Has anyone been to The Ugly Mug in downtown Soquel? I heard of this place recently but have not visited yet. They say all the right things on their website.
Even though Ugly Mug isn't recommended, I've never been to downtown Soquel so that is an incentive to go and visit anyway. The 3oz double espresso had a smoky flavor and nothing else of interest (double espresso was pulled straight in china cup shown in photo). Would have been a sink shot if I pulled it at home. I'm still glad I had an espresso at the Ugly Mug coffee house because it reminds me of how much better tasting Third Wave espressos are available today at coffee houses like Verve and Lulu's.
Just two miles from the Ugly Mug is Verve and I also had a double ristretto pulled with the Sermon blend. Nice shot with chocolate and spice flavors. I never had anything like it before.
Dropped by Lulu's in Santa Cruz where I had this nice espresso pulled with the Lighthouse blend. It is very bright which I think is great. I don't get to drink a bright espresso very often since most coffee houses don't like pulling very bright shots.
Thanks for pointing me to Tim's review. That is enough to get me to drive a few miles down 41st to Verve or to Lulu's. Oh, well. I was hoping for a good place in the middle -- it's a long 10 minute drive, yaknow! :-)
jimru Senior Member Joined: 12 Aug 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Santa Cruz, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Andreja Premium Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly Roaster: iRoast
Posted Thu May 22, 2008, 8:52am Subject: Re: Santa Cruz Espresso Update
Dropped by Verve yesterday....had an incredible shot of Yirg, well worth trying!
Looks like Verve has entered the next phase of it's development....they've added more baristas, all are highly competent and there is a lot more activity in the Roastery...Ryan seems to be spending much more time playing and tweaking. It will be interesting to see what happens.
While I was there, I heard rumors of a big happening on June 1....sounds like a geekfest with some guest coffees and baristas...might want to keep the 1st open if you're in the area!
JavaJ Senior Member Joined: 23 Jun 2003 Posts: 138 Location: Roseville, CA Expertise: Pro Barista
Posted Thu May 22, 2008, 10:51am Subject: Re: Santa Cruz Espresso Update
GaryH Said:
Streetlevel shot at Bellano, which was pulled on a Synesso, had mostly chocolate flavor. So I had a nice Verve Streetlevel espresso at both Barefoot and Bellano but if I didn't know they were using the same Streetlevel blend I wouldn't have guessed it. Makes me feel better if shots I pull at home taste different than shots at a coffee house where I got the beans from.
Last week at JavaJ we featured both the Streelevel and the Sermon espresso blends at JavaJ. As a long time CG'er, it is very exciting to finally see so many great coffee spots popping up. We have had the pleasure of meeting the Verve folk a few times now, and they are very cool cats.
We only had 5 lbs of each to play with, and we struggled to replicate their house flavor profile. We had talked with them at length about their parameters, but we found that when we dialed in exactly the parameters we were given, the coffee didn't taste as good. The main reason being that they designed their coffee for use on their GB5 and we are using an FB-70. We tried the coffee again using our default parameters and still weren't happy. In the end, we found the parameters that the coffee tasted best on our machine were neither here nor there, but somewhere in between. At the end of the day, there are just so many variables.
We expect to hear many more good things from these up and comers, and look forward to trying some more of their coffees.
jimru Senior Member Joined: 12 Aug 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Santa Cruz, CA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Andreja Premium Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly Roaster: iRoast
Posted Fri May 30, 2008, 10:14am Subject: Verve Geekfest
Detail for the geekfest:
This Sun., June 1st at Verve Cafe, 619 41st Ave, Capitolia from 7:00am to noon, Ritual's Western Regional Barista Champ, Chris Baca, and Best Necomer, Drew Caitlin, Crema Cafe and Bakery's Brent Fortune and Verve's own Jared Truby will be pulling FREE espresso shots...the grinders will be loaded with Ritual Sweet Tooth, Verve Streetlevel and "to be named" Single Origins...
Posted Sun Jun 1, 2008, 2:45pm Subject: Re: Verve Geekfest
Free espresso at Verve! Unfortunately Chris Baca left his sweet tooth in San Franciso (but he brought his heart to Santa Cruz). There was an issue with the roaster at Ritual so they didn't have enough sweet tooth espresso blend to bring to Santa Cruz. Flavor profile woud have been a very interesting contrast compared to the Streetlevel blend.
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