On customers who have been to Italy...
I admire the Italian coffee tradition and nourish a small hope to some day visit The Boot on an espresso pilgrimage. It is with envy that I listen to many of my customers who visit and come back with tales of amazing coffee.
However, it is with dismay that I notice that these same customers order drinks like a sugar-free vanilla, non-fat latte when they return to the States. They all rave about the amazing coffee they drank in Italy, but fail to make the connection that they could have amazing coffee here as well, if they would just order it. Why don't they? Perhaps because they don't think that they can get good espresso here: I can sympathize with them if that's the case.
It goes without saying that if you order coffee from most American coffee shops, you are going to get some fairly nasty stuff, and it might be advisable to cover that "espresso" with 42 ounces of milk and a good slog of vanilla syrup. However, there are some good roasteries and shops here in the states as well, where you can order fantastic coffee, Italian style or otherwise.
However, I've come to the conclusion that these customers are not actually interested in coffee at all. I'm not even sure that they enjoyed their Italian espresso. I think they're mainly interested in bragging to me. If they had gone to France, they'd brag about the wine; if Greece, the gyros; if China, the tea. The point being, they might not be able to differentiate stale robusta from fresh Panama La Esmeralda,* but they do know that Italy is famous for coffee. Thus, they brag about the coffee in Italy, loudly and incessantly, hoping to incite envy, to anyone who will listen, which usually means me. And yes, I am envious.
*Last year's Cup of Excellence winner
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All about pent-up barista rage and a life dedicated to the pursuit of magnificent coffee. Some of you have complained that you feel insulted when reading this blog. That's ridiculous. Most likely you feel that way because you are over-sensitive and very, very stupid.
5 comments:
Why don't you just tell them to STFU?
That option has crossed my mind.
this doesn't have much to do with italian coffee- but today is memorial day and at about 9 am, we are getting slammed down at the corner of first and main, being that i think we were the only establishment open in all of walla walla- and i get this phone call of someone wanting to know if we are open today. "yes", i say. they say "so, do you know if the walla walla roastery is open?" wow. that made me giggle a little. were you?
No, we were not open. Funny that they'd call you. When I worked there, I got all sorts of calls asking for the phone numbers and open times for totally unrelated shops and competitors... I usually looked up the info for them though.
My wife and I recently spent a few days in Rome, and I am happy to report that we did -- generally speaking -- have some good coffee. Of course, I must caption this by saying I don't really KNOW anything about coffee, but nevertheless. I will report that the baristas are very, shall we say, OPEN, with their opinions on foreigners' ordering habits. It was about 108 degrees and I ordered an iced cappuccino, to which I received a "tsk, tsk." I changed my order. The most interesting thing about the coffee, I thought, was the standing at the bar phenomenon. In Greece, "having coffee" means sitting around for 3 hour sipping dirt. In Italy, they just bang it down! And it's cheap, too!! 1 Euro for a cappuccino! (If you drink it at the bar.) Anyway, that's all for me...
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