Vancouver coffee scene

admin

arrived yesterday after way too long in plane & airports - coffee here aint bad but so far nothing so far to write home about... made it to the [famous] Cafe Artigiano - very 'punchy' - roasted by local roaster 49th Parallel; competent but certainly not exceptional and as I said, very raw [unsophisticated blend]... will check out the roaster's own premises later in the day hopefully...

Met a NZ barista here - tried to tell me Wgn has the best coffee in the world... not true my friend, was there last year - some good coffee but not best in the world, I'm afraid Chris... [this is the guy who's happy to do flavoured coffees including Lavender - flavoured; seriously ... arghh!]

A :-\

RichardM

on 1304799619:

[this is the guy who's happy to do flavoured coffees including Lavender - flavoured; seriously ... arghh!]

I seriously don't understand flavoured coffee in general, but Lavender? If you want something like that...have a tea! I was in a "cafe" the other day in a very small town, and they had a "chilli lime" syrup for their coffee sitting on the counter. I nearly threw up at the thought (as I burned my mouth on the most bitter coffee I've ever tasted).

Dry_bean.

on 1304799619:

arrived yesterday after way too long in plane & airports - coffee here aint bad but so far nothing so far to write home about... made it to the [famous] Cafe Artigiano - very 'punchy' - roasted by local roaster 49th Parallel; competent but certainly not exceptional and as I said, very raw [unsophisticated blend]... will check out the roaster's own premises later in the day hopefully... Met a NZ barista here - tried to tell me Wgn has the best coffee in the world... not true my friend, was there last year - some good coffee but not best in the world, I'm afraid Chris... [this is the guy who's happy to do flavoured coffees including Lavender - flavoured; seriously ... arghh!] A :-\

Morning Admin, Pleased to hear you had a safe and uneventful trip, international travel can be a bit of a PITA but for some reason most of us seem to enjoy it. The more I travel the more I realise the coffee scene here in Aus is in pretty good shape and improving in leaps and bounds, wont be long and the world will be beating a path to our door looking for advice. Stay safe. PS lavender :o

FreshCoffee2

Unbelievably well said Dry bean. Well said Admin. The atmosphere at Cafe Artigiano is very slick and "better" (in my opinion) than the coffee and from my own meanderings through Canada last year, Australia is ahead of them. Never the less Vancouver seems to have a strong coffee (cafe?) culture and was a real eye opener after the coffee desert of good old US of A! There are quite a few Ausies working over there and I also ran into a Canadian that worked in Melbourne cafes for 4 years before going back and opening his own in Vancouver. He and his staff made us the best coffee we had there, called "Pure Coffee House" at 212 Robson Street (quite close to th ice hockey stadium). A very very small operation when compared to Artigiano but as I said, he made us the best coffee in town at the time (6 months ago)...hope I havent jinxed it for you by mentioning it! By the way we did walk past an eatery cafe in the CBD that had a sign out saying words to the effect of..." Best coffee in Vancouver". .....! This type of sign is a big mistake. Off topic and I guess the season is probably over anyway, but if you can.......DO NOT LEAVE without going to an ice hockey game. FANTASTIC, and dont drink the coffee just buy beer ;D Rgdz, Attilio very first Crema site sponsor

admin

hi guys - just a quick note... have to say, have got round a few cafes now and some cool cafes to hang out in, but the quality of coffee comes nothing close to the top cafes in Sydney & Melbourne... must rush - local pale ale beckons, then dinner!! A

FreshCoffee2

Yeah, I'm with you on cafes and coffee over there. But you have to keep reminding yourself that over there you are the stranger and they have their own local ways of doing and interpreting things, so when you ask for something and expect it done as we are used to and it comes out as they are used to.....it isnt their fault. Although, and especially with all the interest in WBC type stuff, I cant see why the way we make and present coffee isnt more standardised between our countries especially in the more up market cafes where they actually advertise the fact that are into coffee comps etc (including Artigiano) ......?????  But there really are differences and you have to get used to ordering your coffee in such a way that they understand what you want or you get something different to what you thought you would get (& and as stated you are the stranger in their culture so no point getting uppity when you dont get what you thought you ordered hehehehehe  ;D). arhhh and yes.....they have some good "pubs" and great beer but I am not impressed with the "I want to buy some drinks please" over the bar, but they instead direct you to a table where you will get "service" from a busty bimbo with few clothes on and several buttons undone and to whom you are then "indebted" for walking the drinks over to you, and pay an unnecessary tip on top of the bill....... As a regular traveller I can say it becomes very very if not very tiresome and very costly to keep paying unnecessary tips all over for service you did not want or ask for......do it for a few weeks at a time and it costs you dearly. Enough of that now, have a great time. Rgdz, A.

admin

on 1304909604:

arhhh and yes.....they have some good "pubs" and great beer but I am not impressed with the "I want to buy some drinks please" over the bar, but they instead direct you to a table where you will get "service" from a busty bimbo with few clothes on and several buttons undone and to whom you are then "indebted" for walking the drinks over to you...

... can't say I mind this bit...

on 1304909604:

...and pay an unnecessary tip on top of the bill....... As a regular traveller I can say it becomes very very if not very tiresome and very costly to keep paying unnecessary tips all over for service you did not want or ask for......do it for a few weeks at a time and it costs you dearly.

but absolutely agree with you on this one!! A :D

admin

on 1304819744:

Lavender... I would know a whole stack of people who may see it as a cost saving exercise... 1: Good for hair growth...

...afraid it didn't work for me ;D

E61

Hi mate - Mark Prince suggests you guys have to try 1. Elysian 2. Bump n Grind 3. 49th Parallel 4. JJ Been (Main Street) 5. Kafka It would be great to compare your notes if you get to any of these places.

admin

thanks Matt - actually got to several of these today, including 49th Parallel, JJ Bean and Elysian; also got to Innocent [v. good] and a new one called Bica [also excellent] - things are looking up!! I realise this may be a little out of his territory, but does Mark have any recommendations for Seattle? cheers A

admin

Hey guys - good to be back; have to say Vancouver was interesting but nothing on Seattle... tough trip tho - 2 out of 8 days fully taken up with travel - ie a full 48 hrs!! due to connections via LA... word of warning: NEVER travel via LA as your transit point if you can help it - gotta be the worst airport in the world [perhaps excepting some place like Tallin, or the capital of Belorussia!]. Do you think the americans can work out that transiting through means that you don't need to leave the airport? No, so instead of taking a transit card and walking through some back corridor to your onward flight to Canada, you have to queue for 2 hours along with 2000 other poor souls who've also flown through the night, to go through the privilege of officially entering the US, just so you can emigrate again 2 hours later. But do you think that they can do even this efficiently? Well no. You see, we poor antipodeans arrive [after around 14 hrs of no sleep] at around 6.45 am and they don't start till 7.00am, or whenever the first shift of customs officials have had their bagels and crap coffee; so there's a queue of about 2 Km of poor tired, hungry people all waiting for the privilege of immigrating for 2 hours, only to emigrate again 2 hrs later... Gotta feel some sympathy for them in this post-Osama world [heightened threat of terrorist attacks, etc] but you'd think they could think of some smarter system; bottom line don't go through the US if you can help it! A  8)