Bitter Espresso


By Mark Evans

If I see another coffee franchise wannabe open up in Taiwan, I’m going to spew. Is pop culture characterised by the very few flogging an inferior product under the guise of clever branding and marketing? In the case of soda drinks, fried chicken or hamburgers that’s fine, but I wish they’d stop molesting the beautiful goddess espresso with 3 layers of syrup makeup and 12 ounces of milk foundation.


  I’m not going to recant the overworked objections about the ubiquitous and reassuring nature of large franchises, the acres of stainless steel, high-tech cash registers and the smell of disinfectant that wraps you gently against the great bosom of the corporate mothership. I’m objecting to the eagerness with which businessmen embrace a product and reduce it to the very worst it can be to make it fast and cheap and flog it to the masses.
 

But, the packed tables and long queues suggest that marketing and research have paid off and the consumer is happy. So, what’s my problem? I want no part of it. I want to listen to the symphony of a well-balanced espresso harmonising its sweet Brazilian tones with the big brass dry fruit of a Yemen Mocha as prepared by a master roaster and brought to fruition in a mug by a skilled barista.


Espresso preparation is an art. To capture the volatile aromatics present in ground coffee you must tease and cajole them into the cup. The finest and most noble flavours are delicate, fleeting compounds. The basis of fine espresso is fresh, carefully roasted beans. If prepared properly, the final coffee extract is as thick as honey. Espresso should offer a taste balanced between varietal flavours of the regional coffees used in the blend, and the nuttiness

 
produced by the roast. To reduce such a fragile balance to a ‘saleable unit’ going stale across thousands of miles of ocean to be burnt into a cup by a half-trained monkey hanging off a dirty porta filter is a contemptible culinary transgression.

  I’ve scoured Kaohsiung’s cafés and found that for every five café owners who respond to the question “Why did you open a café?” with “To make money,” there is one who has devoted himself to the art of espresso preparation. You’ll usually find him tucked away in a hidden alley or empty street, unable to afford the massive rent on a high-traffic corner, quietly roasting away or fretting over the cleanliness of his  

equipment and the freshness of his beans. They’ve been there for years, unconcerned about the current wave of fly-by-nighters slinging dirty water just to make a buck off the magic bean, and they should be rewarded.

Maybe the situation is not so bleak. People yearn for some soul in the places where they hang out; to be part of a real scene, not some cookie-cutter clone fallen from the business school womb in a pastel pile of blonde wood and green logos. So I urge you to join us. Break from that warm nugget of reassurance of the corporate bar and find some soul! If we meet some day, I’ll be happy to help you find the true merchants of this wonderful brew.

How will you find me? I’ll be the one heaving my lunch on those beautifully designed green logos.