Chasing the Dragon

When you think you know everything, its unnerving when you find out you don't. I think when the young man corrected you on how best to drink their coffee, you took it the wrong way. Don't trash a business you know virtually nothing about, and have visited once. Lame.

Macchiato to go?! Why would you waste the paper to take something to go when it takes but a moment to consume? The barista was right, although I do not condone poor manners.

"Does anyone need the nuance of grapefruit, raspberries, hibiscus, melon, huckleberry, strawberry lip gloss and gingerbread in their coffee? Is this part of the new definition for good coffee? And was the old one that bad?"
That is called flavor, something over-roasted coffees from yesterday and today lack, to the extent that when confronted with the flavor of good light-roasted coffee, consumers often cry "bitter" or "burned citrus peel".

A better way would be to invite you to enjoy your macchiato in a ceramic cup and then to explain why. Education is far more effective gently administered than the hectoring you received. Great coffee is an enjoyment best not bittered by snide servers.

You know nothing of 3rd wave coffee.

I would like to invite Lora to move back to New York. Thanks for the totally uninformed article, lacking positivity , about the budding of a new part of our food culture. saying things taste like coffee is so incredibly silly, coffee tastes like so many things. the way we taste coffee should be changed. and yes, having a macchiato in a paper cup is not cool.

Thank you Lora for setting the record straight and writing about your coffee experience and reporting on the bean roasting controversy!

I too share your sentiments about Intelligentsia. I have had two back to back bad experiences there - oh...make that three to include the bag of coffee beans I purchased and had to throw out because they were too acidic and undrinkable. The customer service there is as acidic as the coffee...the attitude I received while trying to find out more about the process, etc. was met with a "I don't really have time to answer your question" attitude. Coffee there does not come cheap - I always try to support local roasters whenever I can, I eschew the chain coffee shops at all costs but when I'm paying a high premium for coffee, I don't want it to be chased with attitude on the side.

I appreciate your well researched and intelligent article - you are the real INTELLIGENTSIA here!

The title sounded kind of negative, but the article was anything but. I agree that sometimes you get a bad cup of coffee from these places, but in general, you come out with something wonderful and I am sold. Outbreaks of attitude also seem to be diminishing to me, which is very welcome. Also, you didn't mention one of my faves, Flying Goat Coffee in Healdsburg.

All of you who are defending Intelligentsia are pretentious, easily manipulated bovine consumers willing to pay out the nose for overpriced mediocrity. My favorite coffee? McDonalds. NY Times did a blind taste test and guess which coffee won? McDonalds. This article is spot on.

Great coffee is a personal experience; Coffee houses are personal spaces adopted for awile. The best cup is a time and place with good beans and a nice brew. As such, I'll take the coffee I brew on the hood of my car while camping over any cup from any coffeehouse on the planet. Though I agree drinking coffee out of paper, or metal or plastic, will never yield a great cup, if a barista "needs" to tell you how to enjoy it and what you should be tasting, they have entirely missed the point of coffee; They need a corkscrew instead.

Intelligentsia can be quite full of themselves. I know from experience selling micro-brewed beverages and being turned down by them because my product did not meet their "uniqueness" quotient. No sour grapes here, just a good laugh at the extreme self importance exuded by their "brand".

They belong in Silverlake, most anywhere else and they'd be shuttered within a year.

Yes, Donald. McDonald's won a taste test... against Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, and Burger King. NOT against Intelligentsia.

I somewhat agree with the author, but perhaps she should have just specified they KIND of coffee she seeks (IHOP?), and just emphasize “to each his own”.
However, on much broader terms: I feel that there is a ridiculous culture (typical in the USA and UK) of “making something out of nothing". Yes, information, education, quality and variety are all good, but every food & restaurant trend is now planned, exploited, sensationalized and marketed beyond belief to sell a contrived image and an experience. This is reflected in the laughably ephemeral trendy restaurants (hot one day, closed the next) and in journalists' insistence on employing italicized foreign words and prose-like descriptions. I grew up in SoCal, live in Spain, and can assure you: whether coffee, wine, tapas, this year’s “hottest” esoteric citrus fruit, etc. the way Americans perceive, sell and buy food products & culture has become increasingly surreal and gimmicky. The jargon, pretention, attitude, obsessiveness, etc. are all products of a culture based on individualism (i.e. "look what I know") and consumerism, rather than on simple, quality food as a social component of human life to be enjoyed in harmony with other people and the Earth. The USA lacks a common- sense, cultured middle ground between the pretentious hipster assholes in SF, LA or NYC and the ignorance & bad habits of “typical suburban America” (fast food, junk food, closed off to new things).

