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Rating: Standard, low-end Roman coffee
So, in front of the Bambino Gesù hospital, that’s on the Gianicolo hill and park, you’ll see right across the entrance, a little park where kids that are either recovered, or siblings, or grownups that are trying to take a break from the utter difficulties of having a child in a hospital can relax. The Tasso Bar Caffè is the place you’ll try to drown your sorrows, or celebrate a recovery. Either way, it’s a place that you won’t want to come back to and drink coffee there just for the hell of it. While the inside of the place is small – it’s a little kiosk that, while well built, has standing room only – it is well built and permanent it seems. But what I wanted to say is this place offers very bitter coffee to it’s clients, a bitter pill as it would seem to go along with the pain of hospital life, which I absolutely abhor… it took a long while to get an espresso (hell a long while for Rome, maybe 4 minutes), as the barista was just up to his elbows in coffee orders… he was just cranking out drink after drink at breakneck speed. Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I waited until he had a lull.
This is what I got served:
Presentation: The cup I like, it had the bar’s own logo on it, and the saucer was from another brand of coffee, a decaf coffee who’s name evades me now. Either way it was clean, and yet the spoon would have been in a difficult position to reach the darn bottom of that cup.
Temperature of Cup: Very hot, yahoo!
Quantity: It was a short shot, but I saw it was extracted along with another espresso and I don’t like that.
Temperature: Darn hot. It was midday, noon exactly, and hot as heck outside, and still there was steam coming out of my espresso.
Volume/Consistency: It was thin, papery, watery, runny. Not really exciting.
Crema: Well it was dark, and didn’t seem over extracted even though I saw this espresso fly out of the porta filter hole like a full open faucet. It was oily and slick and persistent. The only positive thing in this drink.
Odor: Nope, hot here.
Taste: Very bitter start, a punchy tart bitter opening that moved immediately to an almost rancid plateau, and finished with a flat deep bitter after taste in my mouth.
Overall: It was a low quality Roman coffee, it wasn’t super rancid, nor crap in a cup, as I’ve had elsewhere but really nothing pleasant. And I’m surprised as in a setting as this, with a view of the entirety of Rome on one side, a park in front of you on the other and the fact that if a kid’s in the hospital the parent’s will have a good deal of time whether they like it or not, you’d expect the barista to slow it down and create a good experience for folks. But that would be in a place where coffee is appreciated no?
The setup: The machine was none other than a La Cimbali M24 (probably thousands of these in Rome!), the grinder was an Astoria Black clad (aka, Mazzer in disguise) and the coffee was Negresco Caffè, a Roman roaster that is super super bitter. And yet I’ve had a lot better of their brew elsewhere than I did here.
Tasso Bar Caffè
di Morbidi A. & e. S.A.S.
Passeggiata del Gianicolo 8
00165 Roma