Tucked away on the corner of two busy shopping streets, this franchise of Bagels & Beans is proud to have won the infamous test of a Dutch national newspaper on cappuccino back in 2008. Back then, this reflected upon all other franchises of Bagels & Beans as well, but as I’ve experienced later on, quality control sometimes failed to keep such high standards for all outlets.
Passing by and looking for lunch, we decided to go in for a bagel and coffee. Inside, there’s hardly any room. The cornerhouse is small, and the bar takes up over half of the store, even though it’s one of the smallest bars I’ve seen at any Bagels & Beans outlet. Spread over every inch of available floor space, there’s perhaps seating for some 20 people. The obvious result of this is waiters being hardly able to reach our table, and after the first waiter told us a colleague would be with us shortly on a haughty tone, the second got our order wrong. Ordering a large espresso machiatto, I received a single latte machiatto. Not feeling like a cup of hot milk, I kindly asked her to take it back and bring me an espresso machiatto instead, as I ordered, she reluctantly took it back, never apologizing for their error.
Instead of quickly remaking the order, so I could enjoy my coffee together with my tablemates, it was just added to the back of the queue, and as I’ve nearly finished my bagel, my remade drink was finally served. Admittedly, it wasn’t bad. A little sour, and the foam was scooped on, where I’d prefer it to carefully poured to avoid creating a solid layer of foam on top of an espresso.
All in all, this is probably one of the best places the city has to offer in terms of coffee, but I’d suggest taking your coffee out, instead of finding a seat inside, for you will at least be able to drink and enjoy your coffee without the haughty staff looking at you disdainfully.
Coffee Bru is one of the latest additions to the Amsterdam coffee scene. Located in the eastern borough ‘Oost’, it’s not located near any of the other high-level coffee places, allowing a whole new group of people to enjoy speciality coffee. Coffee Bru has been well-designed, which is visible through the decoration. The mosaic on the bar must have taken a while to finish and is custom-made to fit the La Marzocco as well as 2 Anfim grinders and a brew bar. Colorful and artsy throughout, Coffee Bru is a great addition to bring liveliness to the area.
The customers are for the most part locals, as this part of Amsterdam is largely unknown to tourists. Although the child-friendly back of the store will appeal to the mothers in the area, the free wifi will appeal to the working man or students. The espresso I had tasted great. With a winey sour, this is a far cry from Italian style espresso – and gladly so. On the slow coffee-side of things, some improvement can be made, but it’s nearly impossible to have all your filters taste great if you’re working with several baristas, multiple brewing methods and two or three different beans at any given time. While the first Chemex was too bitter, the Sidamo on V60 was great. If they keep working on their skills, this place will be great for both espresso and filter, and is a clear gain for the neighbourhood.
Although I have been drinking lots of coffees over the past months, no new ratings have been posted to my blog. The reason for this is simply that I have been neglecting my blog for a long time, but it’s time to step up now. And the place I’d wish to start with, is the Village in Utrecht. Right around the corner from where I live, this place has opened up last February. Right on the first days I stopped by for a coffee, but struggled to formulate an opinion back then. On the one hand, I have always loved the relaxedness about the place, yet I didn’t think their espressos were any good – back then.
I am slowly developing a theory, where all outlets of Bagels & Beans within Amsterdam’s city limits provide a rather different quality in contrast to shops elsewhere. Although it’s been high-ranking in various tests with some branches, I get served a really, really bitter, over-extracted espresso machiatto with too much milk (which, in this case, helped partly mask the terrible flavours) and foam of the kind which resembles the surface of the moon. Luckily, the lack of wifi, as opposed to free wifi in other stores, toilets for which you have to pay, as opposed to other stores offering free toilets and unfriendly staff are all in line with the ‘quality’ of coffee. Just stick with the books of Selexyz.
After a walk through an uninspiring shopping street in this cold and gray city of Drachten, I arrived at the quite picturesque building housing ‘t Smelnehûs and was pleasantly surprised. Seeing the beautiful Kees van der Westen espresso machine standing in the corner raised my hopes even further.
However, after I ordered my espresso macchiato, it became clear the KdW machine was only there for showing purposes. The actual coffee was made on another machine and, although it looked great with nearly perfect foam, the taste wasn’t nearly as good. An obnoxious sour penetrated the sweet taste of the milk. The espresso I ordered next gave me a better taste, and the espresso seemed to have a strong taste of metal. Not at all pleasant: what a shame. Not at all a reason to travel to this town, which doesn’t seem to offer much other reasons to go there, either.
On my second visit to Cubico, my thoughts of the first time are pretty much confirmed. The small cappuccino has more spice to it than the large one, although it seems the beans itself are rather mild, too. That’s not to my taste, but still okay, especially for those who like it mild. Just be sure to order a small, without the added milk. And at eight in the morning, the children weren’t there yet, either. The owner of the store seems to be a kind and engaging person, making some small-talk on the weather.
This bar, seemingly belonging to the adjacent hotel, with Segrafredo-beans had a good rating somewhere in the back of my mind, but this time the milk was steamed too hot and thus tasted flat. Judging from the responses from the staff present, they both weren’t properly trained to operate the espresso machine, which also might be an explanation for my better experience last time, as a more experienced person might have been operating the machine back then. This time, even a super-automatic espresso machine would have been better.