GRB Senior Member Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 56 Location: Perth, Western Australia Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Expobar Minore Grinder: Mazzer Kony Drip: ru serious? Roaster: oven but for beef
Posted Mon Oct 29, 2007, 5:01pm Subject: Tasting Seattle's Best
G'day,
I am just finishing up 7 days in Seattle with nothing to do but work my way around the often named best cafes. I sampled espresso at Caffe Vita, Seattle Coffee Works on Pike St, Stumptown on Pike St, Victrola, Vivace (Yale and East Denny), Zeitgeist and Zoka's. All espressi were served as double ristretti around the 30-45 ml mark and all from Synesso machines (if memory serves me correctly) except Stumptown which was a Mistral. The coffee was uniformly at a very high standard. I don't want to attempt comparisons because the sampling stats don't allow that. But I will say that there are several cafes in Perth that are certainly in the same league as Seattle's best.
One difference I noted between Seattle's and Perth's best (note I am only familiar with Perth) is that cafes appear to be places for using your laptop rather than drinking coffee. And you do this on your own and at the same time as making a call on your mobile phone while fiddling with your mp3 player. If you do sit at a table with a friend then you both have laptops, phones and mp3 players in constant use. How do these places make money? You also have to clear your own table but this can't be saving that much can it?
AndyL Senior Member Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 1,337 Location: australia Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: 2 Synesso,1957 urania lever Grinder: 2 Robur E, Robur, K10 Vac Pot: Hario Roaster: 5kg Renegade
Posted Wed Oct 31, 2007, 1:07am Subject: Re: Tasting Seattle's Best
Hey Graeme,
I heard cafes in the U.S are struggling due to the customers hanging around for hours just on one coffee. I remember seeing a couple around their mid 20s colouring in a book for 4 year olds. It takes a person with way too much time to go and buy a colouring in book and bring all there pencils and colour for 2-3 hours. So much time is wasted in cafes and its a joke!! Of course Seattles best is what many cafes are doing in Australia. But even the 24 hour supermarkets are doing coffee at an higher standard than most of our cafes. Weather is perfect for coffee in that area of the West Coast. Seattle has an amazing culture for food and coffee.
Stassi Senior Member Joined: 3 Sep 2007 Posts: 39 Location: Melbourne Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: La Marzocco FB80 "Ferrari... Grinder: Maz Robur Drip: Makin
Posted Wed Oct 31, 2007, 1:48am Subject: Re: Tasting Seattle's Best
AndyL Said:
Hey Graeme,
I heard cafes in the U.S are struggling due to the customers hanging around for hours just on one coffee. I remember seeing a couple around their mid 20s colouring in a book for 4 year olds. It takes a person with way too much time to go and buy a colouring in book and bring all there pencils and colour for 2-3 hours. So much time is wasted in cafes and its a joke!! Of course Seattles best is what many cafes are doing in Australia. But even the 24 hour supermarkets are doing coffee at an higher standard than most of our cafes. Weather is perfect for coffee in that area of the West Coast. Seattle has an amazing culture for food and coffee.
G'day, I sampled espresso at Caffe Vita, Seattle Coffee Works on Pike St, Stumptown on Pike St, Victrola, Vivace (Yale and East Denny), Zeitgeist and Zoka's.
GRB Senior Member Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 56 Location: Perth, Western Australia Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Expobar Minore Grinder: Mazzer Kony Drip: ru serious? Roaster: oven but for beef
Posted Wed Oct 31, 2007, 12:30pm Subject: Re: Tasting Seattle's Best
On the "wasting time" point - Zoka was the most extreme of my visits. I was there for about an hour, it was 95% full and it seemed that around ten orders were placed in that time. Probably 70% of the customers appeared to be studying something for uni. Does anyone know if wages are particularly low relatively speaking? I think there only 3 staff in the place and as I mentioned before, as is common with the cafes I visited, it was fully self serve (apart from pulling a shot that is) - order at counter, wait for drinks, find a table, drink coffee, and then take your cups back to a central point.
The other point I'd make is that generally the service was very slow compared to Australia. As an example, one of the cafe's had a half full cafe with a line of customers going out the door (this was Saturday morning say 11am) and even with 2 x 3 group machines and ~6 staff we were in line for what seemed like an age. Cost for an espresso was basically $2 give or take a bit - which I guess is cheap. Maybe it's just another satisfactory combination of price, quality and service level?
Andy, I take your point on the general Australian standard. I was also in Italy (Venice and Feltre) for about 2 weeks and absolutely any cafe, train station, ice cream shop produced a better shot than 99% of Perth cafes. The shots were nothing to get excited about but at least inoffensive and drinkable. Now the UK was another story - apart from Monmouth St Cafe - where chains appear to totally dominate with their vile liquids.
AndyL Senior Member Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 1,337 Location: australia Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: 2 Synesso,1957 urania lever Grinder: 2 Robur E, Robur, K10 Vac Pot: Hario Roaster: 5kg Renegade
Posted Sun Nov 4, 2007, 4:35am Subject: Re: Tasting Seattle's Best
Hey Jerry
Wasting time in a cafe.... if you are colouring in a 4 year old colouring book and you are 28 years old thats what i call wasting time. If that relaxes you and does it for you... get a life, and look what is around you. Its a big world and so much is happening. I dont think my daugther who is 3 could colour in a book for 3 hours in a cafe. A customer that sits in a cafe on $3.00 for 7 hours is not a good customer. If you had 50 customers like that every day you wouldnt make much money. In the U.S you see people sitting on a latte for 4 hours without a problem. I dont see Australian customers doing that. If i have a customer sitting for 5 hours at the shop, studying or just talking they would spend more than $3.00. Customers here generally understand your situation. When i have a full house during lunch and there is a customer on the biggest table by himself who has finshed his latte 2 hours ago with the Age hogging the whole table that upsets me. They could move to the couches but they dont. 10 customers come into the cafe and walk out. That could be a persons wage for the whole day gone. I think that would upset any cafe owner. Customers in cafes create envirnoment. If a customer is in a lounge area for 4 hours talking and relaxing thats not a problem. It does create an amazing envirnoment for the cafe. Its your tight arses that sit at the tables that make you money that give me a headache.
AndyL Senior Member Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 1,337 Location: australia Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: 2 Synesso,1957 urania lever Grinder: 2 Robur E, Robur, K10 Vac Pot: Hario Roaster: 5kg Renegade
Posted Sun Nov 4, 2007, 4:45am Subject: Re: Tasting Seattle's Best
Hey Graeme,
Slow service... wow. The U.S is so slow. I would say 2 aussie good baristi would be worth 3 to 5 American baristi. If you watch a great team... for example Con and Peter at 7 grams they would easily pull out 3-4 coffees to 1 coffee from Vivace. With better latte art and better coffee. Australian customers arent willing to wait. It doesnt matter how good the coffee is. The line just doesnt end in the good coffee places in the U.S. Also the baristi arent in a hurry to make the coffee faster. But also the customers dont look like they are in a rush either which is great.
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