I thought I would share some pictures I took at Caffe del Doge in Venice (Rialto location):


They also had 2 2-group semi-auto Brasilia machines, but the lever machine was for the 8 different coffees available as espresso.

Now that is a nice place to have an espresso. Was the espresso as good as one can imagine looking at the setup. Was the Barista cut for the job?

Nice photos.

Egads, I have enough trouble dialing in one grinder with one blend... I wonder if they have enough turnover of the coffees to keep the supply fresh. Conceptually it's an intriguing idea. How was it in practice?

The espresso was pretty darn good- certainly the best I had on my trip. The baristas were very professional, friendly, and patient as I pestered them with my geek questions in english.

I guess if you are in a place where there is virtually no 'brewed' coffee (drip, press, etc) the only way you can be exposed to single origin coffees is as espresso. I definitely enjoyed it.

I was wondering about the issue of freshness as well- they didn't seem to know the roast dates for the coffees, but this was a very busy shop, so maybe they naturally have relatively fresh stock. I suppose the standard blend ("rosso") has the highest turnover, but on the other hand that grinder had a full doser, with the standard one flick of the lever pulled into the portafilter. With the EE's it was ground fresh for each shot. They would manually top off the dose for those shots, so maybe that was where they would adjust the shot timing (as opposed to tweaking the grind settings on them all).

As I mention in my blog, this was also the only place I saw a hand tamper used. (check it out for a few more pictures)

One other thing I liked was seeing the move where they use a spoon to catch the last drips as they pull the cup out from under the spout.

I wish more places in the US had the actual bar where you can stand, drink your espresso and watch the baristas work.