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Rating: Standard, low-end Roman coffee
The La Dea del Caffè sounds like a promising place. The title makes you think of coffee extasy or something, well… at least it does to me! But maybe I’m hallucinating from too much coffee, who knows. Either way, this place is sectioned into two, one is a tobacco and betting shop and then another, a café proper. It’s all one long big corner lot between San Giovanni in Laterano, and the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme church. The place has the typical cave like feel of some bars, with exposed stucco and brick and los of dark wood and mirrors of the sort. When I walked in, a client was joking with the barista complaining that he had to pay, he said something to the sort of “and I even have to pay you for this coffee that you did?!”. Yeah, a good way to be introduced to the coffee I’ll be having…
The barista, very quiet and somber, and a tough looking dude gave me this:
Presentation: Yup, cool cup, nice off-center saucer. No water served nor offered. The standard ‘drip’ on the side of the cup, letting me know that the barista didn’t cut the espresso off in time… I can read it pretty clearly now.
Temperature of Cup: Yahoo! Extra damned hot for ya!
Quantity: Short shot, the cup is the shape that I like and it’s hard to go overboard with it, even if you try..
Temperature: After waiting what seemed to be an eternity with this silent barista laboriously cleaning the machine and bar, it was down to drinking temperature.
Volume/Consistency: Powdery, chalky, yeah, chalky, and kind of like when you get a lump cocoa powder in your mouth that didn’t dissolve right in the cup.
Crema: It would have been good had the coffee been shorter. It was dark, deep and then opened up to lighter color of over extraction.
But as you can see as I waited and started to drink it died out almost entirely, looking more like a toxic waste dump than a good appetizing espresso.
Odor: Dark deep charred beans. Yahoo, yet again!
Taste: Bitter, sharp, acidic and made my tongue tingle… is that a good thing?
Overall: It got progressively bitter as I drank it, and drink it I did, I finished the thing, but it wasn’t the best nor anywhere mid-range, it was a low-end Roman coffee experience. Too many inconveniences between me and the enjoyment of drinking coffee for it to be at the level of mid range.
The setup: Yup, a beautiful E-61 Faema machine. One of the remakes but still very beautiful. The grinder was also a Faema, but something happened to the design team when doing this grinder as it’s ugly as heck, simply ugly. The coffee was the Roman based roaster Haiti Caffè. Some of the best traditional Roman styled espressi have come from this roaster, so definitely not a representative brew here.
La Dea del Caffè
Bar Tabacchi di
Carnevale Luigi
Viale Carlo Felice 57
00185 Roma
Tel. 06 7049 3916