GRAN CAFFÈ DEI COLLI, VIALE DEI COLLI PORTUENSI 518, 00151 ROMA

Rating: Standard, OK Roman coffee being served

The Viale dei Colli Portuensi is so packed with hard-hitting, presumptuous cafes that you either have to play the game and try to outdo your neighbors, or simply ignore the game and try a new strategy. The Gran Caffè dei Colli, with such an impressive name, plays the game, and it aspires to serve hard-core coffee, Roman style. Well, with so many cafes under our belt, it’s easy to situate this place as running normal, run of the mill coffee. The other cafes here had stronger, more powerful, or simply more rich coffees. But, read on, and you’ll see that it does serve up a different type of coffee. It’s very lightweight, which is not necessarily a bad thing.​

Asking for a cup of java got me this:​

Presentation: The coffee came straight up, no water, but the barista was very talkative. He saw I was a foreigner immediately, and looked at me asking why the hell I was taking pictures of the coffee. So I explained I like coffee, a lot. That was enough for him…

Temperature of Cup: Yup, keeping with the greatest tradition of Rome, it was boiling hot!

Quantity: Very short shot, I liked this.

Temperature: It was still hot. But again, I see so many locals just receive the coffee cup hot as hell, and down it immediately in 10 seconds. They’re used to this and expect it. Go figure!

Volume/Consistency: Hmm.. not the best incarnation of this brand of coffee. It was water, runny.

Crema: Very light and very persistent. Thin, even, nothing exciting.​

Odor: None of course, Rome already stinks too much to add even more smell to its odorous fauna!

Taste: Well, it was indeed very watery, very light, so light in fact that I felt I could have had 3-4 of these to do the job right.​

​Overall: So that’s what this coffee is about, here they brew a light coffee, not rancid in any way, bitter as any espresso here is, but light. Maybe somebody might say delicate, but I say just squirted out lightly.

The setup: They were of course serving Danesi Caffè, they were proud of this, logos everywhere,​

….and even on their cups. I liked this.​

I had to strain to see the espresso machine setup: They had it hidden behind the wall that separates the ‘magic’ from the bar where the coffee is served.​

Through a series of mirrors I could see it,​

and then, after the barista go comfortable with me taking photos, I could go and take a photo of it. ​

​A nice four group La Cimbali M39 machine, with grinder. A very nice setup to kick out good espressos.

The interior of this place was nice. It was full of wood everywhere, very warm, and very posh-aspiring in an old 19th century kind of way. It was right up there with the T&T Caffè which is just down the street.​

It was smaller, but the place was humming with people cracking jokes, complaining about being charged wrong, and then, just general chatter. It was a nice place.​

Gran Caffè dei Colli,

Domus Caffè S.R.L.

Viale dei Colli Portuensi, 518

00151 Roma