The Crux — 3

Finally! The Coffee Disappoint Tour de Boise has ended. It took some searching. This place is new and has no web page and no twitter, but as soon as we walked in and ordered, I knew we were going to get too coffee.

The Crux opened in January, serves Stumptown beans, has been trained by Stumptown people and, by far, has the best coffee in Boise (that we have found). The Baristas do it “by the book”- weigh the amount of ground coffee, purge the machine, pull 25 sec shots that equal 2 oz, and taste the coffee they make. Not one place in Boise, that we have visited, has done either of these steps.

The only thing that would make Crux better, in the espresso department, is if they used different espresso–the Hairbender is a little too citrus-y for me (I don’t like fruit in my espresso).  I’ve been to The Crux two days in a row and I’ll be back.

Big City Coffee–8

During my time at the American Barista and Coffee school, they taught us to keep the focus on the coffee. If you have a passion for coffee and open a coffee shop, focus on making and serving good, quality coffee. If you want to make pastries and sandwiches, that’s fine as long as you don’t let it take away from your coffee service.

We visited Big City Coffee in Boise, ID. Right when we walked in, I saw a giant burrito, and some sort of egg dish that looked really good. They lady said I have got to try their tamales, they are “to die for”.Tamales in a coffee shop?

Their baked goods looked like they were to die for as well. But, this is not a baked good or tamale blog–this is a coffee (espresso) blog and we are looking for good coffee.

We did not fine good coffee at Big City Coffee (the third espresso was especially awful). It was clear they do not specialized in quality coffee service. I could list all the things the barista did wrong in the making of the espresso, but I don’t want to. I could go on and on why having pots and pots of drip coffee on the ready is bad, but I won’t. Plain and simple, if you want lunch or a good pastry, go to Big City Coffee. If you want good quality coffee, pass.

Sucky-ness score- 8.

Coffee Disappointment Tour

It has officially been named.  Going to bad coffee shop after bad coffee shop in town after town is now officially called the Coffee Disappointment Tour.

A rating scale has begun. 1- not sucky, 10- as sucky as sucky can get.

To be fair, the decision has been made to rate the coffee shops on the coffee and coffee drinks only. Atmosphere doesn’t matter. Baked goods don’t matter. Service doesn’t matter.

Today’s stop– The Flying M in Boise Idaho. 3 drinks were ordered; 1 espresso and 2 macchiatos. The ratings- espresso- 7 (bitter, burned, not much “mouth feel”), macchiato- 6, macchiato- 7 (remember 10 is extremely sucky). This gives the Flying M a score of 6.6. Side note–the music was horrible and turned me off as soon as I walked in.

Other shops currently on the Level Of Suckyness scale have been too bad to write reviews of.  From here on out, I’ll write a short review about each place and add them to the scale.

Level of Sucky-ness

As unfortunate as it is, I have come to learn that there are more bad coffee shops than there are good coffee shops.

I have stopped critiquing each place I visit because it was getting rather pitiful. This place serves bitter espresso, another place steams their milk wrong, so and so place over roasts their beans, etc.

Going to bad coffee shop after bad coffee shop ruins the entire coffee drinking experience. Thus, I have decided to create the Level of Sucky-ness scale. This way, it makes it fun to get bad coffee, because then it can go on the Level of Sucky-ness scale.

Stay tuned for the scale. Over the last 2 weeks, several coffee shops have made their lasting mark on the Level of Sucky-ness.