If you've only eaten American Cheese you might think Brie was also pretty awful.

Saying that McD coffee won a taste test is like saying Budweiser won a taste test. Think about where you are and what you're used to and what you compare against.

To use the beer analogy, Bud would probably win in America where the only beers known to most drinkers are Pilsener style lagers. Of course in the UK or anywhere else it would be considered yellow water with gas in it.

In the same way, if you're used to the typical American percolator brewed, weak robusta based Folger's or something, of course a freshly roasted arabica based coffee is going to taste acidic and bright.

Sandy - I've been to intelligentsia. The coffee, after the long wait and the complicated machinations, was a disappointment. I've had coffee from a hundred different gourmet coffee shops and I will take McDonald's coffee any day. Although I appreciate fine food, I think expensive wine and coffee is a racket.

I totally agree with you Lora. I'm an avid coffee drinker and I've drank coffees all over the world. I too have gone into Intelligentsia a few times and found their coffee to be unpleasant. Not what a good cup of Joe should taste like. So to answer your question, when did coffee stop tasting like coffee? It still does but not at Intelligentsia.

I love food and I agree that coffee has a number of unique properties, but these micro-boutiques are ridiculous. Coffee should taste like coffee and why are we making it more than what it is…a tasty hot beverage. Maybe the macchiato from Intelligentsia would have tasted better in a paper cup. I would have laughed in their face and said give me a double in a double lined paper cup.

The type of person who waits for 20 minutes in line @ Intelligencia is the same type of person who isn't using a computer unless it has an apple on the back of it, which, by the way, is the only laptop allowed in front of this snob center. These are all kids who are desperately trying to be cool. We should leave them alone I guess and thank God that McDonald's coffee is so reasonable.

Wow, so much heat on this subject!
I must agree with the author about the absolute bitterness in an Intelligentsia espresso (anyone know that shudder that happens when you down a shot of cheap tequila?). A good espresso should not need sugar, be rich in aroma, posses a full, heady crema and above all not bitter.
It is wonderful to have so many small and local roasters, something to be enjoyed and not enshrined.

As a Chicago resident, I have seen Intelligentsia make effort after effort to alienate every customer they can- eliminating products, sizes, add-ins, etc until their "purity" has become an inside joke among actual paying customers.
Along the way, the core has left- both staff and customers- leaving them with trendspotting foodie hipsters- who will gladly flee when Stumptown or someone decides to swoop in.

Good luck to them.

It is ironic the author puts blue bottle at the top of her list. Their product descriptors are by far and away the most awful hyperbole and verbal diarrhea of anyone in the business. Talking loud and saying nothing!

I drink a lot of coffees from many roasters and Intelligentsia's is quite good. If you like a dark profile it will not appeal to you. That does not make you or them wrong. It makes you incompatible with their style. They sell 4 million pounds a year so a few people must enjoy it.

I think you're hitting on an issue of the "Starbucksified" consumer here. Because of Starbucks -- large, corporate coffee -- people expect the barista to bow to their every will (extra whip cream, foamy, nonfat, etc.), the "customer is always right" philosophy. In the realm of quality coffee, I think there's a mutual respect that needs to take place between the customer and the barista -- or artist -- for it to work smoothly. It's not all about money in this realm, it's about the respect and appreciation of the craft. If that respect is achieved, you have no problems. This can be abused in either direction, but ANY quality coffee place you go to will not give you a macchiato to go -- even Blue Bottle! -- so I suspect the barista's "icy tone" was probably just a normal tone and you were playing the offended, paying customer role. I see complaints on Yelp about this exact "macchiato to go" scenario at places around Portland all the time. If you don't appreciate high end coffee, or simply don't get it in a paper cup that is wasteful anyway, you don't need to bash an entire respectable organization over this single experience of yours.

