The Double Iced Espresso
I am a coffee snob.
Not in the sense that I have to have only single origin beans from Ritual. And certainly not in the sense that I care all that much about whether you use a La Marzocco or a Clover to push some form of water through my beans. But in the sense that I will “yea” or “nay” a breakfast spot depending on their coffee and will drive long lengths for just-roasted and well roasted beans. In the sense that I know which cafes serve whose espresso. And which lines have better quality versions of their popular roasts.
I moved to Portland, Oregon in the mid-nineties and was exposed firsthand to the burgeoning coffee culture that Seattle now largely gets the credit for. This was before Starbucks had crushed the very heart of what coffeeshops were all about: being epicenters of modern thought and political progress. Ordering of a latte typically still included a preference for “wet” or “dry”, and asking for a single or double (or quad) dictated the size of the beverage, doing away with this small, medium and large nonsense we have today. Asking for a “short pull” was not met with a quizzical expression, but with joy and camaraderie.
I have been infatuated with coffee since age fourteen (oh Yuban, you done me wrong). I have likely kept several farming communities in business with my addiction. Little Buddha, my three year old daughter, has been able to make a single drip cup of coffee from whole beans since she first walked (obviously mommy doing the hot water part).
In my travels, with all the methods of brewing and various skill levels found from San Francisco’s now infamous Bluebottle to the It’s a Grind chain in some podunk suburban strip mall, I find it consistently safe to order a double americano with room for cream. You know, this way, that the grounds haven’t been sitting in water for twenty minutes, extracting every last shade of bitterness into your cup, and you know it hasn’t been sitting on a heater, burning the oils into that lovely post-coffee paste on your tongue. It’s freshly made espresso, with hot water. If the shot is made too long (watery), you won’t notice as you’re adding extra water anyway. You are also circumventing the possibility of their making the shot too short (small) and adding too much water because you’re asking for lots of room. Basically, they can’t mess it up.
This really works most of the time, even in the middle of nowhere (well, as long as they’ve heard of espresso). And when it’s hot, you just order the whole thing over ice as a double iced espresso as the epsresso melts the ice into a perfect iced coffee balance.
There is a little proprietor owned and operated cafe in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, CA that I stopped by long ago on a Southwest road trip. Adhering to the cardinal rule, and as it was 104 degrees outside and my flip flops were melting to the pavement, I ordered the double iced espresso. The owner froze, wide eyed. The put her hand over her mouth and gasped, then her glance darted self-consciously at her espresso machine, as though it might inform her if it were capable of delivering such a thing.
“Well I don’t know if I can… um.. we don’t have.. Wait, what did you ask for?”
“A double iced espresso. You know, like a double espresso, but just poured over ice”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, visibly relieved and relaxed her shoulders. “I thought you said double riced espresso”, she explained earnestly, “and I thought to myself that I haven’t heard of that one yet. I thought maybe that was some new thing from the city and I was thinking that we don’t even have any rice!”
Chuckle still.