We travel a lot, and in our travels, we are often reminded of the comical intersection of two quotes: Life is too short to drink bad coffee - and - A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The world of hotels, airports and major highways is not the place to experience great craft-roasted coffees and the deft hand of a well-trained barista. At best, we have national chains that offer reasonable coffees and a long menu of espresso drinks, and at worst, gas stations serve hours-old sludge sitting in a pyrex pot on a warmer.
So, what’s a traveler to do, especially one who knows their way around coffee? I have often felt like a spy or a bank robber, slinking around the counter to check the technique of a barista, grilling a cashier about the brewing time of the coffee in an airpot or turning up my nose at the misuse of the words espresso, cappuccino or latte. So, I’ve tried to get better at my investigation – and to tread lightly among those who haven’t yet learned about great coffee.
What follows is a set of tips you can apply to your own travels – bon voyage!
When Was it Brewed?: Regardless of your taste in coffee, you will always find that fresher is better. In most locations serving drip coffee, the coffee will be served in “airpots” (those big black urns with the lever on the top), and often there will be several choices. Ask someone who works there which are the freshest – you’ll notice a big difference.
Also, look for little digital timers hanging off the front of the brewing machines behind the counter (one national chain has these everywhere). Often, the shop will have a standard of not letting coffee be served after a certain amount of time after brewing. Ask them about this – and often they will offer to brew a fresh batch if the coffee is getting close to the expiration time.
Beware the Warmer: As airpots become more common, the old fashioned method of brewing the coffee into a glass pot that sits on a warmer is fading away, but you will still find these in high volume restaurants that go through a lot of coffee. It really is the most efficient way for them to prepare the coffee and take it around the shop to refill customer’s cups. But, the warmer is a terrible environment for coffee, and minutes after brewing the freshness begins to deteriorate. Try to get your coffee right after it is brewed. A good approach for this is to ask them to pour your coffee out of the full pot on the bottom warmer (meaning it was recently brewed) rather than the half-empty one on the top.
Freshly-Ground Coffee, Frac Pacs and Pods: Coffee is a very profitable menu item to restaurants, in large part because it is inexpensive and easy to make. Pay attention next time you are in your favorite diner, and you’ll probably see that new pots of coffee are made by opening a pre-measured plastic “frac pac” coming from a large box of these under the counter somewhere. These are usually very, very low-grade coffees, roasted to a light color (quicker, and less moisture loss) and pre-ground to save time. New pods and other single serving formats are variations on the theme, though the coffee quality can be much higher. If you have a choice, seek out coffee that has been ground just before it was brewed. Ideally, you are looking for whole bean coffee that was taken out of the package that day. Be careful of low volume cafes that let the whole beans sit in large hoppers exposed to the air – this coffee will often be very stale.
Faux Espresso: In recent years, the terms “espresso,” “latte” and “cappuccino” have become the most misused expressions in all of coffee – being applied to everything from instant, add-water beverages to flowery favored drinks being served by large donut chains. In many of these cases, these words are nothing more than marketing messages – and you should not be deceived by them.
We offer here a definition from coffee sage Kenneth Davids: Espresso is used to describe . . . a method of brewing in which hot water is forced under pressure through a compressed bed of finely ground coffee. In the largest sense, an entire approach to coffee cuisine, involving a traditional menu of drinks, many combining brewed espresso coffee with steam-heated, steam-frothed milk.
Take the time to find an independent coffee shop that makes espresso in the right way, and you will never turn back. And, if you see the word spelled as “expresso,” don’t even stop the car.
Independent Roasters and Cafes: If we go back in time about 15 years, most parts of the country didn’t have access to anything resembling a well-made espresso drink, and though whole bean coffee was in vogue, it was usually dispensed in serve-yourself bins that caused the coffee to stale quickly. We can credit one very large national coffee chain for introducing the United States to espresso and to the concept of drinking single origin coffees (those from a single source rather than blended).
But time passed, and the chains expanded – and with that expansion came the need to roast larger and larger batches of coffee, and a progression of stores that lost their local charm. And as a cruel consequence, small, dedicated roasters and cafes came marching in to serve to now elevated coffee tastes of the masses.
And now, with a little homework, you can turn your road trips into a wonderful exploration of these new pioneers – and experience delicious, craft-roasted coffee, creative and inviting cafés and the pleasures of handmade espressos and cups of coffee. Rather than have the extraction time of your espresso determined by a machine setting, you’ll see what it means to be served by a barista who “dials in” their grinding and extraction time every morning. Rather than coffee brewed in large batches and left to rot in an airpot, you’ll have coffee made for you – in a French press or individual pourover cup. And, instead of sitting on one of thousands of identical couches listening to canned music, you’ll settle into a lovely, custom-designed environment that reflects the best in local art, architecture and design.
Pretty good, huh?
So, how do you find these local nirvanas?
A great resource is to browse the postings in the “World Regional” section of the CoffeeGeek forums. Here, you’ll see the writings of people like you who are looking for great local coffee experiences, answered by both locals and travelers like you.
A fun thing to do is to identify wherever you are staying on a Google map, then use the “Find Businesses” link to search on the word “coffee.” This then pinpoints on the map all the local businesses with “Coffee” in the name, and once you sift through the usual suspects, there can be some great surprises to be found here. A tip, though – call ahead before you head out, as we’ve found some of the suggestions from this method to have disappeared.
And last, do a Google search on the expressions “best of” and “coffee.” In many towns, this will lead you to the results of polls done of the readers of local independent newspapers – and some really good suggestions.
Espresso: Espresso drinks are ubiquitous now, and new “super automatic” machines make it possible for any café to serve cappuccinos and lattes. But, the joy of good, well-prepared espresso drinks is the pinnacle of handmade coffee drinks, and it is well worth trying to find cafes that make them correctly.
First, look for the combination of a busy shop and manual grinding and brewing methods. The busy part ensures that your coffee is “ground to order” just before your drink is prepared, and a well-trained barista will know the right way of grinding, tamping and brewing your coffee.
Watch the barista work, and look for care and attention to detail. If the coffee comes out of a plastic container rather than being ground before your “shots” are prepared, the coffee is likely to be stale, as the finely ground particles of espresso are exposed to the air. Watch to see that they pay attention to the steaming of your milk, rather than putting the steam wand in the pitcher and walking away. And, most good baristas now know how to pour the milk into the cup as “latte art,” which you will notice as a pattern looking like a flower or heart on the surface of your drink.
I find that some of the worst espresso out there comes from cafes that have expensive manual machines and poorly trained operators. In hands of someone who doesn’t know their way around espresso, a nice machine can deliver thin, watery coffee that has not been properly ground or tamped.
Finally, if you are a decaf drinker, see if the café has a special grinder just for you. Decaf isn’t a big seller, and some cafes treat this like a poor stepchild, keeping finely ground coffee in a plastic container under the counter. You might want to consider a good herb tea instead.
Happy trails!
