don’t worry. I will spare you my clog-wearing California mommy musings on cloth diapers and the joys of lactation. Rather, I bring this up by way of explanation. It’s been almost a year (!) since I last updated this blog, and during that time, my coffee habits just haven’t been what they once were. I did drink coffee during my pregnancy, although I definitely cut back quite a bit. And I am continuing to drink coffee while nursing, although, again, I am trying to take it easy on the caffeine. And on top of that, given how clumsy I am and how frequently I am carrying Adele in what I think of as Baby-As-Napkin position, I have switched to drinking A LOT of iced coffee. (which I drip on her pretty regularly, alas; people think I put hats on her because they are cute. But my little secret is that hats protect her from getting cookie crumbs and iced coffee drips in her precious few strands of hair.) Also, the last year saw me relocate to Oakland – a fascinating city full of a great diversity of humans and all kinds of surprises, one of which, unfortunately, is a total dearth of decent espresso. So in spite of the fact that I live in lovely Rockridge, walking distance from butchers, bakers, produce markets, a slew of incredible restaurants and a kick-ass weekly farmers market, the coffee around here, in a word, BLOWS. I mean, it has been hard times. There’s so much good coffee in the bay area, but most of it has somehow skipped over Oakland and Berkeley. So what was there to write about, other than my dissatisfaction, which you can read about in plenty of other places?

However, I recently stumbled across a brand spanking new, not-even-really-open-yet coffee place here in Oakland that is actually very good. And it got me thinking about this blog and how long it has been since I have gotten all excited about a new coffee joint. So I’ve started stealing bits of Adele’s nap time to work on this blog and will be reporting on the new place in Oakland very soon. In the meantime, I figured it might be worth running down the list of highlights of the last year…

September 2008: While in Kansas City for a screening of my film at the Kansas International Film Festival, I had the good fortune to get a cappuccino at Espresso Dell’Anatra. Holy God. It was simply amazing. It was rich and delicious and overwhelmingly chocolate-y for a drink with no actual chocolate in it. It was easily the best cappuccino I had all year, made all the more tasty by the fact that it was improbably located in a strip mall across from a Target and an IHOP.

November 2008: I took a quick trip to Houston to screen my film as part of Real Films, an ongoing documentary screening series there. A referral from Mike McKim of Cuvee Coffee led me to Catalina Coffee, a (then) newly opened shop in Houston. The guys from Catalina came out the screening, made some kick-ass cappuccinos for the crowd and participated in one of the best post-screening discussions I have ever been a part of. The next day I went back to Catalina with my cousin Derek to try another one of their cappuccinos. Yup. Still good.

February 2009: I went to Reno for a community screening at The River School, a community event space and sustainability study center on the Truckee River. This event was a lot like the one in Houston, only this time the coffee was served by the folks from Walden’s Coffee House (which serves Barefoot Coffee). Again, the discussion after the screening was among the best I’ve ever been a part of. Most of the time when you make a movie, you have some vague ideas about wanting to stimulate discussion with it, but it’s so rare that you actually get to be a part of it. The Reno screening was one of those rare times when the movie was just the starting point for a much larger conversation about consumption, sustainability (environmental and financial) and aesthetics. I felt lucky to be there.

March 2009: While in San Luis Obispo for the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, we did a couple of additional screenings at Joe Momma’s in Avila Beach. It was great to get to know Micheal and Mary Kay Kidd a little better, and the audiences at both Joe Momma’s screenings were terrific.

OK, that’s the wrap-up for the year. (Ha!) Hopefully I will have plenty more to report soon… it would be nice to NOT be able to count the good cappuccinos I’ve had in the past year on one hand.

A Happy Accident - Joe Momma's in Avila Beach

2008-11-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago, I took a little road trip down the coast, and something happened. Something that never, ever happens to me anymore. I accidentally stumbled across a near-perfect cappuccino. The home of this spectacular cappuccino was a cafe called Joe Momma's in tiny Avila Beach, California, population 797.

I have traveled a lot and tried plenty of cappuccinos, even in towns as small as Avila Beach. But at this point, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to find (more or less), because I've researched the hell out of it on the coffee internet. So when I know I'm going somewhere new, I generally get on, say, coffeegeek and look up the city I'm going to, find out which coffee shops are supposed to be decent, and then go try them. And I've found, over time, that the hive mind on the internet is not often wrong. The places people say are great are usually pretty great. And vice versa.

But on this particular day, back in June, I hadn't been on the coffee internet in a while. I'd been insanely busy finishing my film (it is finished! Visit the website for more info on screenings, etc.), and I just hadn't had the time to make my usual rounds of coffeegeek, alt.coffee, home-barista, coffeed, etc. So I found myself sitting on a very windy beach on a sunny afternoon. And I turned to the Very Wonderful Michael and said, "Let's go find some coffee. It'll probably suck." So we walked up to the row of shops facing the beach and wandered into Joe Momma's.

The first sign that this place was out of the ordinary was the fact that on the menu board they list a "traditional cappuccino." I asked what the difference was between traditional and non-traditional, and they said that the traditional was the only one they serve - small, porcelain cup, single shot, wet foam... music to my ears. They just put "traditional" on the menu board as a warning to folks who might be expecting a 20-ounce cup of meringue on top of their espresso. Then I noticed that Joe Momma's serves coffees from both Ritual Coffee Roasters and Intelligentsia. I started getting excited.

And this was the result. It was delicious. Even Michael the Picky Drinker had to concede that it was among the best he's ever had. I felt joyful for the rest of the day. And then we went back the next morning - still wonderful.

It seems to me that the world is definitely changing when I can stumble across a top-notch cappuccino in a town this small. It's no longer unusual to find espresso bars in small towns (although I can very well remember when that was impossible), but it is definitely still unusual to find good espresso anywhere, much less in a tiny town. So... Joe Momma's may be an anomaly, but I'm hoping not. And I think the coffee internet is probably to be credited for this. The thing that has continued to fascinate me about the third wave is that it does not seem to have a geographic center, and it is in no way the sole property of big cities. Having been raised in San Francisco, I was kind of force-fed the idea that big cities are the origin and center of all cultural developments, and that it takes a while for said cultural developments to reach the provinces (or, as my sound design professor in film school used to call it, "Cupcake, Indiana." As in, "Sure, we like it, but how's this movie going to play in Cupcake, Indiana?")

But the third wave defies that model in a lot of ways. You can certainly argue that third wave ideals had their origin in big cities, but the movement is definitely thriving in Cupcake, Indiana. In fact, if you look at this on a per capita basis, I think Cupcake, Indiana might be kicking San Francisco's ass right now. Seriously. I've had some really great coffee recently in towns that most San Franciscans (who, I'll hasten to add, are mostly just transplants from Ohio themselves) look down their noses at: Sacramento, Capitola, San Luis Obispo, Walnut Creek... and that's just here in California. (Just wait till I get around to blogging about my recent trip to Kansas City.) I mean, if San Francisco had one coffee shop as good as Joe Momma's for every 797 inhabitants, I'd be in HEAVEN right now. My work here would be done. If the city of Oakland (pop. 397,067) had even ONE coffee shop half that good, I'd be pretty happy.

But let me get back to my earlier point: I attribute the de-centralization of the third wave to the internet. I'd be curious to hear from shop owners and roasters on this, but I am a pretty regular lurker on some of the industry chat forums, and it seems that there is an active online community of people who are exchanging advice and support pretty freely from all over North America and even the world. All the coffee pioneers seem to have banded together on the internet to learn from each other how to succeed in this business and how best to continue the pursuit of quality coffee. So as much as I have previously lamented the internet's negative influence on our interpersonal skills, and as much as I have insisted that there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction, I have to rejoice a little in the existence of the coffee internet. I love the idea of democratizing something that has previously been considered "high culture."

Call me Ishmael

2008-10-29T18:36:00.001-07:00

OK, so this is not a cappuccino review (more are coming, I swear... I'm just way, way behind on my blogging. But some articles are in the works.)

Anyway, my film has started screening around at festivals - mostly in the midwest and south. And the following mini-review appeared on the Pegasus News website as part of a preview of the upcoming Dallas Video Festival, where my film will be screening on November 9. And... well... it cracked me up. So I had to share...

"The Perfect Cappuccino (screening Sun. at 10:30 a.m.) serves up 90 minutes of creamy caffeinated goodness as filmmaker Amy Ferraris chronicles her obsession with a beverage that has led her by the taste buds from Bologna, Italy to Tulsa, Oklahoma in search of - you guessed it - the perfect cappuccino. Amy's documentary plays like the Moby Dick of coffee house culture - and guess which white whale stands to receive a good harpooning? After presenting us with a primer on the history of espresso and the variables in play during cappuccino creation (hint: it's all about the barista), Amy dives into her more challenging subject matter: why is it that Americans are so enraptured with Starbucks? She presents her theory that we, as a coffee-drinking nation, are entering into the "third wave" of coffee culture, defined as: 1. Folgers, 2. Starbucks and 3. Independent, quality-conscious coffee bars that foster community while dispensing deliciously-addictive coffee beverages."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!! (Why does the phrase "90 minutes of creamy caffeinated goodness" make me feel dirty? If I wasn't worried about winding up in the porn section of the video store, I would totally make that a review quote on the DVD packaging.)

Also, I love how this reviewer gives me credit for coming up with the "third wave" idea. HUH?? I don't take credit for that idea! That's not "my" theory! Somebody got up to get some popcorn at the wrong moment.

Anyway... if you are not on the mailing list, go check out the news/screenings page of my website for all the latest details on screenings.

(And if you're not on the mailing list, why not?? Go to my website and sign up!)

A visit from a fellow obsessive seeker

2008-07-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure of getting a cup of coffee with Nathan Slabaugh. Nathan's a trumpet player with the circus and therefore has the opportunity to travel all over the U.S. constantly. On his travels, he has been searching for... the perfect mocha.

I'm not kidding. He carries around a little black book in which he has obsessively cataloged his impressions of over 500 mochas he's had at coffee shops all over the country. He also has a podcast, and he roasts and serves coffee to his fellow circus performers out of his trailer.

A while back, Nathan found out about my own interest in the cappuccino and got in touch with me. And last week, he found himself in San Francisco for a few days, so we went and sipped some coffee together and had a chat. I took Nathan to try a mocha at Blue Bottle Coffee, because I know they make their mochas with chocolate from local chocolatier Michael Recchiuti. Nathan was a little coy about what he thought of it - but I gathered it was pretty good, although maybe not the best he'd ever had.

It was awesome to chat with someone who doesn't find it in the least strange that I have been mentally cataloging cappuccinos for the last dozen years. And I was forced to admit that while I may be obsessively interested in the cappuccino, I am remarkably inattentive to what makes a mocha a mocha (one thing I learned from Nathan: mochas made with powdered chocolate have a chalky aftertaste). I admit it: I have been guilty of looking down my nose at the mocha. Of believing it is what you drink when a coffee shop makes such terrible espresso that you need something to adulterate the flavor of the coffee. But Nathan has a reverence for the mocha as a culinary creation that I can't help but respect. And listening to him explain his interest in the drink, some parts of what he was saying sounded familiar. I mean, just because the vast majority of coffee shops make a terrible mocha and the vast majority of coffee drinkers don't appreciate what they're drinking, does that mean that someone shouldn't give a crap about what a good mocha actually is?

I guess not. So... hats off to Nathan and his quest. I'll continue to be curious about what he finds.

The Best Cappuccino I've Had in a While

2008-05-04T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I went camping in the Sierras this weekend (lovely but still a little chilly), and on my way back home I stopped at Temple Fine Coffee and Tea in downtown Sacramento and had one of the best cappuccinos I've had in a good long while.

(OK, actually, I judged at the Western Regional Barista Competition in late March, and I had some good ones there. The blog entry on that experience is still forthcoming, with all my usual blogging urgency. So let's say that this capp at Temple was the best one I've had in an actual coffee shop in a good long while.)

When I ordered, I was offered the choice between two espressos - a blend called Element 114 and a single origin Ethiopian coffee called Ghimbi, both roasted by Barefoot in Santa Clara. I chose the Ghimbi, and WOW. The cappuccino was basically delicious burnt caramel in a cup. And the milk was frothed to perfection - ideal temperature, ideal texture. I think I literally smacked my lips. It had the flavor of the crackly part of a creme brulee.

The experience also ran contrary to one of my pet theories, which is that it can be hard to get a top-notch cappuccino if you go at kind of an off-hour. I've had the experience dozens of times of going to a supposedly-wonderful shop that is home to championship barista or two and getting a cappuccino that is (let's be frank) kind of crappy, because I don't happen to be there during coffee prime time (i.e., a weekday morning). So the people working behind the bar are kind of the bench warmer baristas, and you can taste it. But I was at Temple at 4 pm on a Sunday. Honestly, I was expecting the D Team to be behind the bar. But it was still a gorgeous, perfectly-made drink. For the first time in many months, I am impressed.

Attention, Jay Caragay! I suck.

2008-02-19T14:23:00.002-08:00

Last fall I took a trip to Kentucky to visit my parents, during which time me and my mom drove out to Maryland together to visit my brother and his family for a few days (nine hours in the Buick with a box full of Rodgers and Hammerstein CD’s – I won’t deny it: some seriously cheesy white people singing went down). My brother lives in Eldersburg, a smallish community west of Baltimore, so in between catching up on General Hospital with my sister in-law and attending my nephews’ little league games, I got a chance to pay a visit to Spro Coffee in nearby Towson, Maryland. Here’s what I think about Spro Coffee: FUCK YEAH!!!

Seriously, I have been dreaming about that coffee ever since. I think I may have encountered the platonic ideal of espresso. No joke. But let me get into the particulars…

Spro Coffee is owned and operated by a character named Jay Caragay. I was familiar with Jay because he is the co-host of the portafilter podcast (which I have mentioned in this blog before) and because I saw him compete in the 2006 U.S. Barista Championships in Charlotte, N.C. I particularly remember his presentation, because he made a specialty drink involving a liquid (was it half and half?) that had been infused with cigar tobacco. Not for the first time, I found myself sitting in the audience at a barista competition wishing I were one of the judges so I could TASTE this stuff. I also knew of Jay prior to visiting his shop because he is something of a vocal presence on the coffee internet; he’s outspoken, irreverent, and not one to back down from a verbal online tussle. So… imagine my surprise when I learned that this man’s coffee “shop” is actually a kiosk located inside the local library. That’s right. Mere feet away from the spot where Miss Nancy treats the children of Towson to heartfelt readings of Where The Red Fern Grows during story hour, this shit-starting, smartmouthed badass of the Third Wave plies his trade.

I love this.

Anyway, over the course of an afternoon spent hanging out with Jay, I tried three different drinks, and they were all stupendous. The first was, of course, a cappuccino, made by Jay himself. This was it (yes, I took a few sips before I took the picture. Sorry to ruin your viewing pleasure.) It was textbook: smooth liquid-y foam and espresso that complemented the sweetness of the milk perfectly. Jay had recently made the decision to switch from commodity milk to organic milk from grass-fed local cows; in my estimation, the change was worth it. (You can read more about the agonizing decision to switch to better-quality-but-more-expensive milk on Jay’s blog.)

After I drank the cappuccino, the lovely barista in the picture (whose name I am blanking on because it’s been MONTHS since I was there – see title above) made me a house specialty drink that was equally impressive. In the intervening months, the memory of exactly what that drink was has failed me. But I remember that it involved honey, and it was nice and small – about the size of a macchiato – and it reminded me of Italy, where they know how to make flavored drinks without blenders and without the need for a 20-ounce plastic cup with a domed lid.

