So a new high end (in theory) coffee bar opened in my neighborhood. The coffee is really bad, which is not all that uncommon, but I noticed they are making their drinks in a strange way. Their thing is proclaiming that everything is single serve to order. The bad thing is they seem to be making everything with their espresso machine, and not americano style.

I watched them make my iced coffee by filling a 16oz cup with ice and running a gushing portafilter into it until it was full. Pretty sure they do the same thing to make the hot coffee, which I tasted but didn't see them make. There is no other coffee equipment there, definitely no single serve pour over stuff. Is there any precedent for this? I've seen it asked about before, but I've never seen a shop actually do it. I wonder where they got the idea. Btw, they charge more than Intelligentsia in the same town :\.

I wouldn't go there a second time . . . .

The most popular espresso drink in Northern Europe is Cafe Crema, made by running around 5 to 6 ounces of water through a double basket's worth of coffee. There are long threads on alt.coffee and coffeegeek as to whether this is better or worse than Americanos. My guess is when the baristas know their business, it's better, since it has replaced Americanos in most of the areas where they were popular.

But just because it can be good, doesn't mean it will be. After all, espresso can be wonderful, but spend ten years going to randomly selected cafes, and never you'll probably never get close.

Thanks Jim. I suspected this might be common practice somewhere out there. Of course, that doesn't make it taste any better in this shop. Should it be sold as a cafe crema, or is this drink commonly served in place of regular coffee, as is the case here?

I suspect that if they knew enough to know that it was a cafe crema, they'd call it that. Given your observations of the quality of their coffee, that seems unlikely.

Run.

A well made cafe crema can be very good indeed - in its own right. That said, there's a strategy and technique involved in both the grind and the pull. I'm not familiar with the methodology, but have on a few occasions had a cafe crema in an Italian restaurant (here in the US, but one that served Northern Italian food and was run by a recent immigrant).

I think that more often you're likely to get a lungo that's pulled for too long and way over-extracted. With the equipment and techniques now available to make stellar pour-over coffee by the cup on demand in commercial environments - it's hard to fathom why someone would be making drinks in the manner you describe.

When I lived in France I used to order a "café crème" which was a cappuccino.

Marvin