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Empire Espresso in Columbia City

January 10, 2010 by andai



Empire Espresso, originally uploaded by andai.

Empire Espresso is Seattle’s Columbia City’s newest coffeehouse. This place is that I discovered while I was temporarily living in Columbia City. I was also able to check out the ground offerings from Columbia City Bakery and Tutta Bella, the Italian Pizzeria who also have an Italian espresso bar. Now for those of you know aware, Columbia City is not a city, but a neighborhood in Seattle, just east of Beacon Hill. I have talked to quite a few, even from the Seattle area, who have never even heard of Columbia City.

Empire is actually owned and run by a pretty cool chap called Tino. What is interesting about Empire is that when you first step into the place, you notice immediately that the place is a little different in terms of the interior design. On talking to Tino himself, I quickly found out that the place was actually designed by a team of architects… the same architects whose offices are in the same building, up stairs. Apparently the architects are also his parents too… so I am guessing he probably got a great rate for the design work.

Tino has been in coffee for a while now. In a past life he was a barista, and even worked as a bar tender at one time. But it was last year that he decided to strike out on his own and start his own coffeehouse in the area where he grew up, that is, Columbia City. In addition to his parents being close by, I believe he has quite a bit of family in the immediate area.

And who did he get to supply him with coffee? None other than Seattle Coffee Works’ Sebastian Simsch. I was happy to find a place in Seattle that serves Seattle Coffee Works coffee. It is a little unfortunate that the majority of the roasted coffee beans in Seattle are supplied by a few big names like Cafe Vita and Stumptown. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that their coffee is bad. What I am saying is that it becomes difficult to sample new and exciting roasts from some of the other smaller independent roasters that also have great coffee, so it is always exciting for me to discover coffeehouses in Seattle that have something different. Hence my excitement with Empire.

Overall, I have to say that I liked the coffee there. Tino and his baristas are really friendly and great to chat with. When I first went there, I chatted with one of the baristas who initially gave me the low down about the place. I wanted to take pictures of the inside and I asked the barista on duty for permission. She told me that in general she wouldn’t mind, but since one of the owners was around, I should ask her instead. And she pointed me to this lady who was seated having a conversation about coffee with this other gentleman.

This was the same lady whom I had observed a few minutes earlier drinking a straight espresso shot for the first time and asking the barista a lot of questions about this particular espresso shot and about good vs. bad espresso shots in general. Since she was pretty much engaged in conversation with the other person, I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt so I figured I could come back another day and chat with her. Because of the way she was interacting with the barista and also from the way the barista had pointed her out to me, I initially thought she was the owner of Empire but it was only much, much later that I guessed, and I believe that I am right, she must be Tino’s mother.

The one thing that I didn’t like about Empire, and this is nothing to do with the coffee, were the operating hours. They would close pretty early in the afternoon, sometime between 1 and 3 in the afternoon. However, that was changing around the time I was leaving, and they were going start opening much, much later. This of course makes it easier for those who do not live in Columbia City to stop by later in the evenings since the early closings I think primarily benefits the locals.

So, if you are in and about in Columbia City, I certainly suggest you drop by and check out what Empire and Seattle Coffee Works has to offer.

Posted in Beverage Banter, Coffee, Tea & Hot Chocolate, Coffeehouses & Shops, North America, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Coffee and Wireless in Wellington

January 4, 2010 by andai

When one has a laptop but no Internet access at home, finding places to connect to the Internet to check email and surf the web (i.e. if you don’t have a web enabled mobile phone) then becomes another part of your adjustment to life in New Zealand.

Unlike in the US where there are plenty of coffee shops that offer free wireless, and a few that actually make you buy coffee before they grant you access, here it seems those are more in the minority. In addition to this, the access provided in most of those coffee shops are restricted in either the amount of time you can use the access, the amount of data you can download and/or the types of data or files you can download.

To be fair, some of these restrictions are not unusual even in coffee shops in the Seattle area. For example, Fremont Coffee Company, located in the Fremont area requires you to buy coffee before they will give you a voucher with you time limited username and password. Some places like Victrola Coffee on 15th Avenue on upper Capital Hill turns off their Wi-Fi on certain days and at certain times to prevent ‘squatters’ who buy one cup of drip and hang out there the whole day on their laptops thus depriving others a place to seat and enjoy their espresso.. Starbucks had a deal with T-Mobile where one would set up an account for access. They also had a deal where you bought a Starbucks coffee card and somehow through that you could get some sort of Internet access but since I don’t really go to Starbucks to hang out, I never really tried to use their Internet access offerings.

