Coffee Rant Number Two

OK, I know I might be getting a little repetitive and negative here as I've already ranted about coffee on this blog, and I promise to sweeten things up with the next post.

However, after going in for a couple of coffees in an un-named cafe in Kerry, ordering a cappuccino and latte, and being served watery, scalded drinks that were identical except the cups, I have to ask again, how can so few people care about their coffees, especially when the Irish coffee-drinking culture is exploding?

At the very least, baristas could be trained in basic definitions of the drinks and know that a cappuccino and a latte are not the same. It's not a guarded secret! The information's out there. Lavazza Training Centre and Espresso Planet are two of about 1,900,000 sites that came up when I typed "Espresso terminology" in Google.

The crazy thing is that I do not at all consider myself a coffee expert. It's just that I can't understand how people can't inject a greater level of care in what they do...

By the way, in the other coffee post, I wrote a tip for making a good espresso. One way to tell if it's a decent one is that an espresso should look like a mini Guinness, and an espresso without crema is like a pint without a head. You wouldn't serve it.

If you're in the business or have an espresso machine at home, pull an espresso (above) and/or an americano (right) into a glass, and if it's a good one you will see that it even settles like a freshly-pulled pint, turning from a bubbly brown into black!

Technorati tags: espresso, Kerry, cappuccino, coffee, latte, Irish