http://www.sunset.com/food-wine/10-wors...page2.html

Apparently, Sunset is against trying to improve the quality of coffee. They prefer their "coffee to taste like coffee." Gee thanks.

Jonathan Gold wrote:Do we applaud fair-trade, sustainable farmed, shade-grown joe? Sure. Why not? But when we sit down to a cup of coffee in the morning, we are not particularly interested in the blueberry, caramel, or tomato soup nuances a dedicated roaster can coax out of a bean, nor in the intricate ballet of the four-minute pour-over or the Eva Solo flagon. We want coffee that tastes like coffee, and we want it now.

Ya, this is as useful as that thing you bought 2 years ago and never used because it was something you'd thought you'd use...sometime.

Ask that same person/magazine who came up with that uselessness what COFFEE tastes like... than maybe we can go from there.

The writer's apparently a Pulitzer Prize-Winning food author. Oh well. Here's a sample from his paragraph deriding third wave coffee:

"... when we sit down to a cup of coffee in the morning, we are not particularly interested in the blueberry, caramel, or tomato soup nuances a dedicated roaster can coax out of a bean, nor in the intricate ballet of the four-minute pour-over or the Eva Solo flagon. We want coffee that tastes like coffee, and we want it now." [Later: This quote was included before it was added later by Beezer, above.]

Now he's ignorant and proud of it. I doubt he also likes his wine without subtlety, but then maybe he does like it that way in abundance and it's why his taste buds have withered!

drgary wrote:The writer's apparently a Pulitzer Prize-Winning food author. Oh well. Here's a sample from his paragraph deriding third wave coffee:

Now he's ignorant and proud of it. I doubt he also likes his wine without subtlety, but then maybe he does like it that way in abundance and it's why his taste buds have withered!

I've read Jonathan Gold for decades, first as a rock critic, then as a food critic. I really don't get his attitude with that piece. He goes for satire quite often but in context of the rest of the article it's clearly not the case here.

Jonathan Gold loves great coffee. He's talking more about attitude than anything. Would it change anyone's mind about his coffee appreciation to know he named the cappuccino at Intelligentsia Pasadena one of L.A.'s 10 greatest dishes of 2010? Not greatest coffees. Greatest dishes. Oh, and he listed it first. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-23/eat-drink/the-10-best-dishes-of-2010/1/

From that article: "But in the mornings, still reeling from the shock of recent consciousness, we tend to stick to what we know." I wonder if there's some truth to my surmise?

BTW, Marshall and others, a worthy food critic who chews on his toes in public becomes a worthy target for criticism!

I think I see what he was trying to do by puncturing the pretentious descriptions of coffees at some shops. But he seems to be dismissing the entire movement toward coffee as fine cuisine, and the idea of pushing for the best quality beans, preparation and presentation by calling Third Wave Coffee a bad idea. Maybe he didn't intend to go that far, but it's easy to read the article that way, especially if you're not aware of his history of enthusiasm toward some Third Wave shops.

Seeing how many words he used I'm thinking his intention was simply to provoke reactions...

Marshall wrote:Jonathan Gold loves great coffee. ... He's talking more about attitude than anything.

That's what I thought but he loses me with this part:

"But when we sit down to a cup of coffee in the morning, we are not particularly interested in the blueberry, caramel, or tomato soup nuances a dedicated roaster can coax out of a bean".

There's nothing in that that says anything about attitude to me.

But after reading Beezer's comment I'm understanding Gold's point a little better.