After two excellent drinks and some hangout time at the library, Jay took me over to nearby restaurant Woodberry Kitchen. And that’s where I saw god. We were just hanging out, taking a look around, and shooting the breeze with the restaurant’s owners (who formerly operated Artifact Coffee out of that same location) when Jay jumped on the restaurant’s 2-group Synesso and pulled me a plain old shot of espresso. Holy heck. It’s hard to put into words just what made this shot of espresso perfect, but it was certainly my idea of perfect. It was round and full and delicious; it was simply the coffee-est tasting coffee I’ve had in a very long time. And that is saying something. As has been noted repeatedly in the recent press about specialty coffee, the world of high quality coffee has adopted some of the attributes and affectations of the world of wine. Among the people who are doing exciting things with coffee, a lot of effort has been going into raising awareness of the terroir of individual coffees, and this often involves isolating or emphasizing the component flavors that make a particular coffee unique – a note of cherry over here, a floral aroma over there. Roasters, baristas and tasters alike, we’re all sitting around marveling at the melon-rind flavor in this coffee or whatever. Last time I was in Tulsa, I had a Guatemalan coffee that tasted a lot like pork chops. I kid you not. I mean, we are talking delicious, wonderful pork, king of the beasts. But still. This is something new. Espresso made from single-origin coffees rather than blends is new. Third Wave shops using their clovers to get customers to pause and identify the hint of hibiscus in their coffee is new. The cappuccino I had at Lulu’s in Santa Cruz a few weeks ago that was like somebody shoved a fruit basket up my nose is NEW. Don’t get me wrong. I have been REVELING in all these coffee experiences. I love all the experimenting that’s going on. I love that American roasters are playing around with espresso (and coffee in general) in ways that are standing Italian conventional wisdom about espresso on its ear. I love coffee that tastes like pork!

But it was nice, on this particular day back in September, to have a shot of espresso that was so perfectly espresso-ey. It was complex and simple at the same time; there were multiple taste sensations, but they were in such perfect balance that it would have been very difficult to single them out; they just gave me an overwhelming sensation of… COFFEE. That single shot of espresso has had some serious staying power in my psyche too. I’ve been tasting it over and over again in my imagination in the months since, which is extremely rare for me. (No kidding, the sense memories I have been having of this particular espresso would impress even the Norma Desmond-esque old bat who endeavored to teach us the Stanislavski Method back in film school.) Both Spro Coffee and Woodberry Kitchen get their espresso from Hines Public Market in British Columbia. So I guess a big shoutout goes to them. And to Jay for pulling such a beautiful shot on a machine that had mostly been sitting around doing nothing all day. And (I guess) to the folks at Synesso for making a good machine, and to the folks at Woodberry Kitchen for maintaining it.

(How did this suddenly turn into an oscar acceptance speech? All that’s missing is god and my agent.)

Anyway, thanks, Jay, for giving me a memorable coffee day! And sorry for taking so long to get around to writing about it! (see title above.)

CORRECTION - FEBRUARY 27, 2008:
I got the following update from Jay Caragay yesterday about his barista and about the coffee they serve at Woodberry Kitchen (owned by Spike, referenced below)...

"The barista that you met in the picture is Arianna Travaglini. She's a great barista who's been with me pretty much from the start of Spro. Like me, she likes to get up and travel the world from time to time.

Oh, and just a correction before Spike's roasters get their feathers ruffled. It's only when they run out of coffee that I give them a bag (or two) of Hines to tide them over until their next shipment. Their main roaster is Counter Culture Coffee of Durham, NC."

Milk in the Land

2008-01-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

I know this was very, very predictable of me, but the other night I went to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley to see a documentary about... MILK. That's right. One half of the dynamic duo that make up the cappuccino. My favorite source of sugar, fat and animal protein.

It was an experimental documentary entitled "Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink," and it centered around the idea of milk as the all-American wholesome beverage, picking apart where that perception came from and what this mundane food product and our way of looking at it reveal about us and our history and culture.

I was riveted.

You can find out more about the film here.

On another note, I know it has been three months since my last post. This does not mean that I have given up tasting cappuccinos. On the contrary, I have visited a bunch of interesting new places in the past three months, and I would like to write about a few of them, at least. I just haven't had time to, because I have been up to my eyeballs in work. (Work on my film, which is a heartbeat away from being done, and editing work on another reality TV special, this one about an all-women's chain gang at a jail in Phoenix, Arizona. Go ahead and ask me what "booty duty" is.) In any case, more cappuccino reviews are forthcoming, I promise!

Go to Intelligentsia. Do it now.

2007-10-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

I am a very bad blogger. Seven very short weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of being present at the grand opening party at Intelligentsia’s new coffee shop in Los Angeles. And I am only now getting around to blogging about it. (This blog is many things, but up-to-the-minute it ain't.)

Anyway, I was in Los Angeles for four days, and I found the opportunity to get my ass over to Intelligentsia every one of those days for one simple reason: the cappuccinos are out of this world. They are fantastic. They are my idea of perfection: 5-ounce porcelain cup, delicious caramel-y sweet espresso, perfectly frothed microfoam. And all of these cappuccinos undoubtedly tasted even better because they were accompanied by memories of the YEARS of agony I endured wandering all over L.A. County in search of a drinkable cappuccino.

Beyond the quality of its cappuccinos, though, Intelligentsia is a really interesting company. It has gotten a fair amount of attention for its Direct Trade model, which was born from the very Slow Food-ey conviction that many food producers are artisans and should be recognized as such. Direct Trade also requires environmentally and socially sustainable practices and full disclosure of prices/contracts from all parties (i.e., you really CAN find out how much money actually went to the farmer). You can read more about it on Intelligentsia’s website, or in this article from the NY Times. And Intelligentsia co-owner Geoff Watts does a brilliant job of explaining the differences between Direct Trade and Fair Trade in this letter. (Seriously. I know that sounds boring, but it’s a fascinating read. Well worth it.) What it all boils down to, though, is that Intelligentsia is one of the companies that is leading the way in taking the radical position that if we acknowledge coffee’s unique qualities as an agricultural product and stop treating (and trading) it like a commodity, everybody benefits. And what I LOVE about this is that you can actually taste it in the cup. You might not give a crap whether farm workers in Colombia are earning a living wage. But if you give a crap what your morning coffee tastes like, Intelligentsia’s business practices are good news for you.

However, I have to be honest about something: the thing that made me more excited than Direct Trade (even almost as excited as I was about the cappuccinos) is the following: when you walk into the shop, there are no cash registers visible anywhere. The first thing you see is the espresso machine, with the baristas facing you. And although there are tables in the very large patio area outside, there are none inside. There’s just a large, three-sided bar. One side has the espresso machine (a synesso); one side has two clovers (the cup-at-a-time coffee brewers); and the third side – back against the far wall – has counter seating. (Coffee blogger tonx actually posted a number of photos of the interior of this place on his flickr page, for those of you who want to get a clearer mental picture of what I’m talking about.)

In short, this place is set up more like a bar bar than a coffee bar. There are no signs saying “order here.” There are no airport-style cordoned paths to keep everybody in line. You have to sidle up to the bar and order your drink. And then you have to stand around and wait for it. And maybe, just maybe, during that time, you might think about chit-chatting with the guy standing next to you. I saw a lot of that kind of chit-chatting while I was there. (Strangers talking to each other! It filled my heart with joy.) But I’ll be very curious to see if it continues. Part of me fears that people were unusually chatty the weekend I was there because Intelligentsia was brand-new. Part of me fears that we Americans are so used to getting our morning coffee in an orderly, assembly-line fashion – as quickly as possible on the way to work or whatever – that eventually Intelligentsia will succumb to consumer desires for a more regimented system. Or maybe customers will form their own regimented system spontaneously. Just because there are no cordoned paths, that doesn’t mean people won’t stand in an orderly line and avoid looking at or talking to each other. (You can take the customer out of the Starbucks, but can you take the Starbucks out of the customer? I don’t know.) I’ll be spending a lot of time in L.A. this fall, so I will be watching attentively to see what happens.

You'll laugh! You'll cry!

2007-09-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you who navigate directly to the blog without visiting my website first, I wanted to let you know that the new trailer for THE PERFECT CAPPUCCINO is now online. Hooray!

Unfortunately, that in-a-world guy was busy, so I had to settle for doing the voiceover myself. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. So go have a look-see!

Relationship Coffee in the NY Times

2007-09-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

OK, I have been sorely neglecting this blog of late. Lots has been going on, and I have been failing to write about it. (I'm still planning to write a less-than-hot-off-the-presses report about the opening of Intelligentsia last month in L.A...)

But in the meantime, this morning's NY Times has a great article about the handful of companies who are doing Fair Trade coffee one better. (Thanks, Rena, for sending me the article!) Check it out. It's great to see these trade practices - and this excellent coffee - getting some admiring attention.

World Barista Championships 2007

2007-08-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple years, whenever I’ve mentioned barista competitions, it’s usually met with a long pause and then a “what the heck is a barista competition??” I usually explain that it’s kind of like the barista olympics. Baristas have 15 minutes to prepare four espressos, four cappuccinos and four of a signature drink of their own creation. They do a formal presentation – complete with a musical soundtrack – in front of an audience and a variety of judges, who evaluate their technical expertise as well as the sensory qualities of their drinks. To an outsider, these competitions are bizarre, even a little comical (comparisons with the mock-documentary BEST IN SHOW would not be too far off the mark). But they are also a GREAT way to learn about the contribution a barista makes, because the more competitors you watch, the more you perceive the variations in coffee preparation that one person can bring. And they inevitably spur (in me, at least) a curiosity to taste all that coffee that’s being prepared and talked about. Still, it’s incredibly hard to do these competitions justice through mere verbal description.

So… I’m very pleased to be able to report that the finals of this year’s world barista championships – which took place in Tokyo a little over a week ago – are available and viewable online, at a site called zacharyzachary.com.

You can go straight to the finalist videos here.

To my knowledge, this is the first time full presentations have been accessible in this way. In the past, I believe some highlight reels have been produced months after the events, but there has never been anything like this. So hooray for the folks who made this happen! The coverage is terrific. (And I have always said that somebody should make a feature-length doc about these competitions – something very character-driven, since there seem to be some fascinating characters in this little world. So… maybe the zacharyzachary folks are the ones to do it…?)

In any case, this year’s winner is a guy from Great Britain, James Hoffmann. And second place went to the U.S. representative, Heather Perry (whom I have blogged about and who will make an ever-so-brief appearance in my documentary). I believe this is the best ranking any U.S. barista has ever achieved. Congratulations, Heather!

So I’ve been spending my Saturday morning watching a few of these presentations, and the overwhelming thought that occupies my mind as I watch is this: WHY ON EARTH is there so little crossover between the world of fine coffee and the world of fine dining?? I mean, listening to the baristas talk about which coffees they’ve chosen to serve and why, it’s hard to believe that there wouldn’t be interest in this kind of thing as the cap to an excellent meal. There’s no excuse for restaurant coffee to suck so bad – when are restaurateurs going to catch on?? And then there are the signature drinks. They’re not frappuccinos. They are much closer to the kind of thing you can find in Italy – often very small – just a few sips– and quite beautiful to look at. They’re these precious little works of art, involving unique flavor combinations and unique textures. Champion James Hoffmann’s signature drink, for instance, involved some half-and-half infused with tobacco. The barista competitions display such a high level of attention to the basics of good coffee and such a spirit of culinary experimentation with coffee; it’s strange to me that restaurants have not found a way to incorporate that attention and spirit into what they offer. One of life’s mysteries, I guess.

Ritual Gardens

2007-07-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

That’s my sister Zoe. She recently relocated to San Francisco and has been getting settled in her new home, and the other day she expressed two separate desires: to drink a really good cappuccino and to find a night-blooming jasmine. Those are seemingly unrelated wishes, but they got me to do something I have been meaning to do for a really long time: pay a visit to Ritual Coffee Roasters’ second location, a small espresso bar inside a plant nursery, Flora Grubb Gardens. And now… I think I’m in love.

Zoe and I arrived mid-morning and were treated to two of the most gorgeous, delicious cappuccinos I have witnessed in quite a while – including on recent visits to my local faves, Blue Bottle and Ritual Numero Uno – the ones we got yesterday were just particularly well-made. They were textbook – smooth, rich, and in full possession of that magical cappuccino thing of feeling both dense and light in your mouth at the same time. Ahh… they were splendid. And, better still, this Ritual is completely lacking in all the things that make the Valencia Street Ritual a pain in the ass. There’s no loud music. There are no long lines. And there’s no wifi, which drastically reduces the number of laptop-toting, table-hogging, grouchy hipsters in evidence. It was lovely. So Zoe and I sat at the bar – drinking spectacular coffee and shooting the breeze with Eileen, the owner, and the barista who’d made our drinks. Conversation topics ranged from the difficulty of getting novels published to why San Francisco is the kind of place where a barista can talk about butt sex all he wants but will get in serious trouble if he calls a woman “hon.” (I don’t know the answer to that, although I submit to the truth of the observation. Well, mostly. I don’t give a shit if a barista calls me hon, but I can see that there are women who might.) In fact, the place reminded me a lot of the truly outstanding DoubleShot Coffee – quiet, mellow, a nice counter for sitting at and drinking awesome coffee, a slow trickle of friendly faces coming in and out. Zoe and I have vowed to make it a weekly habit.

So then we left – Zoe having put in a special order for a night-blooming jasmine – and I noticed that all day I was in a really good mood. I had a little spring in my step, and a very ready laugh. And Zoe and I kept giggling over this or that funny thing that had been said (like the fact that the barista – I wish I could remember his name – disparagingly referred to men with beards as “beard-os.”) And then I started inwardly calculating when I would be able to make time to get back over there next. And after a certain number of hours of this behavior, it hit me that what’s going on is that I have A CRUSH on Plant Nursery Ritual. I mean, I walked around with that giddy, crushed out glow all day. I felt like a dork in that very unique way that I feel like a dork after some guy has caught my eye or charmed me with some witty turn of phrase and I spend the next day walking into walls because I'm distracted and mooning about it. I mean, this place is my idea of perfection in a coffee-going experience: excellent coffee, perfect technical execution of the drink, a great place to sit, and really fun, funny people to talk to.

And then it struck me – not for the first time – that I always use love metaphors to describe my feelings about coffee.

For instance, just a few weeks ago, I was talking with my friend Kaz about my feelings about Urth Caffe in Los Angeles. And I compared my indecision about what to order at Urth to my indecision about men – which Kaz and I have discussed at length over the years. Urth’s cappuccinos are wildly, wildly inconsistent. Their coffee itself is OK, but their preparation of espresso drinks is all over the map. I have had some sublime cappuccinos there, and some horrible ones. But for a long time, Urth was the only place in L.A. where I had any chance at all of getting a good cappuccino. So I continued to go there on a semi-regular basis, and some days I would gamble and get a cappuccino. But on other days, I would decide that I just wasn’t up to dealing with a crappy cappuccino, so I’d go for the “safe” option – a honey vanilla latte, which at least had a predictable measure of sugar to cover it up if things went wrong in the espresso department. And I noticed, over the years of periodically visiting Urth Caffe, that what I ordered was a pretty good indicator of how open and optimistic I was feeling in general. Would I go for perfection in the thing I was passionate about, knowing that I might get severe disappointment instead? Or would I turn to something that I could count on, knowing that it would never thrill me all the way down to my toes?

This is a question I have explored over and over again in my relationships with men too. Should I give my whole heart to the man who incites my passions, even if I risk spectacular failure and spectacular pain (which always seems to be a part of the story when passions are involved)? Or should I take comfort in the guy who’s “safe” because at least he doesn’t have the power to send me literally out of my mind the way the other guy does? Is the pain worth the rewards that come with those occasional, fleeting moments of perfection? On balance, I tend to go after the fleeting moments of perfection, but I definitely have had moments (even – I’m embarrassed to admit – whole years) when I’ve swayed the other direction. So… I was talking this over with Kaz, and I realized that it has gotten to the point where I not only talk about coffee using metaphors of romantic love, but I talk about romantic love using metaphors of coffee. I have literally begun to classify men this way: is he a honey vanilla latte or a cappuccino? Am I settling for something that won’t hurt me, or is this man LIGHTING ME UP? Of course my IDEAL – the thing that I am always running after, the seemingly unattainable – is to find the man who lights me up but also won’t stuff my heart through the meat grinder any old time the mood strikes him.