However from the little I have seen so far Internet access is pretty much restricted in some form or the other I have yet to see one coffee shop, of the few that provide access, where you can hang out to your hearts content and download Gigs of iTunes trailers and podcasts. Here is a quick summary of what I have seen so far at three coffee shops;

The first coffee shop/café I used to get Internet access was one called Perretts Cafe. This I think had the most stable of the three. It was relatively easy to connect one the barista gave me the username and password. What in interesting is that I don’t think they actually change the password, nor do they generate multiple usernames which means that once you’ve been there, you can probably hang out somewhere close and access the web without having to pay for coffee or eats. Now the problem I had with this place was that they do restrict the types of files you can download. This includes executables… and that makes sense since you don’t want folks downloading shady binaries via your network. The problem though was that they were garbling my anti-virus definitions files so I couldn’t do any windows system or security updates at all.

Enigma is a great little coffee and lounge on Courtney Place. This is the only one that seems to have no real restrictions as far as I can tell. Part of the reason I really can’t tell however is because it also the slowest and the least stable of the three. To actually be able to get connected, I was told that I had to sit at this particular spot right by the pinball machine… at first I thought she was joking and then one of the other baristas I asked also told me the exact same thing. Regardless, though I was able to connect, the connection and the speed were actually pretty bad.

Of late I have been going to Esquires Coffee for two reasons. First, they actually make good coffee considering they are a chain of not very ‘barista’ looking folks. Second, if you ask, they will give you a voucher for an hour or 60 MB of Internet access, whichever comes first. The Internet provider is a company called TimeZone. In my opinion this is still a good deal I think because you are getting your favorite espresso drink, and they will throw in some ‘free’ Wi-Fi to boot. Now of course there is a bit of a problem in the you get one hour or 60 MB which means that if you were downloading some of your favorite iTunes podcasts or doing your system updates, you might only be there for a couple of minutes. The other problem I was having the last couple of times I used them is that the there were a couple of times when I lost connects to the Internet or the Internet was extremely slow. I would click on a link then wait and wait. But for the most part they are ok.

TimeZone also provide Internet access for Starbucks. We actually went into one of the Starbucks and asked about their Internet access. They told us that Internet access cost $3.00 and no mention of buy coffee and get it free so rather than hang around and ask clarifying questions, we went to Esquires instead.

There is another service called CaféNET that is similar to TimeZone where the company provides Internet access to various eating establishments around the city. This includes Clark’s Café at the Wellington Library. They offer a number of access options but as far as I can see they don’t have vouchers meaning that you have to use your credit card to purchase time.

There are two other options available at the library. Supposedly there is Woosh but I couldn’t get a signal, then there is Telecom who offer access at $9.95 per hour compared to caféNET’s $10 for 24 consecutive hours. I’m sorry but this is exactly the problem I have with these dinosaurs. Why would I opt to pay $10 for an hour of access when I can pay the same for 24 hours of access? This to me is a classic example why no country needs these government monopolies (or former monopolies)!

In general, I think the difference between Seattle and Wellington however is that fundamentally; Internet access is on the whole much cheaper and more pervasive in Seattle than it is here in Wellington. It feels like Seattle was maybe six to eight years ago when Internet access was a little harder to some by and more expensive. But what helped Seattle and this something that I don’t really see here yet is that Seattle had/has a ton of people with laptops so there is much more demand for Wi-Fi be it at home or at coffee shops. Here I really don’t get the sense that a lot of the locals here lug their laptops with them everywhere they go. So as a result what you find that there is less demand for Wi-Fi from locals. At the same time it almost feels like many of those you see with laptops are tourists and travelers. Oh by the way, MacBooks and Accer netbooks seem to be really popular.

And I have to admit, being that I am new to this city, I have barely just began touching the surface with regards to coffee and coffee culture in Wellington… and so this is a topic I will be coming back to again and again as I continue to explore coffee culture here in New Zealand.

Posted in Asia Pacific, Beverage Banter, Coffee Business, Coffeehouses & Shops, Oceania, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Will That Be A Latte Or A Flat White?

December 23, 2009 by andai

There is one item you will find on every espresso menu here in New Zealand that you will not find anywhere else except Australia (at least as far as I know). This is the espresso drink known as a Flat White… which is the drink that I have been ordering since I came to the country. So then you ask, what the heck is a flat white

This is the question that I have been asking and it seems that almost everyone has a slightly different take on exactly what a flat white actually is. When I first came to this country, I order my flat white at Auckland International Airport. The reason I ordered a flat white and not a latte is because a friend of mine who visits this country on a regular basis told me that is what they call lattes here. Of course I was surprised to see lattes on the menu too so naturally I had to ask the barista what a flat white was?