I agree that coffee bars like Intellegentsia is pretentious. I live close to the one on Abbot Kinney. I still go there occasionally just to gawk at the "scene." The coffee is inconsistent and is not all that. Can't stand those fruity descriptions of the coffee either. Neither a European coffee bar nor a chic Japanese one, but feels more like a 'Hollywood" sports arena where gettin your cuppa joe is a performing art.
I've tasted both Stumptown coffee and Blue bottle co., and they definitely have more soul and taste more satisfying.
Intellegentsia and other coffee bars of suck ilk seems overproduced.

Stumptown is far superior... the city as well as the coffee.

Stumptown is superior... the city as well as the coffee.

Gee,

I am from Europe, Belgium to be precise and the whole issue with Starbucks "french roasted" coffee and the myriad of followers is that everytime I drink a "french roast" cup , acidity invades my body. Do american people know why french coffee is jet black??? Not because they burn beans like starbucks but because they add CHICORY!!! Go and get a box from Trader joe's "New Orleans" and you will see how black it is, ....and yes NO acidity!

When living in Japan~ I experience the best coffee shops in the world.
You may think can Japanese produce a great cup of coffee? Not only was the coffee excellent but the coffee shop atmosphere as well.
If I wanted to sip coffee and listen to classical music, I went to a classical music coffee shop surrounded by antiques, or Rock n Roll I would listen to the stones sipping a slow roasted cup of excellent coffee.

All coffee shops have a coffee menu and with different prices on selections.

Small batches of coffee beans and slow roasting is a great secret for great tasting coffee.
Japan has thousand of coffee shops and most do it right with a friendly politeness.

The photo accompanying this article shows a coffee syphon. But I didn't see it mentioned in the article. I have used Hario and other coffee syphons for over 15 years they make great coffee. They even make mediocre coffees taste better.

Just plain nuts how self-absorbed people are.

Crawfish allergic to boiling water? lol. They really are and they have to so I can enjoy eating them.

If coffee places decide to charge a lot and decide in what and what not you should drink in, then they better deliver! Loyal customers can keep telling themselves that its great when its really not, but in the end they'll stop going. Coffee still tastes like coffee in some places, but if it doesn't then you let the company know by not buying. Also the preference of coffee among defers just like the preference with anything else, so no need to get so worked up on it for those of you who do not agree with the author.

Although this might sound kind of odd, there is nothing wrong with a barista being rude. Ignorant customers need to be out in their place, and if rude comments are the only way to get the point across, then so be it.

YES YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING! as a journalist, it is your responsibility to fact check. this is basically a pissed off post about someone you had ONE experience with. a glorified yelp review. its pretty disgusting.

i cant believe this article was even allowed to be posted. can you actually define what coffee is supposed to taste like for me? other than "dark", "strong", "bold", what do those mean? coffee is a fruit. it should taste like fruit. if you don't like that, you are free to drink dunkin doughnuts.

not to mention, you're using the terms varietals and single origins incorrectly. if you're going to compare them to wines of one grape then realize that some single origins are made up of different varietals. you're now giving other uneducated, uninformed people incorrect information that you have deemed as fact.

this is why media sucks.

and as for the lady who had to throw out beans because they were too acidic and undrinkable, PERSONAL PREFERENCE. acidity is not bad. bright coffees are not bad. if they are brewed correctly. if you bothered to get information on proper brewing, you may have enjoyed it. or maybe not. bright coffees are not for everyone and its ridiculous that you would make judgment based on one pound of coffee.

p.s. that siphon, it is being brewed incorrectly. you don't put the coffee in until the water has reached the right temperature in the top chamber.

so much of America is caught up in the caramel latte faze, you might as well ask for a cup of 'why bother' with two sugars. Supposed Baristas in that case are off track, they use an automated machine, they don't know about the rules in making coffee, just flick that switch and open the flood gates. Most of the espresso you get is probably over extracted, but due to the amount of milk and flavouring you can't tell the difference. That is why when you come along and ask for your macchiato it tastes like you just licked the filters from the expensive yet idiot proof machine. The so called barista doesn't know how to judge the quality of the poor therefore can't tell weather its tainted. A good tip for serious coffee lovers, is to check the machine they use, if you notice they have to flick a switch or press a button to stop the machine, then that person probably knows whats up. even if the barista is well trained humidity and temperature change the way the espresso is extracted if there is a change in either one of the two the barista will have to adjust the timing on the automated machine, and i bet not many of them know how. Enjoy

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