Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Coffee

During the evening shift people frequently ask what time we open in the morning and are often shocked that we're open at 7:30am. 

"Do people really buy gelato that early?" they ask. 

"No, but we serve pastries, oatmeal, bagels, and of course our delicious coffee." is my answer. 

For those curious our gelato and sandwiches typically starts rolling out around 10am and we should have just about everything ready at Noon for lunch time.

We very proudly serve La Colombe Torrefaction coffee.  (torrefaction is french for roasting)  La Colombe is a local roaster and they are known for rich, bold, dark coffee. 

We serve Corsica as our drip coffee.  It is a blend of beans from Colombia, Honduras, Brazil, and Mexico.  It is definitely one of the best dark roast coffee's I have ever tasted and I've been working in coffee for close to a decade now.  Richness is Corisca's middle name, or would be if it had one.  Every step from bean selection to the darkness of the roast was carefully chosen to bring out the intense, full flavor profile of the beans

Next up is our Iced Coffee.  We are now in full swing with our iced coffee and I have never seen iced coffee as popular as it is at Capogiro.  I think it's our cold brew method that really makes concentrated, strong, tasty, NOT bitter cup of icy cold coffee.  For this we use Phocea, which is also highly recommended for those who like to use a French Press at home.  Phocea is also a dark roast but less so than Corsica and it has a more earthy flavor.  We grind each batch on course and let is steep for a whole 24 hours to make sure we get every bit of flavor out of those beans.  These beans originate from Ethiopia (The motherland of coffee!), El Salvador, and Brazil.

The backbone of any Italian cafe is Espresso.  It's name is Nizza.  This is an awesome medium blend most widely used for espresso brewing but can certainly be enjoyed with any brewing method.  It has notes of caramel and nuts.  The beans originate from Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and Ethiopia.  It is roasted for sweetness as espresso should NOT be bitter and unpalatable.  A properly pulled shot should be slightly sweet and intense.  We take great care in pulling the best shot every time so you can get a taste of what espresso in Italy is like.   Anyone can make coffee but "good" coffee is a craft and it takes time to learn and perfect.  It also takes a good consistent machine.  This past summer our 13th and 20th street locations both received new La Marzocco espresso machines.  These babies are amazing.  If there is one thing Italy can make it is a stellar espresso machine!  And they're pretty too, we had our painted orange to match the stores. 

And last but not least is our Decaf.  While I am not a personal fan of decaf in general I understand that not everyone can have, handle, or want caffeine but that they still might want a tasty cup of coffee.  We use Monte Carlo as our Decaf.  We do not brew decaf as a drip coffee simply because it would mostly go to waste and wasting coffee is blasphemy.  We do offer it in espresso form.  you can have any espresso drink made decaf or even half-caffeinated if you would like.  If you were really dying for a drip coffee just ask for a decaf Americano.  That's two shots of espresso poured over hot water and it is damn good!  If you have ever traveled outside of the US and ordered drip coffee it is likely that this is what you actually got.

That is the end of my tour through coffee land and I know I only touched on each one briefly, but if you have any questions about our coffee don't hesitate to ask.  I love talking about coffee and tea and would love to share whatever I know and find out the answer to questions I might not.

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