So I guess what I’m looking for – in men and in coffee – is a reliable source of perfection. (I say that in full awareness of how ridiculous it sounds. But hey. I’m just being honest here.)

But that leads me to my second insight of the day: I think I talk about coffee in terms of love and love in terms of coffee because both are utterly, totally unfathomable to me. I mean, these are the two areas of my life that do not follow the predictable, linear path to mastery that exists elsewhere in the rational world. On the contrary, the more experience I get with both coffee and men, the more I realize that I know NOTHING, that my knowledge and experience is just a tiny fraction of what there is to know. That I am a powerless infant. OK, I’m being a little dramatic here, but think about it! Who among us can claim to have mastered coffee OR love? Yes, over my years of cappuccino obsession, I have learned a thing or two about the skills that go into producing a really good one, and there are certain “rules” that are just basic - like, no nonfat milk, for instance. But once you get past the skills involved in preparation and just look at coffee itself? Coffee is nuts! It is a highly unpredictable agricultural product that is literally in a constant state of flux. Its beauty is profound. Its wonders are many. But it is constantly changing, and there are so many variables that come into play before the coffee finds its way into your cup – variables of geographical origin, processing, roasting and preparation – that it’s an absolute wonder to me that any coffee companies have ever achieved a measure of “consistency.” And coffee continues to change even as it sits there in your cup. It just never stops moving. It is exponentially more complex than I ever could have thought when I was a 16 year-old dumping sugar into a scalding hot mocha at Crepe ‘n’ Coffee on California Street.

And love is waaaaaay more complicated than I thought when I was a 14 year-old longing for someone to come stand outside MY bedroom window with a boombox playing Peter Gabriel. The more I learn, the more I realize that I know NOTHING. And this has been a hard thing for me to accept. I grew up in a very rational, pro-education household. My parents are scientists. I think one of my most deeply held beliefs is in my own ability to LEARN. I’ve always thought that if I’m not “good at” something, it’s because I have never cared to learn how to do it properly. So it has been very difficult for me to accept that romantic love is not something that fits into this model of learning. Sure, there are certain communication skills that go into being in a lasting and happy relationship, and those can be learned and practiced. But at the end of the day, the irrationality and inconsistency of human emotions – love first among them – means that the learning model doesn’t really apply to love. And it is a cruel joke to try to apply it to passionate, romantic love.

But here’s the thing: if coffee or men were more consistent, I’m sure I would not be paying any attention to them. It’s the unpredictability that keeps me showing up for more. And with coffee, at least, some of its inconsistency is what I prize most of all. I’m not talking about inconsistency of preparation, because badly prepared coffee is badly prepared coffee. Blech. I’m talking about the inherent inconsistency of coffee itself. When I drink a really good cup of coffee, the knowledge that I most likely won’t ever be able to replicate that experience again makes me appreciate it all the more. I have this bag of Guatemalan coffee from Terroir sitting on my kitchen counter right now; I’ve been drinking it for about four days. And it tastes a little different every day. There’s a chemical explanation for this – the coffee’s oxidizing and staling – but regardless of why, that evolution is interesting. And my awareness of that evolution is something that I absolutely appreciate. This is something I celebrate about coffee – the fact that I will have opportunities to try so many different things and to indulge my curiosity in so many different ways.

So why am I not able to appreciate the inconsistencies of love with that same acceptance and curiosity and appreciation of the sheer variety of it all? I have many theories about this, and the discussion of those theories has provided me with hours of occupation (if not always amusement). But ah… if only I knew…

Mark your calendars!

2007-07-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

OK, this is still 10 months away, but I am seriously excited about it...

www.slowfoodnation.com

Four days of tastings, demos and all-around reveling in the glories of American slow food. Plus some serious chances to organize and discuss the politics of food. Highlights from my point of view:
--the coffee and tea house
--the food film festival
--a talking rooster

I am also a huge fan of Slow Food's emphasis on getting healthy, sustainably produced foods into schools. And I'm a big believer in one of their core tenets: healthy, delicious and artisanal foods should not just be the province of the wealthy. A fully ripe, succulent organic cherry should not be a specialty food item. Nor, for that matter, should good coffee.

(Not to digress too far, but why do we subsidize corn and soy production but not vegetable and fruit production? This is basically the equivalent of subsidizing the junk food industry - high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil - and has meant that the cost of fruit and vegetables relative to junk food has gone up and up and up over the past 20 years. So... what? You only have a right to eat foods that are fresher, better for you and better tasting if you have a six-figure income?? Slow Food has been active in working against that by working to change the Farm Bill. Check it out.)

And best of all, the Slow Food Nation expo is happening literally right down the street from my house. So... I have one guest spot on my couch. Make your reservations now.

I love this!

2007-07-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, I've come across two really interesting sets of photos of coffee under a microscope. They both had me exclaiming out loud in fascination - and, in some cases, disgust - in my kitchen.

These were taken with an ordinary microscope.

(And be sure to click through to the 2nd page for sequential images of a Bolivian coffee as it roasts.)

And these were taken with a scanning electron microscope. The idea was to compare the shape of the grounds that come out of various grinders. (Those guys at home-barista.com are NOT messing around.) The findings are really interesting too: rounder particles and more fines from the conical burr grinders. Their next question: does particle shape impact taste in any way?

I love that there's someone out there with access to an electron microscope who's enough of a coffee geek to do this.

COPING MECHANISMS: my trip to Los Angeles

2007-06-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I got into my car to drive down to Los Angeles. I was really excited about the trip for a number of reasons, including a planned visit to the new Intelligentsia shop in silverlake. But then I stopped at Ritual on my way out of town and had the pleasure of meeting coffee roaster, blogger and L.A. resident tonx, who informed me that Intelligentsia won’t be opening until July. Rats.

But I still had a really good time on the trip, which wound up being chock full of quintessential Los Angeles activities, including attending a film festival party at a schwanky hotel in Beverly Hills, spending an afternoon at the beach, and getting into a car accident. (And just to keep the Los Angeles-ness of it all going, I then had to put up with rude comments shouted at me from passing SUV drivers who were pissed that my car was blocking traffic. Sure, a-hole, I’m leaving my car in the middle of Olympic Boulevard simply because I think it LOOKS NICE sitting there. It’s got NOTHING to do with the fact that the axle’s broken and it’s not driveable. Sheesh. Los Angeles can be very unkind.)

In any case, the other quintessentially Los Angeles thing that I did was put up with a series of cappuccino imitations, because, as I have lamented here before, there is very, very little good espresso anywhere in L.A. county. I lived in Los Angeles for seven and half years, and during that time, I developed a series of coping mechanisms for dealing with the lack of good espresso, and all of those coping mechanisms were employed at one point or another over the past few days. So it was kind of a nostalgic trip for me, a walk down memory lane!

Coping Mechanism #1: appreciating the ambiance

When I first moved to L.A., in 1997, I wasn’t really ready to give up my San Francisco habit of sitting in coffee shops to read or study or write in my journal. So I checked out all the coffee shops I could find and wound up spending a lot of time at the 18th Street Café on Broadway in Santa Monica. I have many journal entries from that time that read something like, "wow, this espresso is so bad, I want to kill myself. But I love this fucking patio!" Or something. So I had kind of a flashback to that era last weekend when I went to groundwork in Hollywood. I got a cappuccino. It was totally forgettable. Stiff peaks. Big bubbles. Bitter, overextracted espresso.

(As an aside, can someone explain to me why groundwork has been so well-regarded on some of the coffee discussion boards? It seems like every time someone posts to coffee geek or alt.coffee requesting recommendations for where to get espresso in L.A., somebody else recommends groundwork. I’ve been to a few of their locations now, and I’ve always been underwhelmed. What’s the deal?)

But the thing I dug about groundwork – at least the one in Hollywood – is that they had this gorgeous, huge table in the middle of the room – a perfect example of the shared space I love to see in coffee shops. I dug it. I just wished the coffee tasted better. But I tried to content myself with admiring the layout. Then I left.

Coping Mechanism #2: making it yourself

After a year or two of endless disappointment with L.A.’s coffee shops, I turned my attention to making coffee myself. As a broke-ass film student, I didn’t have the money to invest in equipment, but I put a lot of effort into finding decent coffee and then getting the best possible results out of my moka pot and the steam wand on the cheapie "espresso" machine I’d inherited from my sister. Again, I was miles away from the real thing, but it was a step up from the trash that was available around me.

I was reminded of this again this past weekend when I visited my multitalented friend John Nein (He writes! He directs! He programs the Sundance Film Festival!) at his office. John proudly showed me the schmancy superautomatic espresso machine they have in the kitchen; it grinds, doses, tamps and brews with the push of one button. John was pretty excited about it, as you can see.

(And may I just point out that even though it was an 80-degree June day, John Nein - in true John Nein fashion - felt compelled to keep the chill at bay with a wool sweater vest. His secret plan to use the power of his wardrobe to make Los Angeles a little bit more like London does not appear to be meeting with much success. But keep trying, John! Maybe the 11th year will be the charm!)

The results of the superauto were interesting. The flavor wasn’t so bad, but the texture was nothing like espresso – a little thinner than what comes out of my moka pot, but with some fake, foamy "crema" on top. But I could see the appeal. John works in an office on Wilshire and La Cienega. As in every part of Los Angeles, there’s a Starbucks nearby, and a Coffee Bean. But that’s pretty much it. So… I could see how if I worked there, I’d be thrilled to have an office coffee maker that made semi-drinkable "espresso." Once again, making the best of a bad situation.

Coping Mechanism #3: the knock-offs

Is it just me, or is Los Angeles the KING of the coffee milkshake? I mean, I know the frappuccino swept the entire nation a long time ago. But really, the frappuccino was the brainchild of some Starbucks employees in Santa Monica who were inspired by Coffee Bean’s Ice Blended. (See page 206 of Howard Schultz’s literary masterwork "Pour Your Heart Into It" if you doubt me.) And I have to say that the Ice Blended is, quite simply, better than the frappuccino. Coffee Bean uses smaller, softer ice than Starbucks does, so their drinks blend up into something much smoother and creamier.

How do I know this? Because there were a couple years there – let’s call them the Lost Years – when I gave up on finding decent espresso in Los Angeles ENTIRELY and started to occasionally "treat myself" to super-sweet, coffee-esque milkshakes instead. I contend that this had a lot to do with working in film production and driving all over southern California in a car with no air conditioning. I wasn’t choosing these drinks because they were "coffee." I was choosing them because they were cold. And because I have a reflexive, irrational need to visit coffee shops on a very regular basis, even if the products on offer are subpar.

But still. There was a period of time when I abandoned my beloved cappuccino in favor of the "local specialties." And there is even one local specialty that is still a little bit of a guilty pleasure for me: the honey vanilla latte at Urth Caffe. So this past weekend, I had the pleasure of staying with my friend Kaz, and she lives around the corner from Urth Caffe. So I indulged. More than once, I admit. And what I was thinking as I was sipping my honey vanilla latte was this: this drink is head and shoulders above any other vanilla latte I've ever had. Leaving aside for a second my guilt over drinking a vanilla latte, WHY IS THAT? Why are the vanilla lattes in L.A. better than anywhere else? Why are there places in L.A. that have put some serious time and effort into developing the perfect vanilla latte but not the perfect cappuccino? What is that all about?

It all just drew my attention to the thing that I both love and hate about Los Angeles – nothing is sacred there. And I mean nothing. A lot of outsiders make the mistake of thinking that Los Angeles is synonymous with Hollywood. They think that "culture" in L.A. consists of palm trees, convertibles and breast implants. And certainly, when you first get to L.A., those are the things you notice. Because you can’t really find them anywhere else. But the longer you stay in L.A., the more you realize that palm trees, convertibles and breast implants are only a tiny fraction of what’s going on in that city. And there really is no ONE dominant culture there; the only rule is that there are no rules. Los Angeles is a city that takes concepts that are sacred to other people – often people in faraway places – and it innovates on those concepts, creating something else entirely. This is true with architecture and design. It’s true with art and music. It’s true with religion. (The number of religious cults that have started in Los Angeles is pretty astonishing. The pentecostal church really got going there in 1906. And then there’s the church of scientology. And David Koresh first started recruiting cult members while working at Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard.) And it’s definitely true with food. Los Angeles, after all, is the city that gave birth to the apple martini and the barbecue chicken pizza.

Sometimes the results of this openness to innovation are spectacular. Sometimes they are less than stellar. Sometimes having no rules is scary. Sometimes it’s liberating. But I have to say that the experience of living in a place of such freedom was really wonderful for me. Spending my 20’s in Los Angeles really helped me not only figure out who I was – which is something that a lot of people in a lot of cities do in their 20’s – but it also helped me feel comfortable in my own skin. And to this day, L.A. is a place where I feel very at home. And it’s not because I "fit in" with any kind of pre-existing culture that exists there. It’s because NOBODY fits in there. And therefore everybody does. Los Angeles is where I really learned to live and let live (funny that I did NOT learn this where I grew up, in hippie northern California, where the attitude is "live and let live, but you are an idiot if you don’t choose to live like me.") And Los Angeles is where I perfected the art of indulging my curiosity. There was so much there that was different from me, exotic to me, and well outside my comfort zone that at a certain point I had to just dive right in and get to know it a little.

Speaking in terms of coffee, though, I kind of hate this nothing-is-sacred attitude, because it has meant that I have spent years of my life coping with bad espresso rather than enjoying good espresso. It has also meant that I have had a hard time finding kindred spirits who know or care about what good espresso is. And the "innovation" that led to the frappuccino is something that I have come to regard as being responsible for delaying Americans’ appreciation of truly excellent coffee. (This has come up in this blog before, and you can read about it here.) It’s like the coping mechanism got to be so good that it eclipsed the existence of the original problem: bad coffee. We’re a country of copers.

So… I don’t know. As much as I prize the liberation I feel being in a city like Los Angeles, I’m starting to have a more nuanced opinion of innovation, one that is not divorced from quality. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to believe that difference and newness are not always good things in and of themselves. I feel torn, because I have an instinctive dislike of snobbery (including my own) and yet I see the value of snobbery in promoting quality. I hate standards when they stifle creativity, but I love them when they protect and promote something I care about. I wouldn’t want to live in a society that didn’t offer people the freedom to experiment. But can we then employ some critical thinking to differentiate between the good things and the bad things that come out of that experimentation? And can we put some effort into recognizing the value of the good that already exists?

These are the debates I have with myself whenever I go to L.A. and morosely watch the ice melt in my honey vanilla latte. If nothing else, Los Angeles always provides food for thought. And the good/bad news is that I have to go back down there in a few weeks, to pick up my car, which is malingering in a body shop on La Cienega. I’m hoping that by then Intelligentsia will be open.

A follow-up to THE MEMO

2007-05-26T13:02:00.001-07:00

So... in response to Howard Schultz's soul-searching memo from last February, John Moore - a former Starbucks marketing exec and current marketing consultant/blogger (who was kind enough to sit still and be interviewed for my film) - has collected a series of comments and advice about what Starbucks should do to get back to its former glory. The results are interesting. There's some wacky stuff in there, but a lot of it simply suggests that Starbucks should start caring about coffee quality...

http://www.changethis.com/33.01.WhatStarbucks

A Coffee Vacation in My Hometown, part 2

2007-05-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

So… as I mentioned in my last post, a big part of the fun of having Brian Franklin in town for a few days was getting to spend so much time talking about coffee. (Well, we also talked about beer, sausages, sidewalk stencils, why people don’t say “hi” on the street in San Francisco, and whether and to what extent the government has a right to legislate people’s personal lives. But I’ll stick to the coffee.) You can hear some of our talking-about-coffee on upcoming episodes of Brian’s podcast, AAcafe. But the conversation that seems most relevant to this blog centered around this: is it OK to put milk in coffee?

I know this has been a burning question for a lot of you, so I’m proud to finally get around to discussing it.

