FOOD & DRINK
Coffee a 90-90
If you can't tell your cappuccinos from your macchiatos just ask for directions from the occupants of the nearest police box. Words Jonathan Trew
Sometimes it seems as though all the
pillars of society are devoting tl‘iernselx'cv. to pleasure, to the last few 'I‘c'rttl‘s, we’te "itjc'l hanks converted
to restaurants, 'llc’lCllC’S changed into bars and "cw it’s the turn of the police to spread a little h ippiitess around. All around Edinburgh, former police boxes are being turned into real coffee kiosks and administering caffeine kicks to the pepuliice
The brains behind the conversrons are the simmers :if the Californian Coffee Co iCiji, a consortium of Edinburgh- based businessmen who had been inspired by the sudden proliferation of real coffee bars spreading across America Two years ago, when they first heard that the distinctive police boxes were to he put up for lease, the group put together a proposal and had their first pick-me-up Joint on its feet outSide the Royal Infirmary by the opening day of
‘Don't be depresso, have an espresso!’
last year's Festival. A second conversion in St Patrick's Square followed shortly afterwards and, all being well, a third outlet, to be unveiled soon in Hope Park, opposite the Dick Vet, will herald a wave of openings across the city. Providing that Edinburgh embraces caffeine Culture with a vengeance then it’s planned that Glasgow will also get the chance to give their nervous systems a Java jolt.
Once customers get over the novelty factor of buying coffee from a Tardis, the quality of the coffee on offer Will keep them coming back. The (ICC uses only mature Indonesian Java beans which are slow roasted and ground to their own specrfications. lava is more. expensive than a lot of other types of coffee but Gordon Thomson, the company's spokesman, believes that the taste vindicates the cost. ’People said that we would have a fight on our hands to make people here appreciate good coffee,’ says Thomson. 'Pure Java is a lot more expensive than other beans but people can appreciate quality the world over.’
If the CCC is obsesswe about the beans they use, then they are fanatical about how they use them. You might think that an espresso is pretty straightforward; according to the CCC, the perfect espresso needs seven grammes of ground coffee to one ounce of water to be drawn for exactly twenty seconds. Their lattes require one shot of espresso, filled up With farm-fresh
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so THELIST :i Mar—3 Apr 1997
milk steamed to a temperature of 150—170 degrees, all topped With a quarter inch of foamed milk, no more, no less That's the simple ones, by the time you move on to the cornplirated constructs like the CCC version of cafe mocha, you need a firm grasp of fusion physics along With a healthy understanding of liquid dynamics
before you have the slimmest chance of making one for yourself. Although if you want to give it a try then the CCC will be happy to sell you their own ground coffee.
Still not convinced? Well heed the words of one of their friendly, tongue- in-cheek kiosk workers; 'Don’t be depresso, have an espresso!’
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