An Obsession With Coffee?
Food & Wine has a pretty interesting take on what's good in coffee these days -- An Obsessive's Guide to Coffee." The magazine has some purdy pictures, but you can get it all, plus more, here on the internets. We really enjoyed it, but the title of the article may be a bit off. Obsessive? Ummm, not really. No, we don't think so. Enthusiast, perhaps, would have been a better choice. An obsessive would already be doing things like rating local coffee shops, listening to consumer-oriented podcasts, listening to industry-focused podcasts, reading and contributing reviews to places like CoffeeGeek.com (p.s. -- thanks for leaving us a comment a few weeks ago, Mr. Prince), checking out certain blogs, certain other review sites, etc. etc.
Oh, and you can consider the above set of links the Trimethyldioxypurist's guide to getting started as an enthusiast. Obsessive is a whole other level, and you'll know it if you're there*, and you won't need Food & Wine to tell you about it.
Sorry, a little off topic here -- let us reiterate: we really enjoyed the feature in Food & Wine magazine this month. They gave a some play to Ritual Roasters, one of our faves, in the magazine version. The extended online version also mentions our beloved Blue Bottle (who, by the way, won't return our calls or emails. That's okay; we understand that you shouldn't encourage stalkers). Silicon Valley's Barefoot Coffee Roasters is mentioned in the print version; the Web version doesn't include the snippet on boutique roasters for some reason. Humph. Nor does the Web version include F&W's proclamation that SBUX (that's the trading ticker for Starbucks, folks) is the "Best Big Roaster."
(P.S. Check out the print version of SFist for all sorts of bonus features the online version doesn't have, like letters to the editor and samples of our new coffee-scented cologne, "Enthusiast For Men." Available at your specialty newsstands.).
It's nice when coffee stuff hits big media. The more aware we are of coffee quality as a whole, the better it's likely to get.
* Okay, so back to this whole "obsession" thing. Because, if you haven't noticed by now, it's all about us.
Are we obsessive? Nah. We are enthusiasts, to be sure, but we doubt an obsessive would be as fond of, say, Red's as we are. Nor of the $1 deal for sub-par coffee that there's never a line for in our office building. Nor would we forget to pay attention to what we're drinking when we went back to an old favorite that's been renovated.
The former Cafe Macondo, now called Cafe La Onda, has been renovated and, while we've been once or twice since the changes, we've been meaning to go "officially." We're not sure if we paid enough attention, though. See, we went there to meet Ms. Milla, an old friend, former San Francisco resident, and current Los Angelino that was visiting for the weekend with two of her fabulous pals. And she distracted us. We tried the drip (a little cool, a little bitter -- not the dark fist of dynamite it used to be), and an Americano (which, weirdly enough, tasted exactly the same as the drip). Ms. Milla had two cappuccinos, and her experience was much the same as ours. She says:
"La Onda cappuccino was a bit disappointing. too weak for my taste, especially for a capp. tasted more like a latte. it had a kind of smoky sweet flavor and it wasn't hot enough, temperature-wise. good ambience in the place, however. "
We agree on the ambience -- it's still a really cool space with people that have a vibe we dig. The space is actually improved, with moving the service counter to the front, in our opinion. Not sure the coffee's as good, unfortunately.
Of course, if we were obsessed, we'd go on about how things shouldn't change, how we liked it how it used to be. We'd be able to quantify in more detail what might be missing, or perhaps pick up on something good we've neglected to mention. But, being distracted as we were, the above is all you get. The coffee was just okay, and we enjoyed ourselves a good deal.
And really, for this enthusiast, that's more than enough.
Food & Wine magazine, http://foodandwine.com, available on newsstands everywhere for $4.50
Cafe La Onda, in the Mission District, 3159 16th Street at Guerrerro