According to this particular barista, a flat white was espresso shots with steamed frothy milk. OK I thought, that sounds like a latte to me so I then asked her what a latte was? Oh she said, its lots of steamed frothy milk and espresso. OK then I thought, that sounds like a latte to me so I then asked her, what was the difference between a flat white and a latte? Well she said, a latte has less coffee and a lot more froth, less milk..OK then I thought, now that sounds like a cappuccino… which was also a menu item. So I then asked her, what is the difference between a latte and a cappuccino? Oh she said, a cappuccino has cocoa powder sprinkled on it. At this point I decided to stop asking questions, get my flat white and get out of there … oh and by the way, the flat white she made was pretty good actually…

Still not quite sure of the difference I decided to give it another try and talked to one of the baristas at one of the Fuel Espresso stands. He seemed knowledgeable. What he told me was that a latte was more frothier than a flat white and a flat white usually had more espresso. Maybe this is what the other barista was trying to say in a slightly less elegant way… but I still wasn’t clear on the differen

The barista who actually helped me understand the full story was Mui of Clarks Cafe at the Wellington City Library. The do really great espresso at Clark’s and the baristas there are pretty cool, so I decided to ask them. Rather than just telling me the difference Mui pulled me over and actually showed me the difference. He explained before he started that lattes were creamier while flat whites were, ‘flat’. Oh , I guess that means that lattes use whole milk while flat whites use skim (trim) or low fat milk? Not quite he explained as he placed two small espresso cups on the counter. You use the same milk for both, but the difference is in the part of the milk you use after steaming the milk.

“Imagine these cups have espresso shots in them.” he said I will start with a latte. After steaming and frothing the milk he simply poured the frothed milk into the cup. He then took the second cup and this time using a metal spoon he scooped back the froth from the milk, then holding back the rest of the forth with the spoon, he proceeded to pour the milk underneath into the cup. He finished up by pouring a little of the froth on the top. That was the flat white.

Finally with the two cups next to each other he then continued to explain that if you were to try scoop or skim back the frothy milk from the top of the latte you would not really see the milk underneath since the whole milk would be more frothy or airy. He then demonstrated the exact same maneuver on the flat white and you could clearly see the milk underneath the froth. As he explained, the flat white was more ‘flat’ than the latte. That right there was the difference between the flat white and the latte.

If you were to compare what Mui did with the typical coffee shop in Seattle (or in the US) you will see that in the US, what we call lattes are what the Kiwis call flat whites. Often many baristas in the indie coffee shops in the US will after frothing the milk, bang the metal pitcher on the counter three to five times to remove some of the air. Many will also use the spoon to hold back the froth as they pure the milk then add the froth to the top. In other words, they tend to make flat whites.

Well there you have it…

Posted in Asia Pacific, Beverage Banter, Oceania, Tasting, Cupping & Other | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

New Zealand Coffee Culture, My First Impressions…

December 11, 2009 by andai

This post has been a long time coming. For a while now, I have been looking forward to checking out the coffee culture in New Zealand. Part of the reason for this is because word on the street is that espresso is huge deal here. But little did I know what I was in for! I sit here writing this post in a small café called Enigma enjoying some of the best espresso I have ever tasted. Yesterday I was at a café called Ernesto right on Cuba St in the Cuba district of Wellington. The coffee there was also pretty amazing! In fact their coffee is from a local roasting company called Havana Coffee Works. I first read about the owners of this company a few months ago in Idealog and about how Havana Coffee Works came to be. I will be writing more about Havana Coffee Works in a later post. But my main point here is that I have been enjoying some great coffee here in Wellington and also in Auckland.

Though I had heard that Wellington, New Zealand had quite a bit of a coffee culture, little did I know how seriously Wellingtonians and Aucklanders take their coffee? Just about everywhere you go, the coffee shops, the cafes, the bakeries, the restaurants all seem to do a pretty amazing job with coffee. There are also quite a few espresso stands, espresso carts and trailers (kind of like the Skillet for those of you from Seattle). It is interesting for me to note that many folk here will order espresso drinks to do with their meals rather than just scones or other sweets as I am more used to. And since just about every café here serves hand pulled espresso drinks, I would venture to say that Wellington probably has way more espresso serving places per capita than Seattle… but this is just my own unscientific observation. But even at both the Auckland and Wellington airports, I counted more than six coffee shop/cafes at each airport…. and this was not after exploring the whole airport, but just checking out the in the sections I happened to be in.

