This is cool. If you’re a subscriber you already have in your possession the September Pittsburgh Magazine- their annual “Best of Pittsburgh” issue… and we’re in it!
Best Place to Get Custom Coffee: 21st St. Coffee and Tea’s Strip District location was the first place in town to get the famed high-tech $10,000-plus Clover coffee maker. (Now that Starbucks has bought Clover, the gadget may become more ubiquitous.) As at any good farmers’ market, you won’t find the same thing all year - the coffee choices change with the seasons (in September, look for newly arrived beans from Central and South America). Your barista can adjust the grind, water temperature and brewing time to coax the best flavor from the bean of your choice. Now: Caffeinate! 50 21st St., Strip District; 412/281-0809, 21streetcoffee.com. - K.C.
And by custom coffee we don’t mean sugar free vanilla syrup- a’ight? And IF SBUX does drop a Clover in Pittsburgh I’ll go head to head with them in Pittsburgh’s first ever Clover throwdown. Bring. It. On.
Since we own a newsstand next door (that’s Smallman News @ 2018 Smallman Street- open Tue-Fri 8a-3p, Sat 8a-12p), we don’t subscribe to magazines. We’re waiting for it to hit the shelves so we can see what (if any) photos they used. DJ and Drew were working bar the day the photographers brought in all their gear, so we’ll see what comes of it. It may be precious and/or hilarious.
There weren’t too many coffee mentions, but local micro-roaster Jakes Java gets a shout for “Best Zippy Delivery”, fellow Strip District business Leaf and Bean in the reader’s poll for their extensive cigar bar, and Kiva Han for their “hippy breakfast” (they probably don’t call it that). JoJo’s got the nod for “Best After-Bar Eats”. Pamela’s won the reader’s poll for “Best Breakfast”. The Strip also got a “worst of” for most dangerous bus stop- at 16th and Penn… so keep your heads up kids.
I would like to call attention to this year’s “Best Selection of Beer”- D’s Six Pax & Dogs. The dogs are really good, but the beer cave is sweet as hell. I had a Bornem Tripel to wash down a three cheese dog, a Chicago dog, and their 1919 Draft Root Beer. Total food coma the rest of the night.
Anyway, we have really good coffee. Come on dahn the strip and try it.
We’re a strange bunch here. Sure we’re in the coffee business but we’re trying to serve something more than just “regular coffee”. Each day we’re offering something that you’d look forward to drinking and not just a hot cup of brown water that delivers caffeine to the system. We actually pay double and sometimes triple the cost of other coffee suppliers to get what we feel is far superior quality. We like being strange.
Our coffees have great natural flavors - some of which are obvious and some more subtle. Unlike a lot of “coffee shops” these days… we don’t treat our coffees as flavor additives in a milkshake, or something you’d need to drown in some brand of artificial sweetener and half a pint of cream to make it palatable. We respect our coffees. We get excited about the kind of coffee that is so damn good you want to drink it black. Take it from a former fast food coffee customer! As your coffee cools it takes on different tones and you get something different with every subsequent sip.
This kind of quality doesn’t happen by accident- it’s the result of years of hard work by the producers (the farmers) and quality roasters (in our case intelligentsia). At the end of the chain it is up to the retailer/barista (us) to deliver on the promise of the green coffee. There are SO MANY THINGS that could go wrong- at the cafe level and on back to the coffee plantation itself that could ruin that promise. A few years ago I was one of those “regular coffee” types, but I could tell the good stuff from the average/poor stuff. I knew what I liked. Fast forward to today- I know a lot more and I’m very passionate about this industry and realize that you can never stop learning in this business. Quite a few of our customers are on this journey today- some are just starting and some are pretty advanced. I feel that it is our job as a customer-facing representative of the “specialty” coffee industry to get this message across, in small pieces, to our loyal customers that go out of their way every day to enjoy a great cup at our shops.
If you’ve hung in this far and want to read on…
Geoff Watts, the green coffee buyer for Intelligentsia, recently wrote a very informative and enlightening article on the reason behind the relatively high price of the Kenya Gaturiri Auction Lot we’ll be receiving this week as well as the rising cost of coffee around the world. Click on the image to the right to learn more.
I couldn’t help but nod my head as I read it. Preach on brother Geoff!
WIRED visits Ritual Roasters in the San Fran and plays with their Clover. Fun bonus game… try to count how many times the dude says “brew”. Sitting in the background in a green shirt at the bar… your Western Regional Barista Champ and Ritual’s trainer extraordinaire Chris Baca… no doubt ready to smack the guy if he leaves the cake on the machine too long (that’s what I’d do anyway).