Brian’s position in the debate is pretty simple: adding anything at all to coffee is either a heinous crime (if the coffee was roasted by Brian) or a sad, sorry attempt to cover up the coffee’s defects (if the coffee was roasted by someone else). Brian frowns upon it in all cases. Of course this includes things like chocolate, vanilla, and caramel. But it also includes milk, cream and sugar. So Brian and I had a big debate about whether the milk in a cappuccino could be said to be “covering up” the coffee taste – which is a crime if the coffee’s really good and just plain pathetic if the coffee’s bad, and why are you drinking bad coffee anyway?

There. I think I have summarized Brian’s point of view fairly enough. Here’s the thing: I mostly agree with him. Let’s take caramel syrup. It’s my considered opinion that caramel syrup belongs nowhere near good coffee. I guess it’s your right to put anything you want into any coffee you want, but I do view it as something of a disaster when someone wants to put caramel syrup into a very fine espresso drink. And there is something sad about using caramel syrup to hide that black, awful taste of bad espresso, although I think we’ve all done it as a coping mechanism. And who can blame us? Bad espresso is everywhere.

So given that I generally frown on caramel and the like, why don’t I think the same thing about milk? It’s undeniable that milk changes the flavor of whatever coffee you’re drinking. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes for the worse. I like to occasionally order a cappuccino and a shot of espresso on the side so that I can taste them side by side, and there’s no such thing as an espresso blend that tastes the same in a cappuccino as it does by itself. Milk is not taste neutral.

(OK, that sounds like an obvious point to make. But it’s funny how often people think that adding cream to their coffee does not fundamentally change the flavor of the coffee. They’re dead wrong! Especially with some of the delicate flavors and aromas to be found in medium-roasted coffees. I did some taste tests here in the Ferraris test kitchen a while back. I added some half and half to a Yirgacheffe from DoubleShot and a Kenya AA from Ritual, and I was literally FLOORED at the difference. I thought there would be some difference, of course. But I expected it to be minor. Boy, was I wrong. The half and half changed the mouthfeel, of course, but it absolutely killed all these delicate, wonderful aromas that were present in the black coffee.)

Anyway, back to my argument. Talking with Brian, I realized that I do not view the milk in a cappuccino with the same coffee-snob-horror that I view caramel syrup. I view the cappuccino as being a little culinary specialty all on its own, a combination of two very wonderful substances. I think this is primarily because the cappuccino involves both taste and texture. It’s the texture of a cappuccino that makes it supremely unique.

But still. I see the inconsistency in my point of view. Why is one adulteration of coffee acceptable and another one unacceptable? Brian and I had a pretty lengthy debate about this, and he was pretty hard on me. And I have to say, I admire the purity of his position, but I just don’t share it. I have drawn a line (maybe it’s an arbitrary line) at milk and sugar. I don’t view milk and sugar as being as bad as adding chocolate or caramel or hazelnut syrup to coffee. So, we were having this discussion, and I suddenly felt like we were having the abortion debate: where does life begin? It was like, if it’s OK to change the flavor or your coffee by adding one thing to it – milk – shouldn’t it be OK to add any old thing you want to it? And if not, why not? And where do you draw the line?

One answer to all of that is, of course it’s OK to add whatever you want to coffee. The answer to that is that the culinary arts are based around all kinds of combinations of flavors – both natural and unlikely. And who are we to say what people should and shouldn’t like, should and shouldn’t drink?

Do you see why I’m telling this long, convoluted story about me and Brian arguing about milk? Because it raises a question that is of serious interest to me: why does talking about our tastes matter? Why does criticism matter?

Because, really, on some level, who gives a shit? Isn’t it tiresome to put up with the coffee snob whose heart breaks every time somebody sips a caramel frappuccino? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, as I’ve been editing my film and trying to synthesize my many years of cappuccino obsession into a relatively sensible 90-minute essay. Why do my tastes matter? I have spent the better part of my adult life in severe embarrassment over being “snobby” about the cappuccino. It’s an inconvenient curiosity to have when I am around just about anybody (except the fabulous Emily, who outdoes my curiosity and my drive to find a good cappuccino by a factor of 10, at least). And as I have worked on my film, I have often had to face this question of whether or not I am just being a wet blanket when I cringe every time I see someone ordering a white chocolate mocha. Or is there meaning behind caring about this stuff and discussing it?

I think there’s meaning behind it. At a minimum, criticism influences people. In my case, there is some hope (however unlikely) that if people start to understand what a good cappuccino is and can be, they will seek it out more actively. Consumer demand will grow. The market will respond. It will become easier to find a good cappuccino in the world. And I will be a happier person. That’s the selfish answer to why it’s important.

But are there larger reasons why it’s important? This is something I’m still chewing on. But what I’ve discovered, in the case of the cappuccino, is that there are all these real world consequences to settling for a white chocolate mocha instead of demanding a well-crafted cappuccino, or even a perfect shot of espresso.

Let’s start with you: a 16 or 20-ounce white chocolate mocha with whipped cream on top will clog your arteries and make you fat much, much faster than a properly-made traditional 6-ounce cappuccino will. But it won’t bring you more pleasure.

And then there’s the environment: a well-crafted cappuccino comes in a porcelain cup, so maybe we could cut down on using all those paper cups, plastic lids, stir sticks, sugar packets, etc.

And then there’s the fact that making a really good cappuccino takes attention and skill, two things that are usually associated with a well-trained, engaged labor force. The best baristas tend to be people who are in the coffee business for the long haul, people who are passionate about what they do. If we elevate coffee-making to a higher status – socially and financially – that has real meaning to people. It means that someone out there who loves coffee can actually make a real, grown-up living making it. And it means that their jobs can be sustainable for long periods of time, and less staff turnover makes it a little easier for communities to flourish in coffee shops. Wow. Imagine living in a community where you actually see the same friendly faces every day for years instead of months. Kind of unthinkable in our current world, isn’t it? I fantasize about it anyway, and I imagine (perhaps falsely – what do I know?) that this is what it used to be like in small town America, where there were certain people who were just fixtures – anchors in the community. I can dream.

And then there’s the coffee itself. There are real-world consequences to the way we consumers settle for drinking shit coffee all the time. The international coffee trade is a HUGE topic which I cannot even begin to cover in its entirety here, but suffice it to say that when we demand coffee that actually TASTES good without the addition of some kind of sugary syrup, we are subtly pushing coffee away from being a commodity and towards being a product in which quality has some relationship to price. And as far as I’ve been able to figure out, encouraging that relationship between quality and price has been the best way anybody has come up with thus far to make coffee cultivation a sustainable way of earning a living in all the poverty-stricken countries where coffee is grown. And, as I mentioned above, the collateral benefit is that we coffee drinkers get to experience pleasure on a more regular basis. And who doesn’t want that? (Well, OK, that was a rhetorical question. It’s my opinion that we in America associate pleasure with guilt and things that are bad for us and actually shun pleasure in all kinds of ways. And then we overcompensate for the self-denial and we overindulge. But that’s a discussion for another time.)

So there ARE consequences to ordering a fucking white chocolate mocha. And me wasting all this time talking about what makes a perfect cappuccino and bellyaching about the fact that it’s so hard to find one might actually add up to something more than the simple fact that I am a snob. Sheesh.

And don’t get me started on the dairy industry and the consequences of demanding better tasting milk.

I guess I’ve come to be one of those people who think that food and the physical pleasure it brings are so fundamental to the human experience that we ignore it – its meanings, its consequences, the role it plays in our lives – at our peril. So… I don’t know if Brian is right about milk and coffee or if I am right about it (although my taste buds tell me that I am right, and I will defer to them, especially since Brian can’t drink milk and therefore doesn’t have a rhetorical leg to stand on), but I do have a newly formed certainty that it’s a discussion that’s worth having.

A Coffee Vacation in My Hometown, part 1

2007-05-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the great pleasure of hosting the world famous Brian Franklin – of doubleshot coffee company fame – when he visited San Francisco for a few days after his trip to the SCAA annual meeting in Long Beach. I set aside my work for the week, and it basically turned into three and a half days of tasting coffee, talking about coffee, thinking about coffee, podcasting about coffee… all day every day. I didn’t get much sleep, what with all the coffee drinking and with Brian’s presence on my couch doing his pitch-perfect imitation of a chain-saw all night long. But it was still the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

We started out by visiting the best espresso joints in town – the Blue Bottle and Ritual Coffee Roasters. (I’m sure Brian will blog about it himself, if you’re interested.) Highlights of these visits included shooting the breeze with some coffee people from Australia (in town visiting Ritual after having been to Long Beach too) and hearing Ritual’s co-owner, Jeremy Tooker, tell us his story of having been “attacked by a shark” while surfing. Listen to upcoming episodes of AAcafe for the full story, but for now I’ll just say this: Tooker has a unique talent for screaming like a woman.

I think my favorite part of Brian’s visit, though, was getting to go with him to cup some coffees at the offices of one of his green coffee brokers – Royal Coffee in Emeryville. (And incidentally, bay area people, this is the same company that used to own Royal Coffee on College Avenue in Rockridge – the one across from the Safeway a few blocks down from Alcatraz Avenue – the one that’s called something else now. I used to go there all the time due to its proximity to the apartment of the most recent fellow to fall in love with me and then run really fast in the opposite direction. (Motivated, no doubt, as so many others have been before him, by the one-of-a-kind, unforgettable Amy Suzanne Ferraris Brand Man-Repellent [patent pending].) Anyway, I used to go to Royal Coffee a lot, and they had a VERY large selection of single origin coffees that they would grind and brew by the cup, which is pretty unusual for these parts. But now that I know that they were owned by a specialty coffee broker, it all makes sense.)

Anyway. Sorry for the digression. So we went over to Royal and cupped some coffees - no big deal if you are a coffee professional, but if you are a coffee groupie like me, it is something special. A cupping is a formal coffee tasting that professionals use to evaluate a particular coffee’s qualities – dry fragrance, wet aroma, body, acidity, and flavor characteristics. From what I understand, a sample of the coffee in question is usually medium roasted, coarsely ground and then allowed to steep in hot water for a few minutes before it is thoroughly sniffed and then sucked off a deep, round spoon with a noisy slurp that is strong enough to aerate the coffee and get it to fill the mouth and really get the aromas up into the olfactory system. The pros do this with a slurp whose force is approximately equal to a jet engine firing up. No kidding. It’s startling to witness. Then they spit out the coffee into a spittoon and move on to the next cup.

I’ve seen cuppings before, and I’ve even filmed them, but I’ve never gotten the chance to scoot in there and taste some coffees. So it was really fun to get to taste so many different coffees in a row and identify some of the differences. And, as usual, it was a strong reminder of what a paltry vocabulary I have when it comes to finding words to describe the taste of a coffee. I still find it much easier to talk about the way a coffee moves around in my mouth rather than to compare its flavor to some other food. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating to taste so many different coffees from different parts of the world one right after the other; I can’t think of any better way to really understand that coffee tastes like so much more than just coffee. I highly recommend doing amateur versions of this in your kitchen if you ever get the chance – taste a bunch of single origins next to each other, or, better yet, taste different roast levels. Or taste the difference between coffee that’s freshly ground and coffee that you ground last week and left sitting in a bag in your fridge. You’ll be shocked. I remember the day that I learned to identify the flavor of stale coffee and discovered that that particular taste was something I had just thought was inherent in coffee. HAHAHAHAHA!! Realizing that I had been drinking stale coffee my whole life was a discovery that was both tragic and joyous all at once.

So the visit to Royal was fascinating, and of course I did what I always do when I watch somebody else doing their job – I wondered what it would be like if I did this for a living. (As an aside, if you are someone who always does that too, I highly recommend the book “Gig.” Dozens of interviews with people about their jobs – all the dirty little secrets you ever wanted to know about what it’s like to be the UPS guy or a literary agent or a stripper. Awesome.) And after talking a little bit to Brian’s broker, Jeri, it struck me that being a specialty coffee broker is kind of like being a coffee matchmaker. I had always thought of it as a kind of dreary job, involving shipping and invoicing and warehousing and… yawn. But really, the job consists of getting to know what’s out there and then matching coffee roasters up with the coffees of their dreams. You get to be a big hub in a network that consists of thousands of producers and thousands of roasters. I could see that being a very interesting job for a detail-obsessed busybody like me. So thanks, Brian and Jeri, for letting me tag along on the cupping!

There’s more to say about Brian’s visit, but I think I better wrap this up. Stay tuned for part 2…

My Spiritual Home

2007-04-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently got back from spending a few days in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the DoubleShot Coffee Company. What can I say? This is one of my favorite places on earth. (I know, I know. If you’d’ve asked me a year ago what the likelihood was that liberal, atheist Amy might find her spiritual home in a city that is known as the Buckle of the Bible Belt, I would’ve answered slim to none. But there you have it. I’m open to being surprised in life.) In any case, I first got acquainted with DoubleShot about a year ago, when I heard that Starbucks was threatening to sue its owner, Brian Franklin, for trademark infringement; Starbucks has a canned beverage called the Starbucks Doubleshot, and at the time they were demanding that Brian change the name of his company. Naturally, I got very curious about this, because it seemed really odd to me that Starbucks might try to get the rest of the coffee industry to stop using the phrase “double shot” to describe any espresso-related products. So I contacted Brian and wound up going out to Tulsa to cover this story for my film. Many things have happened since then, and if you want to know the details about the Starbucks business, my suggestion is that you watch my movie when it’s finally done (sometime between now and January 2010. And hey, check out the film’s new website, if you have not done so already!)

But I’ll tell you what. The first time I emailed Brian, I told him who I was and what I was doing and that I wanted to know more about his legal troubles. And when he replied, he latched on to something I had mentioned about coffee consistency and standardization, and instead of telling me much of anything about his case against Starbucks, he just started a conversation about coffee. Over the past five years of working on this film, I have had occasion to talk to and get to know MANY people in the coffee industry, and they’ve all been pretty wonderful and knowledgeable and generous with their time. But only a couple of them have struck me from the get-go as being coffee people first and business people second. And Brian is one of those people. He cares very passionately about coffee and about making it the way he sees fit, and every other decision he makes flows out of that simple fact. It strikes me as a very pure and authentic way of living. But more on that later.

I guess I should start with the cappuccino: exquisite. I find this nothing short of miraculous, because Brian (who is roaster, owner and barista at DoubleShot) is intolerant to whey protein and hasn’t swallowed any milk since long before he learned how to roast coffee. In fact, he mostly considers milk a blasphemy. (Maybe it’s not as bad as, say, vanilla syrup or nutmeg. But it’s right up there with SUGAR on his list of things that should never befoul his coffee. I beg to differ, and am utterly convinced that milk and coffee were M! F! E! O! but this is not the time nor place.) Flavor-wise, Brian’s espresso blends better with milk than just about any espresso I’ve ever tasted. And I am not alone in this assessment. Mark Prince noted this same thing when he reviewed DoubleShot’s Ambergris espresso on the coffee geek podcast. And when Ken Davids reviewed it, he gave it exceptionally high marks for how well it goes with milk. Scientifically speaking, I’m not sure what qualities DoubleShot’s espresso has that make it such a natural fit with milk, but I do know that there’s a complementary thing that can happen, where the espresso’s neither fighting with the milk nor getting buried by the milk, and DoubleShot’s Ambergris espresso has that complementary thing DOWN. I tend to think about tastes less through flavor comparisons and more through how they move around in my mouth. And DoubleShot’s espresso alone is very round and full, unlike a lot of coffees which move from front to back along a narrow plane or stay mainly at the top of my mouth. Or the bottom. And then when you add milk to this espresso… well, it’s like seeing God. So… I don’t know how to account for it; all I know is that it tastes fucking GOOD.

So there’s that. I dream about this coffee. I inwardly rejoice every time I get to drink this espresso. I find myself perusing the internet and saying things to myself like, “hmm… why NOT attend the National Fiddler Hall of Fame Gala?” just so I could have an excuse to go back to Tulsa.

But I guess coffee is as good an excuse as any to travel. So I’m sure I’ll be back there before too long, and I won’t have to bother shooting a movie while I’m there; I’ll just get to focus on the coffee. Lucky me.

