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Rating: Standard, mid-to low end Roman coffee
The Spuntino Giusto Caffè is a micro locale. It’s located right behind the historic and always ultra car packed Largo Magnanapoli, it’s essentially as down-town as any place can be. However, when you go down the Via delle Tre Cannelle, that leads you down from the Via Quattro Novembre to the Via San Eufemia and thus to Trajan’s column, you’re suddenly in this very quiet deserted street, right in the middle of Rome. From the outside all you see is a door, and a shabby window. Nothing saying that a cup of Java can be had inside. Well… I’m 99% sure that if you walk into any door whatsoever in Rome, you’ll walk into a place where Java can be served, but that’s another story. So the shabby aspect of this place continued into the interior. Walking in you’re in a stuff packed room. It was also packed with people. There were three teeny tables on the right with what seemed like 10 people sitting there. Two were at the bar, and it impeded me from actually walking in, and another good eight were crammed at these foot square tables. After the two folks talking saw I was waiting to walk in from the rain, they scooted down and gave me a space in the 2-foot long counter area available to have a drink. It’s a counter that is almost at face height, reaching right at my chest. When the barista finished speaking to them she turned over to me very bright, smiling and happy.
This is what she served me:
Presentation: A fairly decent composed and typical cup of espresso here in Rome. It had a logo that I’m aware of and there’s few espresso companies branding their stuff in green. No water was served, but the very happy and talkative barista would have surely obliged had I asked.
Temperature of Cup: Very good cup temperature. Maybe it was the outside coolness, and the fact that no sun was hitting on the espresso machine boiler which was facing the window (and which a day’s sunlight on it can increase water temperature), but the cup was good.
Quantity: It was a good sized espresso, but you can see from the splattering that it was a bit over extracted.
Temperature: It was a bit warmer than the cup, but not too much and nothing disrupting the drinking experience.
Volume/Consistency: It was light, a bit lighter than I would have liked and it was not as coherent in volume as it could have been. It was a bit runny and you could sensibly taste the difference between the coffee grinds and the water. Hence, not enough steep time inside the porta filter before the water pushed through the grinds.
Crema: The crema was thin, elastic and almost uniform oak colored brown. Very nice. It started to dissipate with the second sip I took.
Odor: Dark very strong roasted coffee smell. When I asked for the coffee the barista immediately set to grinding some fresh coffee for me. However, with the humidity in the air due to the rain, I’m sure they weren’t extra crispy either way.
Taste: It was a sharp bitter start that then took a dive south and became very flat, and simple. It wasn’t a complex drink nor a bad one. It had a finish that seemed to be dipping into the rancid side but not quite there.
Overall: The overall experience was one of a almost mid to low end Roman coffee. It didn’t have any body to it, nor any flavors outside of the dark roasted beans.
The setup: The machine was a La Cimbali, the grinder a Mazzer, and the espresso was the Termini based area roster Nori Caffè. They’re like Palombini, roasting ultra dark roast heavy Robusta blends.
Spuntino Giusto Caffè
Spuntino Giusto SRL
Via delle Tre Cannelle 19
00187 Roma
Tel. 06 678 7452