Coffee shop annoyance

mobius

I know - why bother - but today we had to stroll into town to return some clothes, and so before heading back decided to stop for a coffee… Cafe Nero was nearby, and we’d been there before and it wasn’t ‘too’ awful.

I missed the woman pulling our shots, but noticed another guy who was pulling the shots for the guy behind us. He took a portafilter from the previous customer, knocked it out and then straight to the grinder…

… I mean, I don’t expect a fancy portafilter flusher or anything, but didn’t even wipe with a cloth.

I know that most coffee shops have ‘bitter’ roasts anyway, to cut through the milk/sugar/syrup that the masses like in their latte, but I can’t believe that anyone thinks this would be a good idea. It wasn’t even busy, so no reason to rush.

Suffice to say we will never stop there again.

whinmoor85

mobius The last time I went to Nero was a few years ago in a retail park and the area where the barista’s were was filthy - spent coffee everywhere, dirty grinder. Didn’t bother getting a drink, if the place isn’t clean I doubt the coffee will be any good either.

Chriss29

mobius didn’t even wipe with a cloth

I’m ok with that personally and in the chains defence speed is probably one of their KPI’s.

Regards hygiene and taste, at a chain, I don’t think a full wipe down of the portafilter is required as I don’t think the flavour would be affected and highly doubt I could become Ill.

At a speciality place however, I probably would hope the portafilter would be cleaned between shots 😀

Ernie1

Doesn’t exactly seem hygienic either which is surprising from a big chain.

Hopefully it gets wiped and rinsed at some point! Can’t imagine how that tasted if it’s 50 shots in without a wipe…

MediumRoastSteam

Ernie1 Doesn’t exactly seem hygienic either which is surprising from a big chain.

I can’t see what’s the hygiene issue. The barista didn’t lick the portafilter, nor was it given to the customer. 😊 No different from beans inside a grinder, or reusing the same blender for making a smoothie of the same flavour for another customer in the blender used for the precious customer, IMO. I get the taste of freshly ground coffee mixed with spent puck residue… but potentially that would enhance the flavour from something from Coffee Nero!

tompoland

Oh boy, that would be a turn off. Is that a chain store?

mobius

tompoland Yup. This one is a small ‘substore’ inside a bigger department store, but they’re all part of the same franchise.

Ernie1

MediumRoastSteam

Hygiene - noun

Conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease, especially through cleanliness.

My point was that this is a huge national chain, where commercial hygiene practices are (supposed to be) paramount.

I dunno about you but not rinsing the PF between shots, especially as we don’t know if it was 10 times in a row, doesn’t exactly scream cleanliness to me.

Also, I’d definitely be ordering another smoothie if I saw one being made in a blender that hadn’t been cleaned, even if it was the same flavour…

MediumRoastSteam

Ernie1 I dunno about you but not rinsing the PF between shots, especially as we don’t know if it was 10 times in a row, doesn’t exactly scream cleanliness to me.

I understand hygiene… But how is the above preventing “Conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease”

No one is going to catch a disease or be unhealthy because of that, would they?

When you have guests, do you clean the portafilter thoroughly before serving the next shot? What about the group heaed? Do you make sure you clean the shower screen thoroughly, backflush it, so there are no spent puck residue there? Do you empty the grind chamber for the next customer? You know, those stale grinds sitting in the chute for 12 hours at times… Surely not great, but won’t spread disease or cause health issues!

Ernie1

MediumRoastSteam

I’m not a commercial, national chain coffee shop with obligations around hygiene regulations.

Jeez. I’m not going to get into an argument over it, seems unclean to me, you obviously don’t agree.

mobius

I’m not sure I care much on the hygiene side of this, as I wouldn’t like to guess whether left-over grounds are better/worse than a cloth being used that’s been wiping other things all day…

However, it’s certainly not going to help the taste, even though these shops tend to go for bitter anyway to ‘cut through the milk’ and aren’t great even to begin with.

I was just disappointed.

