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Rating: Standard, low range Roman coffee
I had passed by the Old Bar Caffè while ago, and it got me really curious. It’s on a weird angle, like a trapezoid or something, and it’s hard to see into. Its always got lots of older folk (like retired age) sitting outside, and well, seems to be some type of reference point for the neighborhood. There’s another more chic café just down the street on the same block that has lots of thin older guys with cool sun glasses and puffy white hair. Here, you have older, more plump, less spiffy guys just chilling and complaining about life. Inside you find the same mix of lower economic bracket and less rigid expectations about life; some handicapped, unfortunately very poor people leaning against slot machines and enjoying the fact that they have a place where nobody cares if they stay there for 5 minutes or 5 hours. So, a healthy place. The barista was a tall guy who had a no BS attitude, and too my order methodically without flinching.
This is what I got:
Presentation: Clean cup. A cup of water served immediately without asking, and a spoon to measure. Everything was gleaming, tight, clean, and on the mark.
Temperature of Cup: Hot cup, almost scalding.
Quantity: Short shot, less, a lot less than a standard espresso.
Temperature: Very hot. I had to wait quite a bit, and enjoyed the company of Radio 105 which was blaring inside, and the company of different types of people walking in and out of the bar.
Volume/Consistency: Very thin, sharp. Sandy, powdery. Cutting.
Crema: It was over-extracted. The barista pulled two plump espresso from one porta filter that I saw was underfilled.
Odor: Not here, no stress. I don’t expect it much. Well… I lie, there was a acrid, stark, dark, sharp espresso coffee taste.
Taste: Super bitter. Dark taste, cutting. But then there was a woody taste, strong roasted wood roasted coffee.
Overall: It was a lower to mid-range espresso. It wasn’t remarkable, but neither horrible. It was, acceptable, at most. I would go have a coffee here just for the experience.
The setup: The espresso machine I couldn’t figure out what it was. The grinder a Mazzer, newer, a lot newer than the espresso machine. Outside the Old Bar Caffè there was a sign for Sao Caffè, but after I asked the barista what coffee it was, given that the cup said ‘Trombetta’, he did confirm that it was Trombetta Caffè. A downtown Roman roaster. They’re not necessarily de-lux in terms of flavor, but not astringent or poor by any means.
Old Bar Caffè
di Wu Yongen
Via Giuseppe Zamboni 19
00146 Roma
Tel. 06 558 2296