But here’s the thing about DoubleShot: it’s not just the coffee that makes me love it. I love it because it’s home to an actual, real, honest-to-god community. It’s hard for me to put it into words, because it basically boils down to this unique, ineffable feeling of COMFORT when I’m there. Spending time there is this slow but steady stream of familiar faces and inside jokes. The same people come in every day; they all know each other, and they’re all very serious fans of the coffee. They also have a real sense of ownership of the place. Like, there’s this one regular named Robert who periodically brings his leaf-blower over and cleans up the parking lot. Can you imagine feeling motivated to do that at any business in your neighborhood?? I can’t.

The first time I went to DoubleShot – I spent a week there about a year ago - I pretty quickly started mentally comparing the place to the TV show Cheers. And then I felt kind of pathetic, because how sad is it that my only reference point for that kind of interaction is a fictional television show? But it’s true. I just feel very COMFORTABLE at DoubleShot, comfortable and at home in a way that I’ve never felt in a coffee shop anywhere. So… maybe you can imagine what a shock to my system this was when I figured it out. I mean, I’ve been spending time in coffee shops since about 1989. And I’ve been shooting in them since 2002. So why ON EARTH did it take so long for me to find this… THING? The community thing. The comfort thing. The magical DoubleShot thing. I don’t know, exactly, and it’s something I’m still trying to work out, both for myself and for my film.

After I got back from my first trip to Tulsa last year, I (finally) read “The Great Good Place,” by Ray Oldenburg. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s a work of sociology that identifies the “third place” in America – the informal social gathering places that are homes away from home and help Americans form communities. The book is actually half lament, half call-to-arms, because in Oldenburg’s opinion, third places (and therefore community) are dying out in America, due to suburbanization (and, I would add, our desire to easily obtain large quantities of cheap goods, regardless of the trade-offs that inevitably accompany that). In any case, Oldenburg has a very specific definition of what makes a third place, and DoubleShot fits the description to a t.

So… the combination of spending some time hanging around DoubleShot, and reading that book, and making the Cheers comparison… well, they’ve all added up to me thinking that it’s downright TRAGIC that there aren’t more places like this in our society. I get kind of anxious about it sometimes. Like, I spent 32 years of my life without any idea of what I was MISSING. And now that I found this awesome, precious thing, I want everyone to be able to find something like this. This neighborhood-y community thing should be a really common, accepted part of human life – like having a sibling, or getting married – not everybody does it, but everybody knows what it is and why it’s important. I know that DoubleShot Coffee itself is not for everyone, but I still feel like everyone should have access to this feeling. And the question of why our culture does not produce more DoubleShot Coffee Companies has been occupying my mind a lot lately (I mean A LOT – it has basically been my full-time job.)

I have a suspicion that DoubleShot’s uniqueness has something to do with Brian’s personality. Brian, as I mentioned above, is a very REAL person. He is obsessively involved with every detail of running his business. And as of six months ago, he IS the business. He has no employees, other than a part-time secretary; he does everything himself. And pretty much the only thing he cares about is the quality of the coffee. He doesn’t care about the niceties of “customer service.” He doesn’t bother much with community events and the like. He just works on making exceptional coffee, and he succeeds at it very well. I’m not sure how other regulars at DoubleShot feel about it, but I think there’s something very liberating about being around a person who’s so CLEAR. Brian has his ideas about what’s right, and he doesn’t apologize for them. He’s not kissing your ass to make a sale. And I suspect that this way of being really frees people up to just hang out and be themselves, both with Brian and with each other. The regulars at DoubleShot all speak very admiringly of each other, and I’ve heard from a number of them that they’ve formed very unlikely friendships at DoubleShot (going back to the Cheers analogy, it's kind of like Cliff being buddies with Frasier). And whenever I’ve been there – whether I’ve had the camera in my hands or not – I’ve always wound up having really interesting conversations with strangers (who have very quickly ceased to be strangers - I guess I have formed some unlikely friendships there too). It’s a feeling I almost never encounter in the rest of my life.

So this is why I call this place my spiritual home. It’s rare and special, and it’s a really solid reminder of what real community is, what our public spaces CAN feel like (and almost never do). And on top of all that, when I’m at DoubleShot, I become the Amy I really like, the Amy I most want to be in life – open, curious, engaged with the people around me, all while holding a cup of outrageously good coffee in my hand. Thank you, Brian, for making such a kick-ass corner of the world. And thanks for sharing it with me.

Listen Up

2007-03-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I spent a few days shooting at DoubleShot Coffee (a.k.a. my spiritual home). Obviously, obviously, obviously I have much more to say about DoubleShot, as it is the place where my interest in good coffee meets my interest in community and American consumer culture. It's also the place where my good friend - coffee-roasting superhero Brian Franklin - plies his trade. (Brian has been known to occasionally post smartass comments on this blog. And he even has a blog of his own, which is ostensibly about coffee but occasionally strays to deal with ultramarathons and mysterious bird deaths.) In any case, I'm sure I will have LOTS to say about DoubleShot in the coming days (or weeks. I'm slow and over-stressed right now. And pretty sure nobody is reading this anyway. So forgive me.)

But in the meantime, I wanted to post a link to Brian's coffee podcast, AACafe, which I had the pleasure of co-hosting while I was there. This is a particularly good one, because it raises some questions about whether or not we should be holding third wavers to a higher standard than the commodity coffee giants. (My opinion? YES.) And it features a number of doubleshot regulars as guest commentators. Good times!

PS - you can also find AAcafe on iTunes. I'm just a dumdum with all this new-fangled, fancy-pants "technology" stuff, and I have no idea how to link to iTunes. So go there yourself and do a podcast search for AAcafe and check out episode 40 (and all the other fabulous episodes too, while you're at it.)

More on espresso theater...

2007-02-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

So apparently Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz had a heartfelt/Jerry Maguire/let's-take-a-hard-look-in-the-mirror moment this week; he sent out a memo to all of Starbucks' top executives warning that the Starbucks experience may be undergoing some "commoditization."

I felt compelled to blog about it because Mr. Schultz does some belly-aching that is quite similar to some of my own (from a mere few weeks ago - maybe Howard Schultz has been reading my blog...? HAHAHAHAHA!!)

Here's what Mr. Schultz had to say:
"Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead [sic] to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand... when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca [sic] machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista."

You can find the whole memo on starbucksgossip.com. (I can't figure out how to link directly to the memo, but go to the site and scroll down to Feb. 23, 2007 - you'll find it.) As an aside, can I spend a second telling you how much I loooooove Starbucks gossip? I originally started checking it out because of my film, but it has become my guilty pleasure (especially now that I don't have time to watch General Hospital as often as I used to... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!) I mean, it's obviously a good source of news. But the really good part is the comments, many of which are posted anonymously by Starbucks employees. It's fascinating and frequently hilarious.

But back to my original point; I'll be very curious to see what comes of this. And I wonder if Starbucks might be too far down that commoditization road to ever come back. Large institutions seem to have a kind of internal logic all their own, and once they get going, well... it's kind of like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube after you've squeezed it, you know? What's Starbucks going to do? Shut down all the stores next to McDonald's and Walmart and Jiffy Lube? Start training all their baristas to actually understand espresso? Can they afford that? I recently spoke with someone who was a Starbucks barista back in the mid-90's, and he told me with some pride that he'd had 60 hours of training on how to make espresso drinks prior to ever working in a Starbucks store (which was far more than the standard 24 hours of training a typical Starbucks barista received at the time). I guess that is something special in comparison to other companies whose training is exclusively on-the-job, but I was mentally comparing this to the baristas I'd met in Italy, many of whom apprenticed with more experienced baristas and/or attended hotel and restaurant school and "majored" in being a barista prior to ever actually making espresso for anyone. If that's the level of quality (nevermind romance and theatre) that Starbucks is aiming for, I'll be very curious to see how they can put that into action on such a huge scale. According to a recent conference call with investment analysts, Starbucks opened an average of 8 stores a day last quarter. They literally hire HUNDREDS of new employees every single day. And the truth is that nobody stays a barista for long in this country. Evidently, Starbucks manages to retain employees much longer than other fast-food outlets do, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that they retain baristas for an average of a year and a half. (Maybe someone out there can confirm or correct this...?) That's nothing; Mr. 60-hours-of-training may have gotten pretty good at making drinks eventually, but it wasn't long before he moved on to his "real" career. And honestly, the longevity issue is fundamentally a cultural one. It is only partially under Starbucks' control. We're a culture of people who don't view food service as a viable career option; we just don't. Some third wavers are doing their best to change that. Eileen at Ritual recently told me that a key part of the way they do business involves paying their baristas well above a typical food service wage and seeking out employees who are passionate about coffee the way artists are passionate about their work (i.e., they can't live without it.) But it's been my observation that even in the tiny world of third wave coffee shops, the really good baristas move on to something else within a few years. They may stay in the coffee business - as trainers or by opening their own shops - but they're not necessarily making drinks every morning.

So... I don't know. I'm deeply curious about how Starbucks might attempt to bring "romance and theatre" back into their stores. And I'm even more curious about whether this might, at any point, result in better-tasting cappuccinos.

I guess it's time to talk about the third wave

2007-02-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

In late January I took a trip to Texas, to shoot a couple of key interviews for my film – one with John Moore, a former Starbucks marketing exec, and one with Virginia Postrel, an Atlantic Monthly columnist who has written very eloquently in defense of chain stores (well, she’s written very eloquently on a number of things, but I was interested in the chain stores).

So the interviews were terrific – very thought-provoking, much-needed material for the film, etc. But the real find of the trip was Caffe Medici in Austin. When I found out I’d be heading to Dallas and Austin, I did what I usually do – tried to figure out where a good cappuccino could (allegedly) be found in those cities. My usual espresso-finding sources turned up ZERO on Dallas. (And my experience there supported this finding; the ONLY coffee shops I saw there were Starbucks. No independents, no competing chains, nothing. Does anybody have any inside scoop that would contradict this?) But the word-of-mouth on Austin led me to Caffe Medici, a newly-opened espresso-lover’s paradise in Clarksville. And I was not disappointed.

First things first: the cappuccinos were top-notch. I had three of them over the course of two days, made by three different baristas, and they were all delicious. Gorgeous microfoam, perfectly-extracted espresso, no sugar needed. I was so impressed. And I was likewise impressed with the store’s layout. You walk in, and the first thing that catches your eye is the espresso machine, a beautiful La Marzocco FB70. Standing in Caffe Medici, I realized that in a lot of espresso bars, the first thing you notice is the cash register, not least because it’s meant to be your first stop. But at Caffe Medici, the espresso machine is literally on stage; it’s protruding outward into the customer space so that you can see all sides of it. Michael Vaclav who founded Caffe Medici last fall along with his wife, Alison, told me that they did a complete redesign of the space before opening. Their intention was to make the espresso machine as visible as possible to the customer, in hopes of encouraging questions and conversation about espresso. Bringing spectacle back into espresso-making – music to my ears!

So I wound up shooting an interview/cappuccino-making demo with Michael, and I was impressed by his reverence for the technical details of producing fine espresso, as well as his acknowledgment that there’s just a certain amount of human flair that goes into it too. And at a certain point in the conversation, I started to notice something; this was all sounding very familiar. Michael’s thoughts on the cappuccino in particular and the specialty coffee business in general really echo those I’ve heard (and been impressed by) at a number of newly-opened shops, including some that I’ve blogged about here: Ritual and the Blue Bottle in San Francisco, Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica, DoubleShot in Tulsa, Oklahoma… so I’m starting to conclude that this whole third wave thing might, in fact, be real.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t totally buy into the third wave idea at first. The general thinking behind it is that there have been three waves of coffee culture in the U.S. The first was all about just getting people to consume coffee – often exemplified by Folgers. The second was about introducing espresso and getting people to actually think of coffee as something to enjoy rather than fuel up on - often exemplified by Starbucks; and the third is happening now, with a kind of grassroots movement toward quality and connoisseurship above all else. I sometimes refer to it as the coffee-is-like-wine thing, because it’s a lot about trying to highlight individual coffees’ uniqueness, rather than trying to create a stable, static product. (You can read more about the third wave here.) At first I was a little skeptical, because from the outside this “wave” looked like a couple of people who were all friends with each other and had some nice ideas about coffee. I mean, it was a cool concept, but 99% of American cappuccinos still taste like the litter box, you know? Some wave.

But in the past year or so (and this is subjective, as I am a coffee DRINKER, not a coffee professional), all these new places have been popping up, and I’ve started to see some real momentum, so I’ve started hoping and praying and pleading with the universe that this might actually turn into a real sea-change in the way Americans think about coffee. And I think Caffe Medici kind of tipped the scales for me, because Michael Vaclav doesn’t seem to have any personal connections to any of the big “founders” of the third wave. But now, here he is, making some truly amazing espresso and speaking like a dyed-in-the-wool third waver. So I am newly hopeful that this way of thinking will continue to spread.

And I think, oddly enough, that America might be poised to push the coffee-is-like-wine philosophy to a new level of acceptance precisely because of our extraordinarily dismal preparation skills. I mean, look at the contrast between America and Italy. Italy is a country that genuinely values baristas. It’s not uncommon for baristas to be graduates of training programs or even hotel and restaurant schools. It’s not uncommon for baristas to stay baristas for life, slowly perfecting their crafts over many years and then passing their knowledge on to apprentices. And it’s not uncommon for the average joe off the street to appreciate what the barista does. Preparation RULES in Italy, and it makes up for a lot. You can have a mediocre coffee prepared as a perfectly-extracted shot of espresso, and you will still enjoy it. Now, this is just my unscientific observation based on a few years of watching and drinking and thinking about these things, but I think that American roasters are trying WAY more interesting things than Italian roasters are these days. They are definitely experimenting with a wider variety of roast levels and, at the retail level, it’s far more common in America to see people offering single-origin shots, for instance, or to see even the smallest roasteries offering more than one espresso blend. Experimentation is happening here; it’s not all successful, but it’s happening. By contrast, I think Italians might be resting on their preparation laurels. There’s not much ambition to go nuts trying to make a better coffee, because there is no perceived LACK of good coffee (not the way there is in America, at any rate.) So I think there’s opportunity there to combine this attention to the uniqueness of individual coffees with a higher level of preparation skills – as many third wavers are doing – to produce something extraordinary. And, as I mentioned in a previous post, when you combine all of the aforementioned with the casual, warm social space of the American coffee house, you basically have my personal version of HEAVEN.

I feel like I am on kind of shaky ground here – throwing out some speculation on things that I know very little about (I mean, what do I REALLY know about roasting coffee? Nothing. I just like to drink it.) But I’ll tell you one concrete thing I have noticed: I started shooting my documentary almost five years ago, in the summer of 2002. I was about to leave the country to spend a year in Italy, and I had to drive from L.A. to Kentucky to drop off my car at my parents’ house, and along the way, I stopped to interview a bunch of indie coffee shop owners. Naturally, I asked a lot of these small business owners what they thought of Starbucks or if they felt threatened by the arrival of Starbucks in their town. I expected resentment. Competition. Fighting words. But ALL of these small business owners expressed admiration for Starbucks. And most of them said that they would BE Starbucks if they could. Who wouldn’t, they asked, as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

Now, almost five years later, there is this whole group of small business owners who really, really wouldn’t, even if they could. It’s not that these are a bunch of dirty communists who don’t want to make money; it’s just that they believe that the best way to make their businesses successful is by putting coffee quality first, and that seems incongruous with tremendous growth. Some of them are experimenting with expanding to, say, two stores instead of one, but they all express a certain skepticism about whether it’s possible to maintain control of the quality of the coffee once the business gets too big. All of their business decisions flow outward from this central idea of producing exceptional coffee. Period. Now, of course, all of this begs the question of whether and to what extent the third wave is a reaction to Starbucks, but that’s maybe a discussion for another time, as I don’t want to overstep the boundaries of your reading patience.

