It's the same at the downtown Berkeley Farmer's Market -- drip only, and no grinder in sight.

Here they are at the Ferry Building market earlier this month. Special equipment for Columbus Day, perhaps? I doubt it, though. They had several Mazzers (Majors & Roburs I believe; one of the Majors is visible in one of the pics, or it might be a black SJ, I'm not sure) and a propane-powered 4-group Astoria. Their Roman espresso is a bit dark for my tastes and I'm never one to automatically defend a sellout... But, well, I have a lot of respect for BLue Bottle compared to a lot of what's out there.





I took these with my phone after chatting with the moustache guy; texted them to a coworker that I knew would get a thrill from the machine alongside pangs of envy for a noteworthy 'spro experience. The Stache was very friendly and willing to take a moment to talk about the machine despite being quite busy.

At the San Francisco Ferry Building, they have a place INSIDE the ferry building with two different espresso machines: the main machine is a 3-group LM paddle; they also have a three-group Kees van der Westen Idracompresso lever machine. AND, outside, on Farmer's Market days they use the 3-group Astoria that is pictured above.

They also use that Astoria 3-group propane-powered machine at the Temescal (Oakland) Farmer's Market on Sundays.

But on Saturdays, the downtown Berkeley Farmer's Market is drip only; so, too, are the Sunday markets in San Rafael and Lafayette.

Blue Bott at the Saturday Ferry Building farmer's market has always ground drip coffee on the spot and dialed in their espresso (well, ahem, sort of). Three blends depending on where you go: Roman Espresso on the side where these pics are taken, Retrofit outside in the front of the building, Hayes Valley inside at their storefront.

At their roastery cafe in Oakland, they do only single origin espresso, which is generally pretty fun. Same deal at their new cafe at Heath Ceramics in Potrero Hill, SF. Their Ethiopian Tuktant this past summer was really good stuff for espresso. But, I am less thrilled with their current offerings: seems to me they go through a lot of long up's and down's for what is espresso-able....in general, I was more impressed by their single origins in the past, like 4+ years ago.

Of course, Berkeley gets the shaft with all the pre-ground stuff. Boo. I haven't even found them yet at the Berkeley market, but what Jason's saying is disappointing.

Ah yes, that's right, they did explain what was being served & where, when I was there at the Ferry Building. I moved out of the area a couple years ago (before their presence at the Ferry Building was so robust) but I did used to visit them from time to time at the Mint and at their stand at the Temescal market. Surprising that Berkeley would continue to get the short end of the stick. Anyway it'll be interesting to see what they do with their cool 20 mil.

I did my best to hit all the bases on my brief weekend back in SF a few weeks ago but there wasn't much opportunity. In the end I came home with 2 different offerings from Sightglass (Guat Bella Carmona and Ethiopia Shakiso, both of which were outstanding brewed but too light for the limited stylings of Ms. Livietta) and Ritual's surprisingly great "Sweet Tooth" Kenya Kiawamururu AB. Checking the website after the fact, it turns out Sightglass was offering the same Kenya; I should've snagged both for a fun comparison. Oh well.

Anyway, to bring it back to the point of this thread... BB's Roman espresso -- a fine blend though it is -- was my 2nd least favorite of the weekend, narrowly beating out a shot of Four Barrel pulled somewhat artlessly by a tiny walk-up coffee bar on Market St.

Intrepid510 wrote:Has anyone ever had a good experience at one of their Farmer Market locations? Obviously I haven't and I really should know better. Went to their stall at the Marin Farmer's on Sunday, just awful, would've gone back to ask for a refund had I not had my children with me. Preground coffee coming out of their bags without a grinder in sight, tasted stale to me like it was ground early in the AM.

With their apparent commitment to quality at their stalls that I have experienced it looks like they are going to give Starbucks a run for their money with their current influx of cash...

This is funny, because, while not really a "cart," their Ferry Building Market location is my favorite coffee spot in SF.

Uh . . . yes AND no.

Inside the Ferry Building, Blue Bottle has a permanent location, as I mentioned above.

zin1953 wrote:At the San Francisco Ferry Building, they have a place INSIDE the ferry building with two different espresso machines: the main machine is a 3-group LM paddle; they also have a three-group Kees van der Westen Idracompresso lever machine. AND, outside, on Farmer's Market days they use the 3-group Astoria that is pictured above.

It is the Astoria that IS, in fact, a cart.

zin1953 wrote:It's the same at the downtown Berkeley Farmer's Market -- drip only, and no grinder in sight.

Hi Jason,

If you remember, Scott Rao's first book contained an experiment, replicated on this forum, that explored the effects of pre-grinding on non-espresso coffee. In his experiment, four different roasters cupped coffees that had been freshly ground, along with the same coffees pre-ground and allowed to sit for various amounts of time. All of them preferred the coffees that had been allowed to sit for between eight (as I recall) and eighteen hours. In later communications, Scott was more nuanced, saying that it was a tradeoff of aroma (better fresh ground) versus clarity of flavor (better after sitting). But the practice need not disqualify a roaster. Now if you don't like the taste of their coffee, that's another matter.

Best,
David

I had never heard that - we're always told to only grind right before brewing. Thanks for this Rao reference. (but I still wish Blue Bott had a grinder + spro machine in Berkeley so I could get some of the good stuff from them on market days)

For convenience, and in the interest of possibly inspiring someone to continue the inquiry in a new thread, here's the original thread related to pre-grinding:

Experiments with Preground Coffee for Espresso and a Brew Pot

I don't want to derail this Blue Bottle thread, but I would love it if we could continue the above in a new thread. I don't really have the wherewithal to experiment with it much on my own time; my 4-mo-old daughter has made it so that I need good shots reliably and quickly. Not much time for messing around. But I'm very curious about coffee preground & sealed vs. preground and left piled in a doser vs. preground and perhaps stored on a flatter surface with more even exposure to air. Or even preground and tamped -- which I recognize is probably a bad idea as you'd have to leave the PF off the machine and therefore it wouldn't be preheated for the pulling of the shot... But with this ground-shifting info about pregrinding at all, who knows?

To keep things on the topic of Blue Bottle, however... And even on BB's grinding inclinations... Note the photo in this WSJ article published 10/17:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 40736.html

Apparently a BB pourover bar in NYC sees fit to rely on a Kitchenaid ProLine? With all the dough at their disposal, this is kind of another shocker. I was thinking of making a gift of my old ProLine and using my newly acquired Vario for my household's multiple methods, but with the Vario's setting-predictability (a.k.a. drift, reliability, call it what you will) issues, and with this apparent endorsement of the ProLine, maybe I'll keep my Vario 'spro-dedicated and grant the ol' Kitchenaid the honor of continued counter space after all...