GABY CAFFÈ, PIAZZA DI VILLA CARPEGNA 48, 00165 ROMA

Rating: Standard, Normal mild Roman coffee

The Caffè Gabby is on a crossing of the busy and ancient Aurelia fairway, and just north of the Pamphilj park. There are a grip of coffee houses all along this area and lots of competition. Its placement near lots of hotels (the Crowne Plaza Rome St Peter’s is just a block away) and the Deutsche Schule Rom (German School in Rome), and the Sacred Institute of Music means there’s plenty of traffic available, but it’s got to earn it. The locale is very small, all air conditioned and all bar, and to boot you’re greeted by a very friendly couple of baristas that seem to be the owners by their demeaner. The German accent of the barista (tall, blond and not what you expect out of a Roman bred barista, without being prejudiced!), seems to imply she was a local product of the German School’s after school coffee hangouts at the bar…. And decided to stay at the place.

Asking for a coffee gets you this:

Presentation: A nice clean crisp cup of coffee, water served immediately without asking. The marble counter was beautiful, and the cup designed seemed to be playfully as busy as the counter. I liked it.

Temperature of Cup: Yes, we’re in Rome, and the cup was boiling hot!

Quantity: Given the size of the cup, it was a nice round full espresso, not too long, yet not tight or aiming towards ristretto.

Temperature: By the time I felt the cup was at a good temp, the espresso was also good and ready to go. So it mean that it wasn’t necessarily too hot.

Volume/Consistency: Very thin brew almost, felt almost as if I was having a filter coffee, I was surprised!

Crema: Very light brown, thin, not persistent. Not oily, simply light.

Odor: No odor, again, we’re in Rome and it was hot as death outside, who needs smelly things?

Taste: Well, the coffee was not bitter, very mild. It was not complex in any way, no fruitiness nor shades of coffee tastes. It was simply a darker roasted mild coffee. Not offensive in any way.

Overall: So what about this? It was a light affair. Look at the lack of oils and the lightness of the remains in the cup above… Maybe because of the scalding heat outside, or because of the amazing amount of traffic just outside the doors, the coffee was light. And it felt OK.

The setup: They had a generic setup, that seemed to do the trick. A SAB espresso machine based on a rotary pump pressure, aka, a typical FAEMA E87 design. Then they had a Macaf grinder.

The coffee they were brewing was… appropriately ‘german’ in spirit. Teichner Caffè appears to be a bar in the heart of Rome, so it is decisively Roman. But different according to this brew. It is mild in character, maybe reflecting the Germanic roots of the establishment (however far back they may go, if at all!).

Gaby Caffè,

Russo Gabrielle S.

Piazza di Villa Carpegna 48, 00165 Roma