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Rating: Poor, very rancid coffee
Well, this is not how I’d like to start Monday mornings, generally, on a sour note, but this is how the politicians helping the Italian president at the Palazzo del Quirinale apparently do. I’m sure there are other cafes I’ll discover that are just a step closer to the Quirinale in down-town Rome (that’s the Palazzo at the end of the photo of the locale), but whenever I pass by the Caffè Del Quirinale, there are indeed government-aid looking folk crowding it’s interior. And if this is the case, well, no wonder politics are bonkers in Italy, they’re drinking poor coffee! Let’s leave that superfluous stuff aside and examine the contents of this place’s brew.
Asking for a coffee got me this:
Presentation: There was no water offered, but surely they would have offered. However, it was indeed the afternoon, and they should have this in mind when serving a straight-up espresso. Maybe also because of the quantity of tourists passing through this place? Who knows. but not given. The cup was relatively clean, there were two spots on it I didn’t recognize as coffee (see one above the web address on the cup), and then the base of the espresso machine was dirty with coffee as the bottom of the cup had coffee. But I’m being picky here. The spoon was OK, and I generally love this shaped cup.
Temperature of Cup: Ohh… Rome at full speed- it was super hot. The machine being on all day made this cup boiling hot! I had to wait and hear out the guy standing next to me trying to convince the baristas to buy some new types of cornetto distributor (croissants) he was pushing on them.
Quantity: Relatively short shot. I liked it, quite good and precise.
Temperature: Yup, extremely hot espresso. At first I couldn’t even taste the coffee because it was so darn hot! After waiting a while I could start to drink it, but still, the burnt tongue effect wasn’t nice.
Volume/Consistency: Yup, runnnnny! It almost ran away from me it was so thin. It was razor sharp thin and watery.
Crema: It was light brown, thin, and not too persistent. It made an opening in the middle and held onto the sides of the cup for its life. But there wasn’t much life in it… so not much of a point. No oils, no character.
Odor: There was a smell of coffee here. This indeed was a positive thing, and it was a dark roast smell. So all the life that the coffee had, it gave it to me in its fragrance!
Taste: Man, it was rancid, pure rancidness at its best. It had a thin metallic veneer that made the rancidness all that much more entertaining.
Overall: This was a low-end coffee experience. It was poor. i tried to finish the coffee, and I almost did it, but I couldn’t bring myself to it. There was probably 2 millimeters of coffee left in the cup, but man, I was afraid of any remaining coffee grounds in there that would put a death sentence on my stomach.
The setup: They had a decently cared for espresso machine that I couldn’t make out who the manufacture was, since Gima tends to be paired with an Astoria pair of Grinder (as this was) and machine, it’s probably an older Astoria. The coffee, yes, agian, Gima Caffè a Roman based roaster that roasts very robust, strong, yet at times deliciously oily and rich coffee. This is not the place to get their best coffee.
The interior is small and long (a mono-locale) and the older couple who runs the staff, along with the middle aged baristas are friendly enough Romans.
Caffè Del Quirinale
Nazionale S.R.L.
Via XXIV Maggio 49
00184 Roma
Tel. 06 678 9746