I saw the following on the plasma screen at Timmys tonight:
What is espresso?
Dark roasted coffee brewed through steam and hot water.
Sigh. Timmys has no clue what espresso is, and yet they help to widely disseminate this (mis)information. I can understand their dilemma — that the average double-double-ing Canadian doesn't know or care what "expresso" (sic) is — and thus they need to educate them. But at least they could do it properly.
Here's my attempt at public espresso education:
What is espresso?
A small, intensely-flavoured coffee brewed with high pressure hot water.
It avoids the pitfalls of assuming that espresso is a particular roast or type of bean (it's not, despite what's being served at Tims or Starbucks), and that steam is used to brew (only high pressure hot water should touch the coffee). Further, three of the most important characteristics of espresso are touched upon: the small volume, intense flavor, and unique extraction method that are only found in espresso. It's not perfect, especially to orthodox espresso-ists, but I implore a purist to try and do better in 11 words of common language.
Here ends the first YWG Coffee "rant". I'll try and keep these to a minimum, but I must stand against misinformation while on my quest for good coffee.
