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Rating: Standard, low-end Roman Coffee
The L’Oasi de Caffè (or Cafe Oasis) is a bar that’s off the Viale Guglielmo Marconi, in this never ending portion of the North Portuense neighborhood with ram-packed cafes everywhere. It’s a place that’s very low key and yet full of energy. The people that run the place seem to be from the Calabria region and have lots of memorabilia of it. The staff was friendly if not, as usual, preoccupied with some regular’s story that they would regularly play privy to.
This is what got:
Presentation: A nice round large cup of coffee. Good. No water served, spoon was stylish and not too terribly beat up. It was still wet from the dishwasher. When another client asked for water it was given very politely.
Temperature of Cup: It was hot, not too hot. Decent.
Quantity: In this big cup it looked like a short shot, but in reality it was a full one ounce 30ml shot.
Temperature: The espresso itself was a lot warmer than the cup. I almost burnt my tongue on this. I was wondering why this coffee wasn’t as hot as they usually are, especially since in the south of Italy it is drunk boiling hot! Voila, there it was!
Volume/Consistency: Very flat, thin, not very oily, or with volume. It was a light affair.
Crema: It was dark and two toned, like ying-yang in the cup. It was thin, and started to dissipate when I waited for the coffee to cool down. Yet at the very end of the drink I saw all of the crema that I wanted to
Odor: No real odor, except a very dark astringent note of burnt coffee.
Taste: It was very bitter, sharply punchy and astringent. No real profile to the taste, no real complexity. Just sharp bitterness.
Overall: It was a solid low level Roman coffee. It was, admittedly, what people in the South of Italy generally want their coffee to taste like.
The setup: the setup was a decent one, although as you can see I wasn’t able to photograph it properly as it was hidden in a corner. It was a La Cimbali M22, and the grinder was also a vintage La Cimbali. The coffee they were serving was Biondi Caffè, this is an Easter Roman roaster, it’s a few kilometers outside of the G.R.A Freeway ring encircling Rome.
L'Oasi del Caffè SRL
Bar Tabacchi
Via Ascanio Sobrero 5-7
00146 Roma
Tel. 06 557 6195