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Rating: Standard, normal mid-range Roman coffee
I ran into the Oro Nero Caffè almost by accident. It is on the café-packed Via Oderisi da Gubbio and this locale is small, almost unnoticeable. Its right next to a supermarket, so it’s got a ready stream of customers that are in the know of its existence. But when I walked in, I was greeted by a small, thin, long locale, dressed in lots of orange color everywhere. I was also greeted by a healthy dose of retired folk lounging about inside. The café has a bar on the right hand side that runs almost all the café, on the left you have some small tables-chairs, and in the back you have a bit more space and some more chairs.
This is what I got:
Presentation: A nice short, fluted cup. With a fun fresh design. I had run into this before, and I remember exactly where. At the Spartaco Bar Caffè in the Monti area. Whatever, this cup was served without water and the spoon looked at bit too big to fit at the very bottom.
Temperature of Cup: Cup was warm, didn’t notice anything out of place. This is good.
Quantity: Short shot, this cup doesn’t give you much wiggle room, even if you wanted to throw a longer shot in there.
Temperature: It was hotter than I expected in relation to the cup, but didn’t burn my tongue. Good temperature. This already puts it 80% above most cafes here in Rome!
Volume/Consistency: It was thin, not oily, and no consistency thicker than a slightly heaving drip coffee.
Crema: It was over-extracted, look at those nice frog-eyes peeking at you. And it started to dissipate immediately after a first sip. This means that there was simply little coffee in the porta filter. The shot was too short to really be overextracted had anything else been off the mark (or simply too coarse of a grind?)
Odor: No real odor here. Nothing different than most cafes.
Taste: It was flat, thin, and no taste profile that made it memorable. It had a nutty-rancid taste that didn’t veer into pure rancidness, but it was close. It was a coffee that displayed little care for its taste.
Overall: This was surprising because the place had a lot of coffee up for sale. It markets itself as a ‘torrefazione’ (i.e. a Roaster), but it didn’t really make its coffee ‘stand out’. Either way, I’m sure I got a dud and maybe, the barista/owner was too busy in the debates being held at the end of the bar with his clients (politics of course!). So it might be worth giving this another try.
The setup: It was nice. There was a large three-group Rancilio,
and then… look at the lineup of grinders!
Yeah, 5 grinders. One for the coffee being served (see to the left) then a grinder for the loose coffee they were selling (look again, to the left of the photo with the espresso machine, you can see on the wall some coffee being sold) and then the grinders for decaf, and other blends. One seems empty and unused. Either way, a nice group of Astoria grinders. The coffee was the Aroma del Caffè, this is a local Roman roaster that is being sold at Spartaco Torrefazione. It seems to be also coupled with the PeriCaff coffee, another local Roman roaster, as I tend to see them paired together. The beans they were selling were good, so I’m surprised that the PeriCaff isn’t as good as their loose coffee. But again, I think it’s an operator issue and not the coffee.
Anther nice touch to this place is that they serve the Libero coffee, this is the coffee with different caffeine levels, we saw this being served at the Nino Bar in Ciampino.
All of these things make me think that I should give this place another try to see if they can pour me a better espresso. Especially because they also had a lot of vegan options (not that I'm vegan) but that they pay attention to what their serving... so maybe I'll give it another review.
Nero Oro Caffè
Caffetteria Torrefazione
Berardi Corrado
Via Oderisi da Gubbio 57A
00146 Roma