Charismatic Caffeine
I have to count myself awfully amused by this article about a supposedly home-use espresso machine that’s going to retail for $7,500:
The La Marzocco GS/3 finally hit the market late last year, and it’s everything they expected except for the price. After telling customers for more than two years that the machine would cost $4,500, U.S. distributor Franke catapulted the price to $7,500.
Franke Coffee Systems North America, based in Seattle, figures 70 to 80 percent of the 247 people on its waiting list will walk.
As I believe I’ve imparted on these pages before, we moved to Seattle before the Starbuck’s-fueled coffee craze was even a glimmer in Juan Valdez’ eye. At that time, there were two, maybe three, places that served a reliable, righteous cup of espresso, and we were intimately familiar with their locations and hours. Starbuck’s actually existed at that time, as a coffee bean retailer in the Pike Place Market, but they only sold beans and coffeenalia.
I’ve been interested in good coffee since I was in college, and one of my first domestic purchases was a good drip maker. There wasn’t much in the way of quality beans available in suburban Ohio at that time, however, but I happened on this dark drip grind from Medaglia D’Oro. I believe I inherited this predilection from my grandparents, who may or may not have remembered what food they ate at a particular restaurant, but recalled with crystal clarity whether the coffee was any good. And held grudges.
After we arrived in Seattle and were able to purchase decent beans, we owned a series of stove-top espresso makers, of which this:
is the only survivor. It’s still in a cupboard above the stove. This may, in fact, be the machine that got vapor-locked one day in the early 80s and launched itself, Challenger-like, over the stove and put a dent in the wall while spewing its inky payload all over the kitchen. I think the dent’s still there. Subliminally, at least, we had been looking for an excuse, and this incident gave us license to move on to a real steam-vapor Gaggia electric. A little later, I added a burr grinder to the suite.
That machine was a work-horse, and we used it until the late 90s when, I think, it actually rusted out like a Pinto that’s been driven too long on corn belt winter highways. There must be a lot of us in Seattle who have home espresso makers, because there’s a dandy little shop on Phinney called Home Espresso Repair that apparently gets sufficient business to have lasted for at least 15 years. When they could not find parts to repair the Gaggia, we bought our current machine from Starbuck’s for somewhere under $300. It reliably provides the 6 - 8 pulls we require of it each day.
It would take a skilled salesperson with a very nice figure to convince me that I could taste the difference between the coffee I make with my machine and the precious excrescences of a $7,500 surrogate. Especially when there’s not an appliance in the kitchen that I’ve paid more than $400 for - the stove and the fridge were both purchased in the 70s, the dishwasher around 1981 when we did our remodel.
You lived a good life as a student. I was brutalized. You lived a life that brought to you knowledge and allowed you to expand that knowledge. My first true relationship with coffee was a machine on the ground floor of the University of Texas at Austin Tower, the place where Charles Whitman decided to kill people for sport a few years earlier. This miserable little machine dispensed dark cups of horror that, at the time, didn’t seem so bad. The more I drank, the more I liked it. Later, as I tasted real coffee, I learned I loved dark, strong, angry coffee, the stuff that erupts from careful conversations with people who like the hard stuff like I do. I can’t even imagine how $7500 machines could make coffee better than the razor-sharp cups I enjoyed as a student.
wait, you mean, you mean…..that price is not exactly proportional to quality?
i highly recommend roasting your own beans. a cast iron fry pan works quite well, tho my own fave is a wire screen popcorn popper over a gas stove. it may take a bit of sweet talk to get a supplier to sell you green beans, but the aroma in your own kitchen is worth the effort.
I’m not much of a coffee fan. There was a time when I did drink the stuff regularly, and Roger and I had an espresso maker. I never liked the burnt taste of espresso. Now, when I go out to a restaurant, it seems to me that whenever I order an after-dinner decaf, it’s always a cup of dark burnt french roast crap. Why is that, I wonder? I start my day with a pot of very deeply steeped English Breakfast tea. It’s got enough caffeine to keep me going all day.
Pity there’s no video of the flying espresso pot. The description cracked me up.
Thanks for reminding me about the place on Phinney. I have a 30 YO Pavoni sitting in the garage (one of those cool-looking copper and brass numbers) that I keep meaning to bring in to see if it’s worth repairing. It always made shit coffee but that had more to do with our grinding the beans in a whirly-blade mill, I think, than any actual fault of the Pavoni.
I grew up drinking what we called “Lutheran church basement” coffee. You could read the fine print on an insurance policy through a cup of it. My first taste of espresso, at Cafe Trieste in SF was a revelation. Never did acquire a taste for lattes, although a dry cappuccino is a nice change once in awhile from the dark roast drip coffee I still prefer.
John - you’re a few ticks younger than I am - the only really good coffee I had in college was turkish coffee at a Lebanese restaurant in Pittsburgh. If you need to find it, it’s right next to Forbes Field.
Roger - I’m just not confident that I can do a better job producing a consistent roast with my popcorn popper than someone who’s spent his life developing the skill and his money on good equipment. The freshness factor is appealing, however.
Robin - I think they (the restaurants) have to match the Starbuck’s taste - that’s the market. I prefer a rich Italian roast.
Kathy - In order to publish that video, I’d have to admit to Mrs. Perils that I’ve been secretly videotaping the kitchen for 35 years.
Molly - great description (the Lutheran church basement coffee). At one of the first places I worked, a partner called me out for dumping part of an aged pot in order to make a fresh one. He lectured me about how, when he was in college, they used to re-use percolator grounds until all the flavor was out of them. I should have known then that I was in the wrong business.
Phil,
Regrettably, the heretical statements made in this post necessarily call your status as a Seattleite into question. They leave me with little choice but to bring this to the attention of Howard Schultz and Gordon Bowker. They will convene a meeting of the Elders to judge whether ritual shunning is enacted. I fear for you, brother.
Oh, and that silver thing looks like something stolen off the set of a silent movie, or maybe from a Berlin patchouli lair. If you hide it, you’ll at least give yourself a fighting chance.
I bought my first hand grinder for coffee beans at the original Starbuck’s in Seattle. Before Starbuck’s were on every street corner, I would drive from North Seattle to U Village to buy fresh beans. It seems so weird now. I have my special coffee bean glass storage container next to my Kitchenaid grinder. After I grind my beans now purchased at Costco, they go into my large French press. And I then drink it all day long.