This is something that I ask my self on a regular basis, Why do some many restaurants serve bitter coffee???
You have enjoyed your meal and to finish it off you order your espresso. The waiter leaves and about five minutes they return your espresso cup. Inside is a lukewarm, black liquid that the restaurant wants to pawn off as an espresso.
So where did it all go wrong….
The first mistake is the ground coffee that was used to make your espresso was possibly ground 2-3 hours ago and all the flavours have vanished into thin air.
Secondly the waiter removes the protafilter from the machine to find it full of the coffee used to make the previous espresso. Not thinking to fully clean the protafilter the waiter fills it with the stale ground coffee, attaches it to the machine and walks off to serve the table beside you their main course. All this time the stale coffee is being further roasted but the heat of the machine.
The waiter returns to the machine to brew the espresso, picks up a cold espresso cup and presses the brew button. The coffee lands in the cup, immediately starts to get cold and by the time is get to your table its a burnt black mess…
What do you do?? Most taste it and leave it or worse just drink it, say nothing, pay the bill. The restaurant continues to make burnt, bitter, flat coffee… SAY SOMETHING….
Loading tweets...
4 comments
Skip to comment form
The coffee is the last interaction between the guest and the restaurant and to often, little training and poor management of the coffee course leaves the quest with a bad impression – especially when they are paying the bill.
It is disappointing how many restaurants serve such poor coffee – the coffee is generally bitter, the latte is often quite cold and there is no crema on the espresso – it is such a pity when often the food has been good. People should demand good coffee!
It’s as bad as when the percolator with freshly brewed coffee has has been sitting on the hot ring for hours. A pot of tea would not be left to stew on a hot ring for a few hours – the same rule should apply to coffee.
It’s probably an Irish thing to just say nothing, pay the bill and leave. I put it down to The Famine and a “be happy you got it in the first place” mentality.