#stfrank

[st. frank’s front; I think the convertible Mercedes gives you a nice little view into how SF is nowadays]

[The K30′s a wonderful grinder, and St. Frank has plenty of them. The aesthetic’s incredibly put-together, but it thankfully doesn’t come at the expense of drink quality.]

First up is St. Frank. St. Frank’s pretty reliably in the very good to excellent range, and there’s no better drink to order there than the SOE. When I went, the SOE was a Bolivian option, San Ignacio, tasting like lemonade, brown sugar, and vanilla. Mouthfeel was creamy. They serve it in a tall demitasse, and it’s a perfect example of how great nominally correct extraction can taste in espresso.

[all-white porcelain looks nice. You can’t tell, but it’s an extra-tall demitasse, so it was easy to thoroughly mix the espresso’s layers with the provided demi spoon.]

[I don’t know ceramic brands that well, but here’s the shot at Babette.]

Next up, Babette, in Berkeley. It’s conveniently placed in the Berkeley Art Museum and is a stop for me mostly any time I’m spending the day in Berkeley. Drink quality is generally spot-on with occasional lapses. (If you don’t realize how hard it is to keep up drink quality  - especially in a small shop without the prestige of doing your own roasting - you haven’t spent that much time in coffee.) 

Anyway, they serve mostly Ritual, with some Heart and Verve tossed in. I had a shot of Ritual’s seasonal blend. (If you’re not familiar with Ritual, they just do one blend and one SOE, and the blend is always changing names as a seasonal blend. The blend’s used by default and needs to hold up in milk.) 

Here are the specs: 

Components: 50% Alejandra Chacón’s El Angel, Costa Rica 30% OCFCU’s Yabitu Koba, Ethiopia 20% Bernardo Solano’s Concepción Buena Vista, Guatemala

The shot’s surprisingly old-school tasting despite being pulled long. It’s really caramel-y and has tons of sugar browning elements. The sweetness is incredibly intense and dessert-like - really reminding me of dark chocolate brownies. There’s a bit of lemon candy flavor as well, but the acidity overall isn’t prominent. Really excellent stuff and a testament to applying modern roasting techniques even when your end result is a smooth, milk-centric shot.

And, next, a few shops that are new to me... no pictures for either.

I went into Equator on Market expecting to be disappointed. (Spoiler: I wasn’t.) 

The baristas don’t “look like baristas.” I’ll let that sink in. 

Also, they were playing top 40. Again, they’re not fitting expectations. And again, they’re not making me too optimistic about what I’m about to drink. We all have to suffer for science, I suppose...

First up, the NIcaragua Terra Madre from a Mythos. They were pulling 19g/37.5g in 26 seconds. (That’s pretty much a Kaminsky shot.) Body’s buttery and heavy, and there’s plenty of sugar browning. It’s also nicely juicy. I was a bit sick, but the shot was well-extracted.

Next up, the Kenya Kuguyu, a V60 made with EK-ground coffee. It’s sweet and bright, plenty of citrus, raspberry, and so on. The cup’s slightly weak, but I’m OK with that. Some wouldn’t be. Again, I was sick, so I didn’t take detailed notes. 

So I got two really good drinks from a shop maligned by the third wave scene. 

Finally, I visited Blue Bottle’s new location in the Twitter Building. I’ve been to many Blue Bottles and many times. And I generally haven’t been terribly impressed by what I’ve been served. This was an exception, and it’s nice to see that perhaps maintaining quality while expanding is a possibility.