So regardless of where it comes from, celebrate the existence of the third wave! When you drink a good cappuccino, tell your barista how much you love him! And when you are in Austin, check out Caffe Medici. Knowing how hard it is to build a successful retail establishment and knowing how many small businesses fail, I feel a certain amount of mother-hen worry over places like Caffe Medici or Caffe Luxxe that are brand spanking new. What if they don’t make it? What if people never catch on? And, horror of horrors, what if they give up the fight and start serving nonfat, extra-dry big gulp “cappuccinos”??? This whole third wave thing is making me feel like I do when I’ve just started dating someone I REALLY like – elated and terrified at the same time. I’m simultaneously glowing with happiness and walking on eggshells, thinking don’tfuckupdon’tfuckupdon’tfuckupdon’tfuckup.

Espresso Porn

2007-01-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

So I’ve finally had a little time lately to catch up on some online coffee dorkdom, and I have some fun to share.

First off is the portafilter podcast, which has been really good lately. In particular, episode 55 from back in November not only cracked me up but finally gave me an illuminating, nuts-and-bolts answer to why there has traditionally been a dearth of quality espresso in New York City, which is something I’ve always wondered about.

And then I stumbled across this blog: espresso porn. It’s all just photos of shots pouring out of a naked portafilter. I simultaneously think this is ridiculous and oddly beautiful. Naked portafilters – just in case you were wondering - have had the spout sawed off. My understanding is that this is done so that the coffee will come into minimal contact with metal and will therefore not pick up any of the off tastes that metal can give. I’ve also heard that it’s a good way for baristas to train because when they watch shots pour out of a naked portafilter, they’re better able to analyze whether they’ve dosed and tamped evenly. (Of course, what do I know? I have no first-hand experience with this.)

But in any case, the photos cracked me up. And they reminded me of something I find very interesting – the visual fetishizing of espresso drinks. I mean, this espresso porn guy is not alone. About five years ago when I first started to realize that there is an online community of people who are serious about espresso, I would be on some web forum (probably it was coffee geek, but I don’t remember) and somebody would post a photo of a shot of espresso and say something like, look at this beautiful shot that I pulled this morning! Check out that crema! And I would kind of inwardly roll my eyes and think, sure, buddy, your dick is huge. HUGE. Congratulations.

Which is to say that I found it kind of silly. And then, well, I started making a movie about the cappuccino. And of course it is impossible to do that without reflecting on the visual component of espresso preparation and consumption. For starters, espresso itself is quite simply beautiful. I mean, think about it. Have you ever stared mesmerized at the stream of coffee dripping through a paper filter into a pyrex pot? I haven’t. But after four years of shooting video in coffee shops I can tell you that those 25 seconds (or so) of espresso pouring out of the portafilter are endlessly visually compelling. And the same can be said for the fascinating variety of ways milk can pour into espresso. It’s just pretty. And if you look back at the history of espresso machine design and espresso bar layout, the truth is that espresso has always had a visually spectacular element to it, and visual pleasure has been central to defining what espresso is.

Check out some of the photos of the machines in Enrico Maltoni’s collection. They’re gorgeous; they’re works of art. And they were given pride of place in Italian espresso bars, in some cases valued as much for their form as their function. Prior to the invention of espresso, coffee was typically brewed and sitting around, waiting for a customer to enter and drink it. But look at this photo from a Milan trade fair in 1906. It's a little hard to see in the tiny picture, but the espresso machines are on the counter, high enough that the average person would have to look up at them. Preparation had changed from something that happened back behind the counter to something that happened ON the counter, right in front of you. Unlike the coffee that came before it, espresso was made right there, on the spot, expressly for you. And according to cultural historian Jeffrey Schnapp, the earliest machine designers understood this as a major selling point. They understood that espresso appealed to people partly because it was a superior extraction method and partly because its preparation was a compelling visual spectacle. Espresso was modern; it was fast; it was associated with other technological advances of the time, especially train travel. Espresso was sexy.

And it still is. The world-famous Emily is fond of saying that the pleasure of eating starts with your eyes. If something is pleasurable to look at, it whets your appetite and heightens your senses. So why NOT appreciate the beauty of a perfectly-extracted shot of espresso or a beautifully-poured cappuccino? Why NOT admire a gorgeous espresso machine while you’re standing around waiting for your cappuccino? Visual pleasure has been an essential part of the pleasure of espresso since its very inception.

It’s funny, because Starbucks gets a lot of credit (well, mostly from itself) for having “transformed” coffee from a commodity into a total experience. But they were not the first ones to hook into the idea that a trip to the coffee shop should excite more than your palate. And, if anything, in recent years they’ve completely lost touch with the visually spectacular nature of espresso preparation. Their machines have gotten uglier and more functional, and they’ve lost their pride of place in a lot of Starbucks stores. They mostly look like big plastic boxes, not art pieces, and the baristas are mostly just back there pushing buttons. Which is too, too bad. Starbucks is really missing out on an opportunity there.

So I guess the random guys who post pretty pictures of their morning shots of espresso are just keeping the tradition alive (albeit in a thoroughly 21st century manner). It’s hard, though. One thing I’ve noticed since I started this blog is that when I get a really good cappuccino, I never want to stop what I’m doing for long enough to take a picture of it.

I heart Ritual Coffee Roasters

2006-12-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

After such a long time of NO BLOGGING, one would hope that I would have something sensational to say. I do not. I don't even have any particularly good excuses, except that for the past two months I have been editing my film, so all my cappuccino-related energies have been going into that, I guess.

As for cappuccino-DRINKING, the standout of my life here in San Francisco continues to be Ritual Coffee Roasters on Valencia. I don't go all that often, as I live way across town, so when I get there, it's like this incredibly special treat. What can I tell you? This place just ROCKS. They get it. They always do it right. They have a large staff of very well-trained baristas and a gorgeous espresso machine that is a pleasure to look at (as well as be served from). Ritual has really become THE place I recommend to anyone visiting San Francisco (or anyone at all, for that matter.) They started out serving espresso from Stumptown in Portland, but within the past few months, they've started roasting their own coffees, and the last time I was there, I got to try one of their first efforts at an espresso blend. To be honest, my untrained palate would never have noticed that it wasn't Stumptown. (I mean, maybe if I tasted them one right after the other. But not a few weeks apart.) It tasted VERY similar to me. But co-owner Eileen tells me that they're not done developing it, so who knows how it'll change. I'll be curious to see...

What's funny to me about all this is that they have only been open for a year and a half(ish). And my other San Francisco fave, the Blue Bottle, is likewise only a couple years old. I've been going to coffee shops in San Francisco for a good 17 or 18 years now, and while I have not always been as serious about cappuccino quality as I am now (yes, I drank mochas with piles of sugar in them back when I was 16), the truth is that I have kind of been scratching my head lately and wondering what I did before Ritual and the Blue Bottle were around.

I mean, there WERE the 7 years in L.A. And the year in Rome. But I always spent time in SF, even when I was living elsewhere. So where did I go? The answer is North Beach. The Italian part of town. My two faves for getting a cappuccino were always The Steps of Rome and Caffe Roma, both on Columbus. I'm sorry to report that the Steps of Rome has just gone completely downhill in this department. I mean, uck. I think it's because they've started focusing more on being a restaurant and attracting tourists instead of locals. Or maybe it's because they stopped playing Pino Daniele all the time. Who knows? But I had a cappuccino there last month and it was a disgrace to the name cappuccino. What a disappointment. (Like, seriously, I'm crushed. There are too few good cappuccino joints around to not mourn when one of them falls. I'm drinking a beer right now, and I almost want to pour some out for my dead homey. Except I'm sitting at my dad's desk, and I don't think he'd like that.) Anyway, Caffe Roma is still around and still employing decently-trained baristas. And there's always the "traditional cappuccino" option at Peet's, where they will actually give you an 8 oz capp in a porcelain cup, made with a single shot. But you have to be careful to ask for really wet foam and hope that you get one of the baristas who's been around for a while, or you're screwed.

Alright, that was a huge aside (blame the beer), but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been looking back over my coffee-drinking history a lot lately - for purposes related to the editing of my film - and I've realized that there's always been this big dichotomy for me. There were the coffee shops that were awesome for hanging out in, and there were the coffee shops (much fewer in number) that had good cappuccinos, and they were very rarely the same places. The hangout places had a couch or two... some chess sets... plenty of tables... newspapers lying around... And the places with good cappuccinos tended to be places where I didn't feel particularly inclined to linger afterward.

I can further define this dichotomy as Italian vs. American. The good cappuccinos were always served in places that were very ITALIAN. So... not much on the menu besides the basic espresso, cappuccino, caffellatte, etc. No soft furniture. Very small, European cafe tables. None of the really homey, inviting feel of the American coffee shops that are all over San Francisco and are so comfy to sit in but have really crappy cappuccinos. (San Franciscans, you know what I'm talking about! Those places that serve their tea and espresso drinks in tall glasses, for cripes sake. But they're so warm... so inviting... you just want to hang out and shoot the breeze for hours... Bean There, Royal Ground, Crepe 'n' Coffee, The Blue Danube... I could go on.)

But these two types of coffee shop - Italian and American - have really found a meeting place in Ritual. It's got the simple menu and the commitment to quality of an Italian place (in fact, it OUTDOES the Italian places) but it also feels very much like an American place, with its couches and big tables and San Francisco-ey feel. The downside is that it is PACKED at all hours. I've never been there and not had to behave like a bird of prey just to get a seat (in spite of the fact that it's HUGE.) On the one hand, it's great to see them doing such good business. On the other hand, WILL ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE GET THE F OUT OF MY WAY?? Actually, let me rephrase. I don't mind the crowds. I mind the crowds of people who are glued to their laptops. There's a bit of a melancholy air there sometimes, because the people who are interacting with each other and having fun are all behind the counter. The rest of us are in an all-out war for real estate.

But now I'm quibbling. This place truly rocks. It reminds me of my other favorite coffee place (which also has that best-of-both-worlds quality). And I get kind of giddy when I go there because I think of the possibilities of truly exceptional espresso preparation entering an American social idiom. Will more places like Ritual spring up? (I am hoping so - I mean, the hipsters-with-laptops overflow is tremendous. Somebody give these people more places to GO!) Are we entering some kind of golden age? Is the third wave actually a WAVE and not an isolated bunch of people who are nuts about espresso? (And can somebody come up with something better than "third wave" to describe it? Sounds like a bunch of college girls at a Take Back The Night rally...)

I don't know. But I'm excited. Up till now, I worried that the only genuinely American interpretation of Italian espresso started with S and involved TOTAL GLOBAL DOMINATION. But whew. Maybe we are safe.

AT THE BLUE BOTTLE WITH EMILY

2006-10-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I had the immense pleasure of getting a cappuccino at the Blue Bottle with my best friend, neighbor and all-around partner-in-crime, Emily Dixon. Emily and I have been going out for coffee together on a very regular basis since about the early 90’s, so the Blue Bottle in Hayes Valley is still kind of “new” for us, as it opened in 2005. But it has very quickly become one of my favorite cappuccinos in San Francisco. This is partly because they do the drink right – not too hot, 6-ounce(ish) porcelain cup, delicious, caramel-y espresso, and exceedingly lovely crema del latte on most days.

But the Blue Bottle has also become one of my favorites because I love the atmosphere. It isn’t really a coffee shop. It’s more like an espresso speakeasy - just a garage with an espresso machine in it and a teeny little bar protruding from the counter, so you pretty much have to stand up to drink your coffee. As a result, the Blue Bottle has that feel of conviviality and human warmth that makes coffee bars in Italy so charming. I always wind up chatting with someone new there, or at least enjoying the human spectacle. And yet the Blue Bottle is utterly without the irritating pretension of coffee shops that go out of their way to try to be “authentically Italian.” A number of espresso joints in the states try to achieve that Italian feel by putting Italian words on the menu, photos of Tuscan hillsides on the walls, Andrea Bocelli on the stereo (ack), and calling out “ciao” instead of “hello.” Which always feels a little funny to me. It just calls attention to where we AREN’T. But the Blue Bottle seems to have captured some of the best of Italian culture without even trying, and that just tickles me. Sipping coffee there is just like being in Italy, only I can wear flip-flops or drink a cappuccino in the afternoon without catching disdainful stares from the passersby.

(OK, I recognize that my bellyaching about “irritating pretension” is totally hypocritical when here I am calling it crema del latte instead of microfoam. Maybe it’s time for me to give in to the dark side and just call it microfoam, for pete’s sake. I think I’m really turning myself around here. But can I just go on the record one last time and say that “microfoam” is one of those words that just makes me HATE us English-speakers for being so literal and pragmatic?)

Even better than going to the Blue Bottle, though, is going to the Blue Bottle with Emily. Emily has been my close friend since the first day of 8th grade, almost 20 years ago, and it’s hard for me to put into words what an outstanding, stupendous, hilarious person she is. But – sticking to the ostensible reason for this blog’s existence – Emily is as interested in the minutiae of cappuccino quality and variation as I am. We have been constant companions on many travels to Italy and in years of exploration of what makes a good cappuccino good. Emily inspires me, eggs me on, and keeps me honest. I often suspect that my documentary would have died a slow death from self-doubt if Emily were not around.

So the other day when we were at the Blue Bottle – doing our usual dorky photo shoot and enjoying our cappuccinos – we met a 20 year-old girl who was about to take her first trip to Rome, at which point we kind of attacked her with unsolicited advice and reminiscences about living in Rome. And it got me thinking about the sheer longevity of our friendship. Emily and I started taking Italian together in 9th grade at Lowell High School (Miss Nicora’s class. “Adriana! Adriana! Telefono! E’Gianni! Gianni, ecco Adriana.”) We took our first trip to Italy together with that class when we were 16, during which time we spent 3 days in Rome and vowed to live there together someday. I am still a little surprised to be able to report that 12 years later we actually DID live together in Rome. In 2002 - after both of us had lived in Italy at various times and after we both spent our college years studying Italian literature and culture in spite of its apparent lack of utility in the job market - I got a grant to live in Rome for a year, to start work on the cappuccino documentary. Emily was living in Washington, D.C. at the time, working for a software company. As soon as she heard that I’d be moving to Rome for a year, she determined to find a way to move there with me. And after a good deal of haggling, she not only talked her employers into letting her set up shop in Rome, she ended her year there by addressing Italian parliament on her employers’ behalf (on issues of internet usability for the disabled. Very smart girl, Emily.) So… Emily is that kind of friend. Dogged, loyal, and very adventurous.

I guess my point is that something truly amazing happens when you manage to stay close friends with someone for so long. When Emily and I were 16 and taking goofy pictures of each other in front of the Vatican and chit-chatting about how cool it would be to live there someday, I don’t think I really believed it would happen. Or at any rate, I couldn’t foresee HOW it would happen. But then when the opportunity arose, there was Emily, ready to make good on a 12 year-old wish, ready to remind me of a hope I had uttered a very long time ago.

We live in such a mobile culture; my family and “closest” friends are literally scattered all over the country; places like the Blue Bottle that actually encourage one to talk to one’s neighbors are very, very few. So I am all the more grateful for Emily. Having someone around to gently remind you of the person you’ve been all your life and the person you’ve supposedly wanted to become is no small thing. And now, at age 32, I’ve found that I feel a sense of possibility that I just didn’t feel when I was younger and wondering and fearful, and I think that’s partly because of having seen, over time, that some of the things I wished for myself have actually come to fruition. Emily’s presence in my life encourages me not only to believe in the positive visions I might idly have for my future but to run toward them with all of my might.

So as Emily and I spent a half-hour chatting over our ONE ZILLIONTH pair of cappuccinos, I felt really grateful for her continued presence in my life. And I didn’t even have to point out how much the Blue Bottle reminds me of Italy; she got it immediately.

Goodbye Los Angeles, Hello San Francisco

2006-10-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

This week finds me back home in San Francisco, my latest foray into reality television finally over. (Ahhhhhh!) The thing that I’ve been reflecting on these past couple weeks is what a difference the barista makes. This may sound obvious to some of you. And others of you are probably scratching your heads, wondering what a barista is. (The barista is the person who makes your espresso drinks. Yes, it’s a word that we borrowed from Italian. But they borrowed “bar” from English in the first place, so… it’s an international hybrid!)