So if you haven’t noticed yet we no longer offer an “American-Style Cappuccino” and our “Traditional Cappuccino” is now simply known as… wait for it… waaaaiiiiit…
Why so picky? Are we getting snobby here? What is a cappuccino anyway? Isn’t that the stuff I get at the gas station that comes out of the machine and tastes like french vanilla?
To answer the above- we like to be specific/that’s your opinion/I’ll get into that in a sec/OH HELL NO!
According to Wikipedia (and we know the wikiweb is always right)…
Cappuccino is an Italian coffee-based drink prepared with espresso, hot milk, and milk foam. A cappuccino differs from a caffé latte in that it is prepared with much less steamed or textured milk than the caffé latte with the total of espresso and milk/foam making up between approximately 150 ml and 180 ml (5 and 6 ounces). A cappuccino is traditionally served in a porcelain cup, which has far better heat retention characteristics than glass or paper. The foam on top of the cappuccino acts as an insulator and helps retain the heat of the liquid, allowing it to stay hotter longer..
On drink size- I pretty much agree with that description. In other words, it’s approximately a 6oz drink (half the size of our “small”) and contains equal parts espresso, steamed milk and dense foam. It is best enjoyed in a ceramic cup… what isn’t? We have to-go cups, but they’re 8oz so there will be a little room at the top. We recently abandoned the concept of the “American-style” cappuccino as it was confusing to some customers that really wanted the traditional drink I described above. If you want a 12/16/20oz drink with lots of densely textured milk we’re now calling that drink a dry latte.
On “milk and foam”- When we make a cappuccino, we do not differentiate between the steamed milk and foam, but we incorporate enough air into the milk while steaming it to essentially double the volume of the milk from it’s cold state. We then free pour the densely textured steamed milk over the espresso quickly to mix it all together. Regarding latte art… we don’t pour art with our capp’s. I usually try to pour a nice little heart on top, as that’s about the only think you can do given the thickness of the milk. The goal is to mix the coffee and milk together. If latte art in a small drink is what you’re after… order a cortado (basically a 5oz latte) as it has much “wetter” milk that is suitable for the detail of a rosetta or what have you. I’ve noticed in barista competitions that many folks are now pouring latte art in traditional-sized capp’s. I’m not going to say that it’s wrong, it’s just not the way we choose to do it. In this case we feel that it is best to uphold the integrity of the drink and prepare it the way it has been enjoyed for decades.
Anything else straying from these loose guidelines in my opinion is not a true cappuccino. If you want a flavored drink or something with dense creamy foam and you want a large we’ll do it, and it’ll probably be the best “one of those things flavored dry lattes” you’ve ever had. In my opinion, that isn’t being snobby. We’re just trying to use the correct language to describe a specific drink and hopefully one day most coffee drinkers will be using the same lingo. We’re still flexible, but we need to start calling a capp a capp.
Our offerings are a little different than what you’d find in 99% of area “coffee shops”. Over the past couple of years we’ve had the traditional menu boards up on the wall. They’ve worked great for us but we’re always looking for ways to improve and focus our business. Sometimes customers see the words espresso, latte, even coffee and think they’re going to get the same beverage anywhere they go. We’re not changing the names of drinks or anything, but rather the way the options (and number of options) are presented. We aren’t going to be confused with the “fast food” coffee joints of the world.
Having said that, all of our menus are getting a facelift…
Food: We’ve taken down our existing food menu. Our focus is on the drinks, but you’ll be able to see what food items (fresh baked pastries, fresh made panini, etc) are available each and every day on the front of the deli case. We’ll also continue to have those wonderful belgian waffles… just don’t ask for syrup please.
Brewed Coffee/Tea: We’ve had menus on the front counter for a while detailing descriptions of our offerings, but we’ve decided for visibility they’d be better placed on the back wall. This is a big change for us as we feel this will put more emphasis where it should be… on the coffee and tea itself. We’ll probably (hopefully soon) come up with a small takeaway version of what is fresh for that week on the brewed coffee and tea side that is a little more informational.
Drinks: This corresponds to everything else… from espresso to italian soda. Keep your eyes peeled. As soon as we get our new menu board delivered to the Frick Building you’ll see something cool and new at the Strip. Hopefully this will all go down sometime this week. Be excited.
