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2011-05-19
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After Kindergarten, Cafe Y taberna was my next destination as Unar Coffee Company, my first choice in the area, was closed for "function" on last Saturday. For Cafe Y taberna, the decoration was quite nice but it was very emptied when I was there. This provided a very stark contrast with what's going on at Kindergarten that was, at the same time, so busy they had to turn away customers that didn't make any reservation. I would name this picture "The look can be deceptive." Having somewhat full
After Kindergarten, Cafe Y taberna was my next destination as Unar Coffee Company, my first choice in the area, was closed for "function" on last Saturday. For Cafe Y taberna, the decoration was quite nice but it was very emptied when I was there. This provided a very stark contrast with what's going on at Kindergarten that was, at the same time, so busy they had to turn away customers that didn't make any reservation.
I would name this picture "The look can be deceptive." Having somewhat full stomach from Kindergarten, I started my drink at Café Y Taberna with an espresso. The drink looked really nice with a dense crema on top. However, the cup failed badly on the tasting on all fronts.
What's in there? It’s the usual characteristic I used to described imported coffee i.e. staled, dark roast and ashy tone following by huge body, the last one seemed to be the only good thing I can say about this espresso as it kinda gave a decent mouthfeel, sort of, but imagine a huge body of ashy and dark roasted coffee, not a very nice one if everything was taken into consideration. As much as I wanted to part with these tasting notes, they continued to haunt me even an hour later, making me want to kick myself why I wanted to do this and why I decided not to go to HOFEX this year and ended up with this horrid cup of coffee.
Not much that it was the machine’s fault or the barista skill. The espresso came from a CMA/La Cimbali style older model espresso machine (similar to the one Oscar Espresso used, IIRC) which seemed to fall out of favor these days and a Compak grinder. The very lagging cup I received at Kindergarten suddenly became a breath of fresh air compared to the staled and acrid cup I had at Cafe Y taberna. This was not the first time I had this kind of experience with imported coffee; it seemed more like a norm than an exception to me.
Now, the positive part that can be spin out of this experience is the ability to compare/contrast the freshly roasted coffee and the imported one in a sense of normal/regular coffee drinker trying to get a good cup of coffee that is available in the area. Blessing by two cafes with different attributes locating within a walking distance, the Tai Hang area allowed anyone to compare and contrast cafés and show case why locally roasted coffee trumped imported by just doing the cafe crawl on these two shops at the same time, say in one afternoon. In addition to Tai Hang area, one could also try in Sheung Wan area with either Barista Jam, Coco Espresso or Soft Aroma vs. those Italian places like Segafredo and one should end up with similar experience though you will get a much better upside on locally roasted coffee (the first three) than Kindergarten but not much better cup of imported coffee at Segafredo and Café Y Taberna, ie easier to detect the flaws imported coffee has over locally roasted. But if you asked my opinion, I wouldn't want any other person to repeat my horrible experience ever again. : ( Don't take my words on it, try it and see why freshness is all the rage for coffee enthusiasts these days.
Mind you I didn't mean right out of the roaster but I'm sure we all understand it implied the bean remained at its peak and the air transportation does much more damage to the coffee, particularly aging, than improve it vs. land transportation. As such, a one week old bean after roasting which was transported by air may actually taste more like locally roasted coffee that is much older. Sure one day you will find the bean that was just roasted, loaded and landed in Hong Kong right in a decent condition and you happen to be there at the right place and the right time. But, for me, I don't think anybody have all the time and $ in the world to keep on trying and giving a chance, ie keep on trying this imported bean and one day you will get an OK one. Life is too short to drink bad coffee!!!
With this in mind, I typically suggest a cafe that used freshly roasted coffee as it's less likely you will get undrinkable cup. It may not be the best ever but it's much less prone to staleness and rancidity vs. imports.
The milk drink had decent texture and some sweetness which indicated the skill of its barista. As much as a chef can do to save the subpar material, the cup came out horrible even with a cover up job from the milk, i.e. staled coffee bean kept on rearing its head through the nicely texture milk all the way up in the cup I could only finish less than half the cup. To me, this is a very sad thing, particularly for the barista there. The fault of the coffee selection and treatment eclipsed what barista can do and I can only plead the power that be at this café to reconsider the bean choice and its treatment.To me, why do cafés need to bother going out of the way to add additional risk with imported coffee, ie a higher chance of staleness and rancidity, when these days locally roasted coffee of various taste profiles are everywhere to be found in Hong Kong almost right on their own backyard. : (
To sum it up, this is the second shop that received the crying face from me (the first one is Caffe Habitu due to both barista skill and coffee, the worst of both worlds)... I sympathize with the barista who has to bear with this appalling quality of coffee days in days out and think the choice and treatment of its coffee beans is a total wast of its barista skill. I can't give much credit to barista and what's matter to me most is the cup and it was really bad.
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