Mr. Espresso? Damn straight.

I'm in Oakland helping my brothers scout locations and potential roasters for their future East Bay coffee bar. We were on our way to the Blue Bottle Coffee kiosk on Linden St. today when after a quick phone call to the roastery we learned that it's on Linden St. in San Francisco, not Oakland.

Disappointed, we turned to go back home.

Little did we know that our unfortunate detour would lead us to a hidden treasure.

Right in front of me I saw a big warehouse with "MR. ESPRESSO" spelled out on it....

"Mr. Espresso?" I thought to myself apprehensively... "C'mooooon!"

Inside, a worker was closing the gate and peering in, I spied an enormous amount of green beans and a gargantuan set of roasters.

I immediately pulled over and my Brother Jim and I went inside to see what the hell was going on here.

I was highly skeptical of any company with a name that seemed on the surface to knock-off "Mr. Coffee", but there was something about this place compelling enough to warrant further research.

Once inside we were spotted by the owners, Carlo and his wife Marie-Francoise.

Carlo, the boss, we would soon find out, isn't really joking around with the Mr. Espresso moniker.

Carlo, hereby referred to as "Mr. Espresso" led us to a large, modern showroom with a number of Faema, Rancilio, ECM espresso machines and his own line of customized machines based on these manufacturers designs.

Like myself and my friend Ken Nye, Senor Espresso also shares a love for the Faema E-61 espresso machine and he had a few gorgeous vintage, original E-61's that he's restored to lustery glory... like this one...




Mr. Espresso, or "Espresso-San", as he is known in Japan is from Salerno Italy, in the Northern part of Southern Italy, or perhaps the Southern part of Northern Italy, one or the other, and his espresso roast reflects that in it's slightly dark nature.

Armed without a proper tamper, Mr. Espresso pulled us a couple of shots one at a time from a single-dose portafilter on his Faema Diplomat...

Already, Mr. E had broken three of my preconceived rules of how espresso should be prepared (roast, tamp and filter basket) and I thought the shots would for sure be bitter and nasty...

They weren't.

In fact they were pretty damn tasty and hit the spot after our Blue Bottle fiasco!

Like his Italian brethren, I suspect he adds a dose of robusta to his blend, but over all, I found the shot to have a good acidity with a medium body, a mild, woody character of the robusta, a little chocolate and a long, yet sweet finish that wasn't unpleasant... Crema was not an issue.

Mr. Espresso gave Jim and I a long tour of his unique roasting facility and we chatted about various topics from world politics to heat exchangers... Monsieur Espresso, to his own admission, loves to talk.

Long story short: everything in the place is Italian designed and machined. He designed the facility largely by himself and the roasters are powered by burning oak logs, reclaimed from forest fires, instead of gas: an art he learned as the boy apprentice of an Italian roastmaster in the 1950's.

Yes, that's right, it's a coffee BBQ up in this joint.

I wouldn't say that Mr. Espresso is at the fore-front of the Third Wave of Coffee exactly, quite the opposite in fact, he's the definition of "Old School". He's been roasting espresso's and selling Faema's and Rancillio's since 1978. That's well before Peet's made the leap to espresso after the Starbucks buyout/sellout.*

An E-61 in human form, Mr. Espresso has a passion and knowledge of espresso that was WAY ahead of his time in our fair country.

He even has an Organic and Fair Trade line.

A couple of shots later, we eventually made it out of there.

I went out for Dinner tonight with my friend Aileen from NYC who has since moved to Oakland.

She took me to an Amazing Tapas restaurant called Cesar in Berkeley's so-called "Gourmet Ghetto" (lot's of Gourmet, zero ghetto, the original Peet's is just around the corner).

Great Tapas with an unforgettable orangey, caramel-creamy bread pudding dessert dish that defies adequate description.

After our meal we wanted a coffee but were less than excited about ruining an otherwise excellent dining experience with bad restaurant coffee.

Biting the bullet, we ordered an americano to share but they served us two by accident. It was a good thing too because they were served promptly to us in that classic brown Italian porcelain that we love so much with a good crema clinging to the top.

It was dark for my taste, but good... and familiar.

I asked the bartender.

"Hey, what kinda coffee do you guys use?"

The answer, of course was a spirited

"Oh, that's Mr. Espresso."


For more fun facts on Mr. Espresso, check this out...

Logo

and for serious info, click on the link on the top right.


*the original founders of Starbucks bought Peet's and sold their SBUX shares to Howard Shultz. They were against the espresso bar concept.