A short while ago, friend of mine from Seattle, who flies in and out of New Zealand on business pretty regularly, recently told me something interesting about the coffee in New Zealand. He said, and I quote,” I have never had bad coffee in New Zealand.” As we continued to chat, when he was basically saying and I paraphrase is that you can’t get bad coffee in New Zealand. Yes I know this is hyperbole so please don’t write to me pointing out the fact that this is probably a false statement. But one thing I have to admit though that in the few days that I have been here I have yet to have one bad espresso drink. Even at the Auckland airport, where I first drink my first official New Zealand coffee, my latte or as they call it here, flat white, was pretty good actually (by the way, they do have flat whites and café lattes and I am still trying to figure out the difference between the two). I say this remembering the awful, awful latte I ordered from the Seattle’s Best Coffee stand at SeaTac airport this past August when I was about to catch my flight to Amsterdam. Now I know someone is going to get offended and write to tell me that they have had bad coffee in New Zealand, and that may be the case. I can also tell you that if I do find a place here with bad coffee, I will certainly do the write-up. And there are tons of places here to try out and review, which I will… with the places I have check out already, so far, so good…

So if coffee is so big in New Zealand, then how is it that you really don’t hear about it much as you would with Seattle coffee or even European coffee like in Italy? From the little I have been reading about New Zealand culture in magazines like Idealog is that New Zealanders (or Kiwis) are not really known for promoting themselves. They tend to be more laid back and not as aggressive about promoting themselves as you find American or even European businesses. But this I feel will probably change in the near future as some in New Zealand realize that in the global economy, self branding and promotion is essential… and I suspect this will eventually trickle down to the coffee industry and culture…

Anyway these are my first impressions in a country of in which I have been present for less than a week and will be here for a few years to come… and so I will certainly be doing a lot of sampling and exploring of the coffee scene here in New Zealand and especially in Wellington.

In the meantime you may be wondering what the Ground Offerings blog is going to be doing about posting articles on Seattle coffee culture? That will continue to happen via our Seattle based bloggers. In addition, we will be posting regularly on coffee culture around the world. If you are interested in coffee and would like to write for Ground Offerings, please let us know via the Contact Us link above.

Posted in Asia Pacific, Beverage Banter, Coffee Business, Coffee, Tea & Hot Chocolate, Coffeehouses & Shops, Oceania | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Palazzo Coffee

November 28, 2009 by andai

Palazzo is a tiny, tiny coffee shop in Wallingford. This is one of those places that you can easily drive right by and not even notice. It is also one of those things where by I would drive by, usually on the weekends, and especially Sundays, and the place was always closed. In fact for the longest time I thought that the place had actually gone out of business and they never bothered to actually take down the sign.

So imagine my delight when I happened to drive by Palazzo and they were actually open. This was on a weekday lunch time and I was actually on my way to the Ballard area to my appointment. As always, as I drove by I looked to see if the place was open, and indeed it was. Then I thought about the coffee I was going to be offered by the office administrator at the office. Their coffee is pretty bad and so whenever I visit them, I would normally pass by some coffee shop to get an espresso drink. This time around I noticed that Palazzo was actually open. I knew that if I did not stop and get a latte, I may not have another chance to since it was pretty clear to me that I seem to pass by during their after hours.

And so I dropped in.

The inside was really tiny… did I mention before the place was tiny? But it was also cozy. There were a group of older folks there enjoying coffee and conversation. In fact it totally reminded me of what I would expect to see if I went to a small espresso bar in a small Italian town. The owner was behind the counter and he is the one who both took my order and pulled the espresso to make my latte.

He was actually pretty cool to chat with. He told me that they do roast their own coffee, right there in the shop. I think he said that they do so daily, I can’t quite remember, but I do know that they roast their beans pretty regularly so the coffee is always relatively fresh roasted. He also told me that they primarily use South American coffee beans. I asked him why he did not also use beans from East African, i.e. Kenya and Ethiopia? He agreed that the coffee from East Africa was really high quality but it was also really expensive. In other words using those beans would certainly drive up the his costs and the final prices of his coffee.

Since I was in a hurry, I couldn’t hang around and chat, so I picked up my latte and headed on my way, savoring my latte as I drove to my appointment. I must say I liked the latte. It was nice and strong, just the way I like it, with great taste and flavor. As I was drinking I was thinking how I wished I had been able to try out the coffee more often… but alas, I don’t think I will have the opportunity to go back now that I am getting ready to leave Seattle in a week’s time. But I would certainly encourage you espresso lovers out there to go check out Palazzo and let me know what you think :)

Posted in Beverage Banter, Coffee Business, Coffee, Tea & Hot Chocolate, Coffeehouses & Shops, North America | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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