ESPERO BAR CAFFÈ, VIA GEROLAMO CARDANO 32-34, 00146 ROMA

Mar 3, 2016
2 min read

Rating: Standard, mid-range Roman coffee

The Espero Bar Caffè is a cool place. It’s got an interior that is very stereotypically ‘Italian’. It looks like a ultra touristy place you’d find in Trastevere or downtown next to the forum or something. It is small, and has a lot of black and white pictures all over the place. Tons of famous 1960 to 1980 Italian opera singers, movie stars and the like adorn the inside of the walls with their pictures and autographs. It seemed that the previous owners were quite the socialites. At odd’s with these images of Pasolini, Pavarotti and the such, there was the sappy music of Enya playing in the background… It was a surreal contrast. Either way, I paid first as it looked like that’s what the cashier wanted me to do and then waited for my coffee. The bar was an ‘L’ shaped an it was packed with people. I went to the far end and asked for my espresso.

This is what I got:

Presentation: It was a nice cup. No water was offered, but the sugar intake was already there for me to take. It was clean and crisp. The spoon was a bit big in my opinion, but besides that, all in order.

Temperature of Cup: Good, warm, almost the same temperature as the espresso itself.

Quantity: Very short shot, a ‘half-ristretto’ according to US standards!

Temperature: Very good, warm, not hot, not cold. It was brewed on the lower end of the brewing range, probably somewhere around 90 to 92 C at max.

Volume/Consistency: It was raspy and full of sediment. Sandy would be too coarse, it was thickish but only with ‘stuff’ not oils and such. Not bad, but almost as if I was having the coffee powders in my cup.

Crema: It was persistent, very dark, and yet thinned out as I drank it. It definitely added volume to the first 2-3 sips, and then after that (longer than any Roman person would have taken to drink their espresso) it got thing.

Odor: Not that I recollect. Nothing out of place in this regard.

Taste: It was bitter, flat and strongly stout. It was monolithic in its taste profile, only giving me the strong bitter profile of dark roasted forced pitch-black beans who’ve lost their individuality.

Overall: It was a solidly normal, mid-level Roman espresso. A plain, distinguishable taste profile that is what Roman seek. When they drink coffee, they don’t want anything else, except for that typical thing called ‘coffee flavor’. Can’t blame them for that, I am in Rome after all…

The setup: They had a nice and simple Spartan machine, it was a Wega and what looked like a ‘black’ Mazzer, which means that it was an Astoria grinder (which have almost identical shape as the mazzer but come in black!). The coffee being brewed was Marziali Caffè, a typically extra deep bitter and robust coffee roasted here locally in Rome.