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Rating: Standard, mid-range Roman Coffee
The California Bar Caffè was an obvious choice for me, being from California, I can’t walk by a café like this and diss my home state. So I walked in. The place is long (like three monolocales, has a very long bar and lots of tables. It’s a mix of the Roman-chic white on black décor, but not quite heavy as most places is. Its welcoming, clean and very different than the next-door Pelosi Bar which is a more down to earth family-styled ‘cozy’ café. I didn’t find any traces of actually ‘California’ like the Bud 8 Café in the Prati area. The baristas were two young good looking guys who were talking about how great it was to get some girls number that had just walked in, and one of them, after having served me, started to search her facebook page and to text her.
Whatever, I asked for a coffee and this is what I got:
Presentation: Nice, a short, powerful and fluted cup. If you’ve read anything else on this blog, you’ll know that I like this type of cup. The spoon was to size, and what was nicest, was that I got glass of water without asking. These two guys knew their etiquette.
Temperature of Cup: Warm, not scalding, and I was happy for a good experience.
Quantity: Yes, good short shot. On the spot.
Temperature: The espresso was considerably warmer than the cup, and almost got burnt. Not nice, but I expected this from this brand of coffee that tends to be hyper hot.
Volume/Consistency: It was creamy, thick-ish, but as the crema dissipated so did its consistency. It got thinner and thinner as I drank it. It wasn’t necessarily silky, but the crema created the impression that it was rich.
Crema: It was rather darker than the picture, oily, slippery, and persistent. It wasn’t foamy which was nice, and like I said above, it added to the experience of the consistency.
Odor: Yes! There was a dark-roasted smell, this is one of the first times that I get a good coffee smell from this brand of coffee which is characterized by super deeply roasted coffee.
Taste: It was very bitter, extremely bitter, but not rancid. It didn’t have almost any room for different flavors to develop. And the odd thing, is that this coffee made my tongue tingle towards the end, as if there was some alcohol in it or something! And no, they didn’t make a ‘caffè corretto’ (didn’t spike the coffee with anything).
Overall: It was a decent coffee. In comparison to the Pelosi Bar next door, this drink lacked character, it wasn’t as nutty, nor as full bodied. It was however, better and more palatable than most Marziali coffee that I have in Rome. It was solidly presented, the parameters controlled, and as such a solid mid-range coffee.
The Setup: They had a nice workhorse, La Cimbali M24 with a Mazzer grinder. The coffee is the locally roasted Marziali Caffè.
Bar California Caffè
TN Compagnia Alimentare S.R.L.
Via Oderisi da Gubbio 257
00146 Roma
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