LMSC

While I am conscious of what a barista does while pulling a shot for the next coffee, I wouldn’t imagine the PF getting stuck with noticeable amount of spent puck to impact the taste. Fragments or traces are more likely, which is similar to what we see at home.

Re @MediumRoastSteam’s laundry list of questions, we know what the answers are. I am sure most of us would be wiping the basket clean for the next shot (back to back).

Dusk

What would the ideal scenario be? I’m genuinely interested. I’ve been to a cafe that uses a paintbrush to wipe out the old coffee but I don’t think the brush gets cleaned frequently (certainly not every coffee) so in my head that’s no better. One of those glass cleaners might be best but it could take all the heat out of the portafilter.

mobius

Dusk The ideal would be those more recent portafilter cleaners (I think they’re actually for jugs but serve the purpose ?) that have a spindle brush and water pushed through, such that you just press the portafilter onto it, and it’s flushed.. then wipe with a cloth and done.

At the very least, I’d hope to see a cloth used to just wipe out most of the fragments. To the point LMSC raised, it may not make much difference, but I certainly wouldn’t leave any traces of a previous shot when pulling one at home… so why would I expect a coffee shop to use a messy portafilter ?

LMSC

The only reason I wipe it off with a tissue is to the prevent the basket holes blocked by fines. I do check if the holes are ok.

JHCCoffee

I went to a local coffee shop one day and ordered a cappuccino. Now I like a traditional cappuccino that is ⅓ espresso, ⅓ steamed milk and ⅓ thick foam. I also prefer a more ristretto shot within my cappuccino.

The supposed cappuccino’s that most caffe’s serve is actually a latte. And their shots are typically normale or longo.

I asked for a ristretto shot and got the what’s that look. So I said just stop the shot after less time. I then ordered a small cup, to keep the milk ratio down. And asked for thick foam.

But their “small” cup is too large to produce a cappuccino with the right ratios. And most barista do not know how to produce thick micro foam, as they are trained to produce nice latte art which requires latte foam (not cappuccino foam). Personally I do not give a hoot about latte art; I just want the drink to taste good.

So what I ended up with was a drink with a still weak (watery) shot massively diluted with way too much milk and latte foam. Ordering a second shot did not help the drink, as shot two was also weak.

Cafes that make true cappuccino with tasty espresso are very rare. Sigh…

DavecUK

JHCCoffee Cafes that make true cappuccino with tasty espresso are very rare. Sigh…

When I go to Italy, travelling into the ACS factory in the morning (we always stop at a particular garage for coffee) I like a double espresso with about 80 ml of milk so there is some flavour. It took a while but a garage on the way in Naples has a barista who remembers just how I like it. Unusually the Italians like a tasteless single shot lots of milk coffee as a latte etc..

MediumRoastSteam

DavecUK

Not sure which coffee shops you are referring to, but the ones I went to last (couple of weeks ago) I got some pretty good coffee (single shot espresso, as that’s the usual, a “normale”) and also had good cappuccino not drowning in milk - quite the opposite actually.

I suppose if you order a cafe latte, you will get what you just described. 😉. If you order a latte… well… you’ll get just milk. 😉

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam Not sure which coffee shops you are referring to, but the ones I went to last (couple of weeks ago) I got some pretty good coffee (single shot espresso, as that’s the usual, a “normale”) and also had good cappuccino not drowning in milk - quite the opposite actually.

In Naples there are an awful lot of good coffee places in garages, these are very popular in the mornings.

Dusk

I find there’s very little consistency between coffee shops except the big chains where the latte’s always have so much milk you can barely taste the coffee.

MediumRoastSteam

Yeah - That was my point replying to Dave’s comment really. Looks like that, even in Italy it seems, there are inconsistencies between coffee shops and what you get.

whinmoor85

DavecUK I stopped off at a garage in Crete last summer and they were serving coffee from a lever machine

DavecUK

whinmoor85 I stopped off at a garage in Crete last summer and they were serving coffee from a lever machine

Many of the garages and almost all coffee bars in Naples use lever machines….it’s a pretty excellent experience..