MAS o Menos

During my college years, the premier coffee roaster in Central Ohio was Staufs. To my knowledge it still is the best roaster in the area. In addition to roasting for its own cafe and retail customers, it also roasted for other coffee houses. Despite the high quality of coffee they served at their home location, many of these coffee houses that bought Staufs coffee were awful. Poorly trained baristas and stale product. Once the coffee left the Granville location, one could not guarantee that the coffee was drinkable let only excellent.

Staufs solved this problem by merging with Cup O Joe, but this problem plagues roasters that sell to coffee houses outside their sphere of influence. A few bad cafes can ruin your name.

Yesterday I tried out a new coffee place in the Pioneer Square district of Seattle called Zeitgeist. They serve Illy espresso, which is a brand I haven’t given a second chance in over ten years. Illy is an Italian espresso that was commonly served in the beach communities in St. Petersburg, Florida in the mid-1990s. The espresso served there was stale and over-extracted.

After ten years of avoiding making any beverage purchases in cafes with the red Illy sign, I decided to give Illy a second chance. If anyone outside of Italy could make Illy taste good, it would be a Seattle cafe. Did I experience espresso redemption? Yes I did. It was very good. Not in the league of LaVazza or Seattle based roasters, but still a fine espresso.

Tags: coffee