So for starters, a couple weeks ago, I trekked out to San Dimas, California – along with the still-curious Aldo Velasco – to visit a place called the Coffee Klatch. For those of you unfamiliar with Southern California, San Dimas is inland from L.A. It’s hot as hell. It’s got a great view of the mountains. It was the setting of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. (The 14 year-old in me kept looking for a Circle K, but I didn’t see one.) And Coffee Klatch has a GREAT reputation. Earlier this year, esteemed coffee reviewer Ken Davids gave one of their espresso blends his highest rating ever. So Aldo and I made the trip out there partly just to taste the coffee but also because I was preparing to shoot an interview there - with former US barista champion Heather Perry - and I needed to do a little location scout.

In any case, we arrived with great expectations and well… we were pretty disappointed. The flavor of our cappuccinos was excellent, but in all other ways, they were forgettable. Mine was scalding hot – literally boiling – and the foam had that stiff, big-bubble texture that just makes me think that maybe life IS suffering after all. And they accidentally gave it to me in a paper cup. To soothe our disappointment, Aldo and I trooped across the parking lot to Target and stocked up on underwear.

OK, now cut to four days later. I return to Coffee Klatch to conduct an interview with Heather Perry. I have seen Heather compete at a couple barista competitions in the past year, and I know she is serious. I mean, VERY SERIOUS. In spite of her sweet smile and twinkly blue eyes, this girl gets her game face on when it’s time to compete. (I’m not gonna lie to you. She can be a little intimidating.) So Heather proceeds to make one of the best cappuccinos I have ever tasted. And she makes it over and over and over again. Perfectly. (In hindsight, I can’t figure out why I only took one sip. I guess I was there more as a filmmaker than as a blogger. I get so scattered when I’m filming, and I inevitably do stupid shit. On the other hand, I got to taste their straight espresso a number of times, in a couple different ways. Wow. Incredible.) We also had a great interview – about coffee, about cappuccino foam, about the nature of being American – and I was pleased to note that Heather and the entire SCAA/barista-competition-establishment frown on stiff peaks. Music to my ears.

So all of this made me think a lot about the fact that over the course of a few days, I’d had a pretty forgettable cappuccino and an incredible cappuccino prepared with the same raw materials on the same equipment in the same spot. The only difference was the human hand that made them. I’m inclined to hope that the bad cappuccino was a fluke, because Heather is the trainer of all Coffee Klatch’s baristas, and in the few hours I spent barraging her with silly questions, I could see that she’s a very knowledgeable and engaging instructor. So I’m having a hard time believing that the boiling cappuccino I got would be the norm. And honestly, if I were still in southern California, the compulsive part of my personality would force me to make semi-regular trips out to San Dimas just to gather more data before ruling one way or the other on Coffee Klatch’s cappuccino.

But, like I mentioned, I’m no longer in SoCal. I’m back home in San Francisco, sitting in my kitchen/office, sifting through hours and hours of footage of people like Heather talking about the coffee business. But I’ve continued to reflect on the whole barista thing. I live right off of Chestnut Street, in the Marina (no, I’ve never been in a sorority), and there are five coffee shops within a two block radius of my apartment – three independents, a Starbucks, and a Peet’s. And more often than not, I wind up going to Peet’s. Partly, this is because I’m a fan of the atmosphere there. But it’s also because the baristas at this particular Peet’s really get it about the milk. Peet’s is not my favorite coffee in the world, but they really do an amazing job with the milk – dense, creamy, velvety, you know the drill. So I add some sugar, chit-chat with some strangers, and I’m pretty happy. But one day I was in there, and the woman at the bar did a particularly good job, so I went and thanked her and told her how much I liked it. And her reply to me was, “It’s not me. It’s the recipe.” Which is total malarkey. If it were the recipe, then I could get this amazing crema del latte at every Peet’s everywhere. I can’t. Peet’s might have good trainers. They might do a better-than-average job at inspiring their baristas and offering them a work environment that is attractive enough that they stay on the job long enough to get really good at it. I suspect this is particularly true in the bay area, where, from what I can tell, there are a few Peet’s baristas who are lifers. Career baristas. Almost unheard of in America. The likelihood of getting a good cappuccino at Peet’s might be higher than getting one at a number of other places. But it’s not a certainty.

I think this question of certainty is at the heart of why I am interested in the cappuccino at all. It’s like, when you’re trying to train a dog, they tell you that the best way to do it is to use intermittent positive reinforcement. When the dog fetches the ball, you give her a treat. But if you want the best overall ball-fetching results, you don’t give her a treat EVERY SINGLE TIME. That way, the dog stays interested. Am I gonna get a treat? Or am I not gonna get a treat? Guess I better fetch the ball and find out. From what I understand, this system of unpredictable rewards works well in dating, at least if you subscribe to The Rules. It’s also a favored method of sadistic prison guards. So… I guess I’m kind of the dog in this scenario, kept endlessly curious because of the system’s inherent unpredictability. (And wooed into throwing away my hard-earned money one three-dollar cappuccino at a time…)

Of course, this brings up the BIG S. The company that has tried (and is still trying) to standardize something that is more-or-less inherently un-standardizable. But that’s a discussion for another time. Or you can watch my movie when I’m done with it. Meanwhile, it feels good to be home.

What are coffee shops for?

2006-09-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had the best homemade cappuccino I’ve ever had. My friend Robin invited me to a coffee tasting at the home of a friend of hers who is soon to open a coffee shop here in Santa Monica. It was a pretty small affair – basically just a little group of friends clustered around the host, Touraj Rahimi, as he manned a rinky-dink home machine and turned out some pretty great espresso drinks. Honestly, this cappuccino was better than most of what you can get in coffee shops around L.A. So for a second there, I started to rethink my general rule about making a cappuccino at home: why bother? I gave up on it a long time ago. Too many variables, too much time, too much money… and then at the end of all that hard work, you have to clean up your kitchen. As hard as it is to find a great cappuccino in a coffee shop, it’s still easier than making one at home. (If you have any curiosity about some of what goes into making good espresso at home, check out home-barista.com or browse some of the discussion threads on alt.coffee.)

So as I was standing there in Touraj’s kitchen, sipping my excellent homemade cappuccino, Touraj was kind enough to let me barrage him with questions about his planned coffee shop. When would it open? Early 2007. Where would it be? Near Santa Monica College, in the vicinity of Pico and 16th. What would it be called? The Schubert Coffee House. Why? Because Schubert is one of Touraj’s favorite composers. Then we got to the question whose answer has been floating around in my head for the better part of a week. Why did Touraj decide to open a coffee shop? I’ve asked this question to dozens of coffee shop owners over the past few years, and I’ve never gotten an answer quite like Touraj’s. Here’s what he told me:

Touraj is a middle-aged man who spent the first part of his career working “in computers.” A while back, he grew very interested in development, as in third-world development. He did some work in that area and spent some time in developing countries, and he began to think that many of the solutions to the problems those countries face are to be found here in the U.S., in our foreign policy. He came back to the U.S. and enrolled in grad school, but within a short time, he got discouraged about the possibility of really effecting change on the path he was on. So he decided that - given the dearth of public spaces to engage in debate and discussion - a better way to effect change would be to open a coffee shop. He has spent the past few years researching the market, refining his ideas, and learning about coffee. His idea is for the coffee shop to be a nice place to hang out during the day but to have an event of some sort scheduled for just about every night of the week. He’d like some of the events to be what most of us would consider pretty typical for a coffee house – musical performances, poetry readings, and so on. But he’d also like to host lectures, debates and readings of a scholarly and political nature.

The idea that someone in this day and age would view opening a coffee shop as a good route for arriving at social change positively tickles me. I think many people (myself included) have some kind of idealized notion of what a coffee shop should be – not only a place to purchase coffee, but also a kind of salon for the exchange of ideas and the formation of community. And when you look at the history of coffee shops, they did live up to that ideal for a good portion of their history. In fact, it’s pretty amazing how central they were to the development of democracy and capitalism (for better or for worse, I suppose). In 1600’s England, for instance, coffee houses were home to intellectual inquiry, business transactions and political debate; they were home to the Enlightenment. Stock trading began in coffee houses, as did the insurance industry. The ballot box first came into use in coffee houses so that people could express their political opinions openly without fear of reprisal. The Royal Society first met in a coffee house; I mean, we are talking about Isaac Newton and his peers debating the theory of gravity over a dish of coffee. And the French Revolution was started in a coffee house! I could go on. But my point is that off and on for a fairly long stretch of western history, coffee shops were basically the internet – an open forum for networking, for exchanging news, and for engaging in essentially unregulated and egalitarian debate (often at historical moments when unregulated and egalitarian debate was kind of a radical concept). There were some less noble sides to this; coffee shops were also rumor mills (just like the internet), and it’s not as if every discussion was high-toned and productive (again, just like the internet). But by and large, the history of coffee shops in western society (and, to a certain extent, in middle eastern society as well) is one of intellectual engagement, community formation and the foundation of significant social and political movements.

But let’s be honest: coffee shops do not function that way in our society anymore. I keep looking for it, but I just don’t see it. When you walk into most coffee shops today, you see oceans of people staring at their laptops. A bunch of people being alone together in public.

I’ll be honest: my heart sinks a little every time I see this. I wonder a lot about why this is the state of things, and I think this issue has been at the heart of the documentary I’m making. The most logical explanation would seem to be that coffee shops no longer fill the role that they used to because we don’t need them to anymore. In the age of mass media, we have much more efficient ways of disseminating news and engaging in public discussion. Why talk to 10 people in a coffee shop when you can “talk” to thousands of people on the internet? It is so much easier than it used to be to exchange ideas with very large numbers of people. And obviously, I am as happy as the next person to take advantage of the many means at my disposal for communicating at a distance.

So why, then, do I feel a kind of weird nostalgia for a time before I was born, when coffee shops really were vital centers of activity? Have we genuinely lost something or am I just being silly and romanticizing something that it would be impossible to recreate anyway? I think it boils down to this question: What is the value of discussing things face-to-face with other people? I can hear a voice in my head saying that I am being a mushy, emotional GIRL right now, but I can’t get away from the idea that there is something irreplaceable about BEING THERE – looking into the face of the person you’re speaking to. We communicate differently with others when we are actually in one another’s presence. I mean, just look at the way people are assholes to each other on the internet. I’ve been subscribing to alt.coffee for about six months now, and it never ceases to amaze me how ready these guys are to just assume the worst about each other and to say outrageously cruel and insulting things to people they’ve never met and know nothing about. Someone will post a completely innocuous question (or, worse yet, an opinion) and before you know it there’s blood in the water and the feeding frenzy is underway. And I always think that there’s no way these guys would say these things to each other if they were sitting in the same room together. They would most certainly disagree, but I think they’d be more respectful about it and more ready to acknowledge each other’s humanity. Or at least the presence of witnesses would shame them into showing some good manners.

So I think this is why I am so tickled by Touraj’s mission for his coffee shop. He perceived a need for public dialogue, and he made a choice that implies that actually being in the same room with someone has a power that is different from the power of exchanging words or pictures at a distance. So I am very curious to see what will come of his experiment. Is the face-to-face way of engaging in debate and discussion really dead? Or is Touraj going to tap into some unmet need in a lot of people? I literally feel like the dog who sees another dog from across the park. My ears are pricked up; my nose is quivering; I am all attention, waiting to see what happens next.

And in the meanwhile, I guess I’ve figured out yet another reason why I don’t really want to bother trying to make a good cappuccino at home.

Downtown LA -- the Redcat

2006-09-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

For quite some time now, I have heard from the online community of espresso nerds that there is very good espresso to be had at the café attached to the Redcat, a performance space and gallery in the basement of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Seems like kind of a funny place to find really good coffee, but I went to check it out yesterday, accompanied by the charming and always-adventurous filmmaker/private investigator Aldo Velasco. (Lucky me.)

So Aldo and I walk in, and the café is very unlike the cafes you usually find attached to museums and concert halls; there’s a long, wide, comfy bar, and a whole bunch of couches. In short, it doesn’t have that sterile, institutional feel to it.

So let me get this out of the way first: I was not particularly impressed with the cappuccino at this place. It was pretty big, too hot, and it was basically a latte with some additional stiff foam spooned on top. (So if that’s your thing, you’d probably like it. But if that’s your thing, why are you reading this blog?)

However, I still found a lot to like about the Redcat. For starters, I was VERY impressed with the espresso itself. I mean, WOW. Really good espresso. The barista told us it’s from Espresso Vivace in Seattle, which is a place that has a better-than-sterling reputation (and, as an aside, Mark Wain, the owner of Caffe Luxxe, received some of his training at Espresso Vivace.) But I have never had the good fortune to try their coffee until now. I’ll repeat: wow. It had a very smooth, balanced, rich flavor. The only way I can think to describe it is that it’s what coffee is supposed to taste like. So the next time I’m in the mood for a shot of really good espresso, it’s nice to know that the Redcat is there.

The Redcat also got me thinking about another of my coffee-related interests: store layout. Over my many years of haunting coffee shops, I’ve noticed that I tend to talk to strangers far more often when we’re sharing space: a bar, a bench, a large communal table. Makes sense, right? It even seems kind of obvious. But many, many coffee shops – both independent and corporate alike – have nothing but archipelagos of isolated tables, and when I go to those places, I never end up talking to anybody except the person behind the register who takes my money.

I think a lot of people like this. I’m sure that the whole privacy-in-public thing is a major selling point of a lot of cafés. I think it's a large part of the explanation for Starbucks’ success. But I happen to be someone who genuinely enjoys talking to strangers. I mean, I don’t go out cruising for people to talk to, but I’m not really interested in pretending to be alone when I am mere feet (sometimes mere inches) from my fellow humans. It strikes me as more humane for us to acknowledge each other and maybe even find some little bit of commonality. (And, on rare occasions, to have an enlightening or inspiring conversation.) And what I’ve noticed over the years is that the physical layout of a coffee shop has a significant impact on my own openness to interacting with other people. I’m a lot less likely to talk to anyone if there’s a lot of space, a lot of individual tables, and a clearly delineated procedure for ordering and paying for my coffee. But I talk to people a lot more often when I am literally forced to brush shoulders with them.

A perfect example of this is the Peet’s Coffee on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. I go there a lot, because it’s two blocks from my apartment. (Well, I don’t happen to be living in that apartment right this second. But it’s still mine. And I’ll be back there next month.) This particular Peet’s has a layout that is especially unfriendly to anyone who’s ordering an espresso drink. It’s a long, narrow space, most of which is taken up by a counter to sell coffee beans. But 90% of the customers aren’t there to buy beans. They’re there to buy espresso drinks, and the espresso machine and cash registers are tucked into a tiny corner in the back, along with the little bar with the sugar packets and lids. So if there are more than, say, two people in there at once, it can get kind of crowded, and people get confused about where they’re supposed to stand to wait in line to order or to wait for their coffee. They don’t really have tables there either. They have two benches and a row of seats at a bar facing out the front window. So what I noticed over the course of five months of going there regularly is that I talk to strangers at that Peet’s ALL THE TIME. And strangers talk to me. There is just no way to feel alone at that Peet’s. I have spoken with strangers there on subjects ranging from the relative merits of the ginger cookies vs. the brownies to San Francisco architectural trends. I even spoke to a fully-grown adult who was wearing a San Francisco Unified School District gym uniform because he thought it was “cool” because he’d seen Adam Sandler wearing one on TV. (WHAT?? This meathead didn’t even know that the big yellow box on the front is where you’re supposed to write your name in sharpie.)

