“Best in town” is what’s they are screaming from the building’s front. Sure enough, that seems like a good reason to go in and test the truth behind such a claim. And in fact, the foam was rather good and nearly creamy. However, that’s just about the only thing they’re good at. In an attempt to show their skills, they poured way too much of the nice foam and milk over the single espresso, leaving me to look for it. On top of that, they put a whole lot of cacao over the drink. If you’ll be ordering your coffee here, be sure to teach them a lesson by asking for less milk and no cacao. You might get something decent.
With the Haagen-Dasz shops, there are always two sides of the story. First, they are all part of the same, large, international chain of Haagen-Dasz shops, which always leads to less motivated staff, just working to get paid. On the other side, they are using a high-quality bean which tends to be rather forgiving of mistakes. Sadly, it was the bean itself which had to keep the barista from failing hard. Although it was a drinkable beverage, it wasn’t even close to an excellent cup. Huge bubbles in the milk foam made for a bad first impression, and the milk covered up most of the coffee’s taste. Lacking better shops (that I knew of), you might get your caffeine shot here. Nonetheless, I would advise to keep an eye open for something better.
Walking back from Barista to the city centre, I stumbled upon this, luring me in with the tagline “Kaffeekultur” on the building. Obviously having visited Starbucks for inspiration, they did manage to produce a decent cappuccino. Nothing special and too mild for my own personal taste, but still okay anyway. Having said that, the quality of baristas does tend to vary broadly at shops like this, so I might’ve just been lucky.
Bagels & Beans has been around in the Netherlands for quite a few years, and successfully so, with a lot of branches throughout the country and occasionally winning the ‘coffee test’ of Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. Recently I found out they also opened up a branch across the border, in the German city of Aachen. As I frequently visit the city due to its location just across the border and magnificent city centre, it was only a matter of time before I’d end up trying the first German Bagels & Beans.
On this warm and sunny spring day, the time was right to give it a go, and I ventured down south. After a stroll through the city’s sunny streets, I ended up on the street-side terrace. Although, as said, the weather was nice, two things bothered me about the terrace: for one it’s right next to a busy intersection and secondly the terrace was underneath a sun screen, which kept away the sun. I had no problem connecting to their wireless network, however. Even outside, connectivity was brilliant.
The cappuccino was good enough, although latte art-capable microfoam was lacking, resulting in separation of liquids and foam, thus making it hard to enjoy both, without using a spoon. Other than that, it tasted good, though, which to me still is priority number one. The espresso was good, although the crema a bit thin and it could have used a fuller body. A glass of water was provided right away and all in all Bagels & Beans made for a pleasurable experience.
Visiting a city for the first time means there are plenty of espresso bars to choose from. I decided to go for Imagio today, which smartly combines an Italian sounding name with the English word ‘image’ to hint at its hip and modern design: this is a place you can be seen without damaging your carefully constructed image! On the outside of the store, stylized and clear images tell passer-by’s what they can expect: coffee, sweets, lunch, 20 seats on the upper floor and wifi, although the latter isn’t met: both my phone and my Mac manage to connect to the network, but then fail to connect to the internet. If you’d get it working, there will be plenty of sockets to power your laptop on the ground floor, whereas upstairs there is just one table with a power socket.
But, most importantly, the coffee at this place is actually good! The double cappuccino tasted quite good, although it seemed the barista had rushed frothing the milk, resulting in a somewhat bubbly, solid foam sitting on top of the cappuccino. Other than that, it tasted good, so I went for an espresso. As I could still nearly taste the sour beverage I had at Inspire just hours before, I was hoping for something good. And I did, in fact, get the best espresso I’ve had in a few weeks. With a rich, oily texture, I let the espresso rest on my tongue for a little while to enjoy it to the fullest. It seems to me the Pinai coffee Imagio uses doesn’t excel in complexity of flavors, but I really do not feel the barista could have gotten much more out of these beans. Having tasted the espresso, I really wonder why there were so few people here, as opposed to Inspire as the two stores are just a few minutes apart by foot and Imagio is clearly, without doubt and by far the better of the two.
Although I’ve somewhere read this place would be overlooking the Main Square (Grote Markt) of Breda, in fact it’s a few steps into a side-street. Inside, you’ll find a nice array of different kind of charis, couches and tables, thus creating a rather homely feeling. It seems to me like this is one of the meeting points of the youth of Breda, with students and other youth chatting each other up, playing board games or working on their laptops, thanks to the free wifi that’s available. I have however had some issues connecting at first, which is probably due to a network optimized for Windows, rather than Mac OS. Through their other network -there are two available- connecting worked, but the browsing experience was terribly slow, until a number of people left.
On the coffee side of things, I can’t be much more positive than I have been on the internet. It’s there – but it’s just not good. The cappuccino -which had a double shot with a regular volume of milk- was only as good as a ‘regular’ cappuccino, with the espresso flavors struggling to get through the milk. I ended up with a bitter taste of milk and a hint of chocolate. After that, I decided to order an espresso, but sadly, this only made matters worse. It’s been quite a while since I have last ‘enjoyed’ an espresso as sour as this. The good flavors of espresso were lacking, and all that remained was a few sips of a drink nearly as sour as vinegar. Although I hope this was just a bad shot of the barista, I cannot recommend this place from a coffee point of view.
Just about halfway on our trip from Utrecht to Delft, we stopped by at Greenbean, as it was closed when I had passed by two days earlier. Open only during business hours, together with its location between offices and ministries, it’s clearly aiming at businessmen. But, rather than the Starbucks clones which just sell a “sophisticated feeling” to ignorant people willing to pay too much for their flavoured syrups with a hint of coffee, this place is actually delivering quality for good value. The espresso machiatto was flawless, though somehow still not excellent. The ristretto (my first ever) a bit sour, but with a more intense taste than an espresso.