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Rating: Poor, not a drinkable Roman coffee
The Pepe Bar Caffè & Tabacchi is on a corner and is a very thin slender locale that reaches way deep. The first half of the café is all counter, with two large Faema espresso machines, and two Mazzer grinders. Then after the end of the counter you get the sports and other type of betting and gambling things at the end of the café. Multipurpose is the rule here. The staff was friendly enough, if not typical in discussing gossip among themselves and with the regulars there. The place had a few tables and I decided to take a seat. This week is a difficult one, as I’ve had a few quite poor cafes… so bear with me!
This is what I got:
Presentation: An odd baroque like cup shape, but clean, tidy and with a funny earlike lobe for a handle. Good to go. No water offered, and they didn’t seem to interested if I wanted anything else or not. But here in Rome, you’ve gotta be a rude to get your message across, if not, nobody listens.
Temperature of Cup: It was extremely hot. It was white-hot porcelain. Goodness…
Quantity: It was a full espresso, the cup is rather large so a full 30ml / one ounce.
Temperature: It was extremely …. well, Cold! Yeah, it was really lukewarm, not a pleasant experience with
the ultra hot cup and cold brew inside.
Volume/Consistency: Thin, chalky and runny, not very complex.
Crema: The crema looked like a volcanic eruption on Jupiter or whatever that planet is they just visited… It had bubbles, marbly, and looked a bit over-extracted. As I waited it started to dissipate in the center and didn’t seem to add to the drinking experience.
Odor: Dark charred beans that prefigure what I was going to taste.
Taste: Very rancid, very pungently bitter, very acidic, and with a metallic aftertaste that got me wondering what was the state of the boiler in that Faema.
Overall: It was undrinkable to me. Without sugar, and drinking it at a measured pace, I simply couldn’t finish it. Had it been with sugar and in a 2-sip manner as most Italians do, then it would have been different, probably. But boy, just not very good.
The setup: They had two Faemas, one a 4 group, and another 4 three group. They had two mazzers running by them, and the a small LaCimbali on-demand doser for decaf. The coffee was Nori Caffè, a deeply sharp coffe that is Rome based, and I haven’t had the experience of tasting a really decent cup of theirs yet.
Pepe Bar Caffè e Tabacchi
Bar Pepe s.r.l.
VIale Guglielmo Marconi 39
00146 Roma
Tel. 06 5530 0993