It’s interesting to note the change in my own behavior due to the atmosphere around me. I think we like to think of ourselves as having a fairly immutable set of personality traits and propensities. But what I’ve discovered by observing myself over time is that when people are in my face, I am pretty friendly and chatty. When they’re tucked away in their own private corners or at their own private tables, I’m not. So I am basically living in fear that as Peet’s grows and makes an ever-more-serious effort to compete with Starbucks, some soulless business school graduate will visit that store and decide that there’s a much more efficient way to get customers in and out of there at top speed, and all of its conviviality and charm will be sacrificed to somebody’s bright idea about how to increase shareholder value.

OK, I guess that was a long-winded way of explaining that over time, I have realized that I have a preference for places that have some shared space. And the Redcat DOES have some shared space. For starters, there’s the bar. You can see it in the photo if you mentally crop out the goofy-looking girl on the left. In addition to being a coffee shop of sorts, the Redcat is an actual bar, where beer, wine and cocktails can be purchased, and I think it is helped tremendously by that layout. (It’s not just the alcohol that helps people meet each other in bars, I swear!) In the hour or so that Aldo and I sat there, we mostly talked to each other, but we also chatted with our barista a bit, and with a guy sitting next to us at the bar.

I think the Redcat is also kind of special because of its location. If you’re not familiar with that little stretch of downtown L.A., you should know that pretty much NO ONE lives there. There are gigantic office towers nearby. And there are cultural centers: Disney Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, MOCA, The Ahmanson… So even though they have free wi-fi at the Redcat, I can’t see a lot of screenwriters showing up there with their laptops to get some work done (the way they do at every other coffee shop in this town). So the Redcat is pretty ideally situated to be a great place to go have an actual conversation (maybe even with – gasp! – strangers) after you’ve been to the opera or an art show or a film screening. One of the most common complaints I hear (and occasionally make) about L.A. is that it’s a city built for cars and it therefore does not facilitate interaction among actual humans. So go to the Redcat! Get some good espresso! Or try a cocktail. And chat up the person sitting next to you.

A final note: I know this is supposedly a coffee blog, but after we had coffee, Aldo took me to this new gelato place in Silverlake: Pazzo Gelato on Sunset and Hyperion. Holy fat and sugar combining to make me see god! The Almond Fig flavor, in particular, was outrageously good. And this is REAL gelato, right down to the kid’s-beach-shovel spoons. And, for those of you who might care about this, it’s made with all organic ingredients, and the flavors change regularly based on what’s locally and seasonally available. Kind of a Slow Foodie’s dream, this place. (And if you don’t know what Slow Food is, get on the bus!)

Next time: well… I’m not sure what I’ll write about next time. But those of you who are incredibly astute readers of this blog and its comments (hi, mom!) may have noticed that questions have been raised about milk. Namely, WHY does whole milk make better crema del latte than nonfat milk? I have been researching this question as avidly as my current employ as a reality TV editor will permit (which is to say, only occasionally, very late at night, and with a brain that has been partially addled by listening to bad karaoke all day). But I think I am slowly getting to the bottom of this. And I am learning all kinds of fascinating milk science tidbits along the way. I hope to share them soon.

Good News for Los Angeles: Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica

2006-08-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

I have an Italian friend named Alessandro. He’s a physicist at the University of L’Aquila, and he’s the kind of person who likes to speak in terms of numbers and probabilities. As in, “the probability that I’ll make it to dinner on time is 0.8.” Ale came here to Los Angeles for the first time last fall to do some research at Caltech, so one Saturday I picked him up in Pasadena and got to spend the day driving around L.A. with him, listening to his many observations about American culture. (First among them was that we Americans eat A LOT of chicken. Chicken for every meal. Chicken at every restaurant. Thai chicken, Chinese chicken, Zankou chicken. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Why do Americans eat so much chicken, he wanted to know. I don’t have an answer for that one.)

On our day tour of L.A. we went up to Griffith Observatory, and as we sat there looking down on the L.A. basin, Ale revealed to me that prior to coming to Los Angeles, he had done some research on basic facts and figures, and he had discovered that Los Angeles is approximately the same size as the Italian region of Umbria.*

How can I express what a strange sensation this knowledge brought? It was as if someone had told me that Los Angeles and New Jersey are exactly the same size. Los Angeles and Umbria had existed on very different scales in my head. L.A. is a city. Umbria is the equivalent of a state. How could they be the same size? Then Ale told me that L.A. has ten times the population of Umbria. It’s not just a city; it’s a gigantic region unto itself – a conglomeration of many small cities butted up against each other. We joked as we drove from Griffith Park to Santa Monica that we were essentially making the trip from Orvieto to Assisi. (Italophiles, do you see what I mean? Different scales! Nobody in Italy would make a daily commute from Orvieto to Assisi, but Los Feliz to Santa Monica is no big deal by L.A. standards.)

And inevitably the thought occurred to me: you’d think that in a city the size of Umbria, a city of 10 million people, you’d be able to find a good cappuccino. But the sad truth is that Los Angeles is a cappuccino wasteland. It pains me to say this, because I love Los Angeles with my whole heart. I think it is an amazing place, a city of very few rules and no overriding aesthetic, a city where you are free to be yourself, a city where you can literally find everything. Everything, that is, except a good cappuccino. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Los Angeles is also the city that gave birth to the frappuccino – a knockoff of Coffee Bean’s Ice Blended.)

There are a few places in L.A. that serve a decent cappuccino – Urth Caffe has been my standby for many years - but I can count them on one hand. By contrast, every time I’ve ever been to Umbria, they’re everywhere. Sigh.

So it is with extreme pleasure and great excitement that I report the arrival of a new café that makes a very fine cappuccino: Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica. It’s located at 925 Montana Aveune, and if you can dodge the nouveau riche mommies who are likely to run you off the sidewalk with strollers that cost more than my Subaru, it’s well worth a visit. Honestly, this place is nothing short of miraculous. What can I say? It’s the real deal. The cappuccino I had was not too big, not too hot, and served in a pre-heated porcelain cup. Smooth, pourable crema del latte? Check. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Or at least to Orvieto.

I’ve been to Caffe Luxxe a few times now, and the thing I keep noticing about their cappuccino is the way the flavor really mellows as it cools. It starts out with a very sharp aftertaste that I don’t much care for; I keep having a very strong urge to sugar this cappuccino after the first sip. But I keep resisting, and I never regret it, because by the time I get to the bottom of the cup, there is a pretty overwhelming chocolate flavor to it. So this is not a cappuccino that brings me pure joy from top to bottom, but so far I have found its evolution very interesting. And it is vastly superior to 99.9% of what’s available in the rest of Los Angeles, so there is true cause for rejoicing. (It’s worth pointing out here that café culture in Los Angeles has long been utterly dominated by corporate coffee. In fact, on Montana Avenue, Caffe Luxxe sits just blocks away from a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a Peet’s, a Diedrich’s and three Starbucks.)

Caffe Luxxe has only been open for six weeks, but I am definitely not the only one who’s excited about it. You can read what people are saying about it on the LA chowhound message board, for instance. Or on the coffeegeek forum. And in the couple hours I spent there last Sunday chatting with my friend Keshni, a steady stream of people came in, chatted with the owner, Mark Wain, and basically did what I did: threw themselves at his feet and thanked him for bringing another source of good espresso to Los Angeles. Mark reports that he’s currently serving coffee roasted by a mysterious “friend” in Seattle, but he hopes to have his own roasting operation up and running within a year.

Next time: I keep hearing about some really good espresso joints waaaaaaay on the other side of town (like, all the way across Umbria). I hope to make the pilgrimage soon.

*I have since learned that Los Angeles County is actually 2,000 square-kilometers bigger than Umbria, while the city of Los Angeles is considerably SMALLER than Umbria. So I’m not sure where Ale got his numbers, but I think this just underlines what any L.A. resident knows: it’s not exactly clear where L.A. starts and where it stops, so when you refer to "Los Angeles," nobody's really sure what you're talking about.

Cappuccinos are like snowflakes

2006-08-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

So… before I get to the actual cappuccino review part of the cappuccino review blog, it seemed like a good idea to lay out where I’m coming from and to try to put into words what I’m looking for in a cappuccino.

A cappuccino is typically defined as a drink that is one-third espresso, one-third steamed milk, and one-third foamed milk. (You can check out the wikipedia definition of the cappuccino here.) But implicit in this definition is the idea that you can separate a cappuccino into its constituent parts. I would argue, instead, that the perfect cappuccino incorporates coffee, air and milk into a few magical sips of something else entirely, something that is more than just the sum of its parts. Like I said in my last entry, a cappuccino should be a fluid experience.

So let’s get one thing out of the way first: a good cappuccino starts with a good shot of espresso. This is no easy thing to find, but I’m going to gloss over it for a second. And if you check out the links section, you can find plenty of other places where the intricacies of pulling a superior shot of espresso are discussed at great length. (I have found the coffeegeek forum particularly interesting.) So… let’s just assume for the sake of argument that good shots of espresso are everywhere. (HA!) After that, what makes a good cappuccino?

The first thing I notice when I sip a cappuccino is the texture. A cappuccino should feel dense and creamy in your mouth, but light and airy at the same time. You should not be able to perceive the separation of liquid and foam, at least not in the first few sips. I have heard this texture described hundreds of times by people in the coffee business as “velvety.” (It’s my considered opinion that the smoothness of a well-made cappuccino puts velvet to shame, but I’ll go with it until I can think of something better.)

This unique texture is produced by a substance that I’ve sometimes heard Italians refer to as the “crema del latte” – literally, the “cream of the milk.” This is in no way related to actual cream, but it is a recognition that we are no longer dealing with just milk here. A chemical process has occurred, and we have a new substance entirely. Americans refer to this substance by the decidedly less charming name of “microfoam.” So if nobody minds the pomposity of throwing foreign words into an English language blog, I’m going to go ahead and stick with crema del latte.

Judging from its scarcity, really good crema del latte is incredibly difficult to produce. But to me, it is what makes a cappuccino a cappuccino. Espresso exists elsewhere. So does hot milk. But crema del latte can’t be found anywhere else. (Sadly, it can’t even be found all that often in what passes for cappuccinos.) In the course of making my documentary, I’ve interviewed a number of baristas about producing the crema del latte, and the consensus seems to be that it’s all about heating the milk slowly and keeping it below the temperature at which milk starts to taste salty instead of sweet. One barista that I met in Italy – who made a truly exceptional cappuccino – showed me how he had closed off two of the holes in his steam wand in order to get what he deemed the right flow of steam into the milk.

It’s also about using the right milk. Crema del latte is produced when the proteins in the milk get temporarily emulsified with air, so milks with higher protein content - such as whole milk or extra-rich milk - will produce the best crema del latte. This is why I feel like somebody just insulted my mother every time I overhear someone ordering a nonfat cappuccino. Uck.

Now, in certain circles, the cappuccino that I have just described is known as the “traditional” cappuccino. This is a term that is used in contrast to the “American” cappuccino, which is usually larger and is basically just a shot of espresso (or two, or three, or – holy god – FOUR shots of espresso) topped with a cap of stiff foam and maybe some hot liquid milk. I have even met people who claim to prefer the American cappuccino, often made with skim milk, as this most easily achieves the meringue-like texture these people prefer. I’m just going to say it: I think that those people are crazy. Or, more likely, I think they have never had a properly made “traditional” cappuccino. I try to avoid wearing my conviction on this point out in the open, but in my heart of hearts, I feel sorry for those people. I feel sure that they are missing out.

But I digress. All of this is to say that to me the crema del latte is absolutely THE key to a good cappuccino. And I will admit to being further charmed by it because it’s the part of the process that just cannot be mechanized. There’s an X factor involved in making a cappuccino: human idiosyncrasy. Sorry to keep returning to the FLUID thing, but controlling the flow of steam into liquid is not a process that can be very exactly controlled or quantified. And even though there are “recipes” or “standards” for steam pressure and temperature and so on, there’s also the variable of how the barista works with the milk. So even though you get individual baristas who get pretty good at making a consistent product, the truth is that you never really have the same cappuccino twice.

This is the part of drinking the cappuccino that kind of blows my mind when I let myself think about it – the fact that each one is completely unique. And cappuccinos are not only unique in that they differ greatly from cup to cup, but they are unique in the sense that they differ greatly within the same cup. From the moment they are completed, they start to change. The liquid separates from the air; the foam gets lighter and stiffer. And of course the flavors of the coffee itself change subtly (or dramatically) as it cools.

So… that’s my deal. What I’m looking for in a cappuccino is not just something that tastes good or provides me with a dose of an addictive stimulant. I’m looking for something ephemeral, something that reminds me of the fact that the experience of being human is essentially fleeting and very difficult to trap, catalog, quantify or parse. Do I need to have this existential reflection every morning before work? No. But I would like to know where I can find it when I desire it. So I continue to search.

Next time: the cappuccino reviewing starts in earnest with news of an excellent cappuccino I discovered mere blocks from my temporary home in Santa Monica.

My little problem

2006-07-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

I have a problem. I LOVE the cappuccino. Love. It. This might not sound like a very big problem to you, and certainly it is not on par with world hunger or even a bad relationship. But I am here to tell you that when you love the cappuccino as much as I do, it’s a problem.

Why? Because I live in the United States of America. Being a cappuccino lover in America is setting yourself up for heartbreak. Every time I go into a new café, I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. All previous experience indicates that what I’m about to do will be a disaster, but I let myself get suckered into it anyway.

But maybe it’s the constant failure to find what I’m looking for that keeps me obsessed. Because I AM obsessed. I will go miles and miles out of my way to try a new cappuccino. I lie awake at night thinking about them. I even suspect that the cappuccino is the reason I keep finding excuses to go live in Italy for large chunks of time.

American cappuccinos are typically way too large, far too hot, and served in paper cups whose steep sides make it impossible to fully experience the cappuccino in a single sip. They’re also topped with stiff peaks that would be more at home on a key lime pie than a cup of coffee. Occasionally, they have been befouled with cinnamon.

But I can’t stop searching. Because every once in a great while, I find a really good one. Not too hot, so the milk stays sweet. Not too big. A perfect blend of espresso and milk in that unique, unforgettable texture that inevitably gets described by everyone in the coffee business as “velvety.” But even the perfect cappuccino doesn’t last long. The longer you let it sit, the more the airy parts separate from the liquidy parts. You can stir and swirl and what have you, but the truth is, it’s those first few sips that are heaven. And then it’s over. And I have to start the search again. I keep thinking that I will get sick of it someday and move on to something else. But this obsession has lasted a loooooong time. Boyfriends, apartments, cars… they have come and gone. But my obsession with the cappuccino just keeps hanging around.

A while back I even started making a documentary film on the history of the cappuccino. I thought that would help me get over it. But after four years of traveling all over the place and tasting hundreds of cappuccinos I am as curious as I ever was. If anything, the cappuccino has become MORE irresistible to me, because in the course of working on my film, I’ve found some excellent cappuccinos in some very unlikely places. So now the compulsive side of my personality just can’t walk past a coffee shop without wondering if, against all odds, the world’s best cappuccino might be waiting for me just feet away.

So I’m starting this blog to help me deal with my obsession. The idea is pretty simple: I’m going to taste a lot of cappuccinos. Then I’m going to write about them. I will also probably write a thing or two about the places in which they’re served. Because the cappuccino is an inherently social beverage. You just can’t make a really good one at home. And in addition to being deadly serious about the cappuccino, I am fascinated with the coffee shop as a social space.

There’s another important reason I’m starting this blog: my desire to find kindred spirits. With the exception of my very patient, quality-hound best friend Emily, I have hardly met anyone who will sit still for more than 60 seconds of discussion of the cappuccino. I feel a little lonely in my obsession. So if you are out there, reading this, and some relevant thought pops into your head, please feel free to join in the conversation. Or really, any kind of a thought will do. I want to hear from you!

My next entry will be a detailed breakdown of what makes a good cappuccino good. And even of what makes a cappuccino a cappuccino, at least in my opinion. But I’ll leave you with this central concept: a good cappuccino should be a fluid experience, both in terms of texture and flavor. It should be soccer, not baseball. It should be a sauce, not a salad. It should be analog, not digital. Do you see what I’m getting at? More soon…