Queen East Cafes & the Canada Coffee & Tea Show

Te Aro Coffee

983 Queen St. East

First off, fantastic set-up in this cafe. They've clearly spent a lot of time thinking about décor, customer flow, ambiance and retail. Finding a way to present and sell coffee-centric products (grinders, brewers, miscellany) is on my list of things I want to make happen back in Buffalo, so it's interesting to see it done so well, from the packaging of their coffee to the shelves and equipment displayed. The flow of the cafe encourages you to kind of stick to the corners before finding a seat, and the retail is unintrusive but everywhere. They roast their own beans, have a small but tasty-looking sandwich selection, and there's quite a bit of seating, inside and out.

We really liked the low counter/bar and seats at the serving side of the Marzocco: a comfortable place to sit for a sec while you wait for your drink, so you don't feel so rushed in the few minutes it takes to prepare it. The baristas were very friendly and approachable, as well. My espresso was good, Ben's French-Pressed Nicaraguan was better.

Mercury Organic Espresso Bar

915 Queen St. East

Pulling Intelli shots off a Synesso—I'm already onboard. Mercury has a nice corner location, with interesting décor (love the sink-lights), and they were offering a featured espresso in addition to Black Cat—I had a latte with a Honduran SO that was nice, very mild, milk-first, a little bit of chocolate up front, a nice little touch of coffee-bitter at the end.

Dark Horse

682 Queen St. East

A lot more relaxed than the Spadina location; I also noticed that they were using Detour coffee roasters in addition to 49^th. Ardi Ethiopian Sidama in a French-Press for the win. A sip of Michael's spro revealed a crazy-bright, sharp shot, very interesting, quite the ristretto.

 We ogled the Mirage for a while, and I got to chat with one of their baristas for a while, Pete West (check his website for used equipment, espressotoronto.blogspot.com).

Tango Coffee Palace

1156 Queen St. East

Mainly stopped here because of the name, and because we happened to drive past it while trying to circle our way back onto the expressway. Very dark, comfy-looking cafe, lots of baked goods, pretty Electra. Seems like it would be a good place to sit and read/write for a long time. Unfortunately, I have to break my “only positive” rule, because our espressos here were undrinkable. Shame.

Canadian Coffee & Tea Show

We weren't here for any classes, so mainly we were just checking out the trade floor, seeing if there were any interesting vendors. I did sit and watch the competition for a while, but distance from the competitors and poor sound made that a little hard to get into. The video-work and projection was better than I've seen, though, and you can check it out online.

Highlights of the trade floor:

-Social Coffee and Tea Company. I had never heard of these guys, and I am, uh, really impressed. Best shot of espresso I had all day/show (Honduran SO again, oddly enough). They have a social-revolution theme going on that is EERILY similar to what I've been idly planning for my dream-cafe (I call dibs on the “May 68” blend, goddammit). They appear to procure and roast really excellent coffee...and they have really, really nice equipment.

I got to talk to one of their guys (maybe the guy? Caffeine-buzz has pushed his name out of my memory) for a bit, particularly about one of their grinders. This is the Versalab M3, the name of which I've seen kicked around, but I've never really paid it much attention. Granted, it's not dosing by mass, but it's adjustable-volume dosing seems...really neat. The Social barista emphasized that it's a little slow, but he also obviously thinks it's a great grinder.

And of course, the Slayer, the sexiest espresso machine ever, with the matching wooden PF handles and group paddles, not to mention all the pressure & temp control under the hood. Gah. Great coffee, storm-the-Bastille attitude, and an apparently perfectionist take on equipment: I need to get out to Richmond Hill sometime. They're opening a shop in Toronto proper soon, which is exciting.

-Bunn Trifecta, in action. Ben & I talked to a guy from Bunn for a while, he walked us through the whole operation. It seems like they've cleaned the machine up a little and smoothed out some glitches. I definitely like it, in theory: it made a good cup of coffee, it eliminates a lot of the user-variables of manual brew-to-order methods, and I like the ability to program in and save different settings for each coffee.

However, I can't help noticing a few things: they're using a really high dose, imho: 26-30 grams for 8oz of coffee. You would definitely need multiple machines to keep up with demand in a busy shop environment, but there's no way to electronically share brew variables—you'd need to manually reprogram each machine (how hard would it be to include some USB capacities or some such?). I'm a little weirded out by how much plastic is involved in the construction: maybe it's tough modern stuff, but I know equipment gets banged around a lot, and I know coffee oil loves to gunk stuff up, so anything other than metal or glass makes me wonder. Plus the whole hot plastic thing, I'm sure it's food-safe but it just rubs me the wrong way. Finally, price tag: list price of about $3,700 (Canadian, granted), per machine. So, to keep up speed-wise with a 4-top pour-over rail that costs just a few hundred dollars (less if you build your own rails), you'd need to spend upwards of $16k. Hm.

All that said, it makes a good cup, brewed to order, with a pretty neat level of control over brewing variables. Definitely something I'd play around with given the chance, even in a shop environment if I had unlimited money; as it stands I'm not sure who exactly this machine is made for.

-Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the trade show is not really focused on coffee quality. I did get to meet a few interesting people and try some neat products (including a fruit smoothie that I might push for to replace our current provider). I was hoping I'd be able to get hands-on with some grinders, but no luck. Still, a good trip, got a lot of good ideas. My body is finally scrubbing all the joe out of my blood, and I am crashing, so I will catch you next time.