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.