The question has been posed on the Specialty Coffee forums about whether to only offer Americanos or to offer brewed coffee.
For most operators, the term "brewed coffee" refers to conventional bulk auto drip coffee. And to this question I said that only "you" can decide. But is it necessary? The answer would be a definitive "no."
In an earlier post I commented on stealing a customer by offering our Americano as an improvement, not as a replacement.
Coffee is great, but conventional auto drip is not warranted for the best of coffees and is not the best method for highlighting the dynamic flavors of the coffee. Brewing methods such as Chemex, press pot, siphon, hand drip (Melitta)... are better methods -if done correctly- for coffee brewing because they require more attention to detail and the attention and focus translates more "love" into the cup.
We saw everyone doing "drip" and everywhere, and I mean everywhere we went it was from "not bad" to "yuck!". Nothing was excellent. Caffe Vivace in Seattle was the standard bearer for "we only do espresso" and that is the model used for the first year and a half until we began to offer Single Origin press to order coffee and now, Single Origin siphon brewed coffee.
The properly brewed Americano is superior in flavor and body to conventional drip. It's really not even a close contest, but because of the poor espresso of the vast majority of shops, their Americano will follow suit. It's not the drink, it's the quality of the beans and the barista, or PBTC, preparing it.
So if you're looking for a replacement for conventional drip, I don't know what to tell you. But if you're looking for something superior, try a fresh ground, fresh brewed Americano.
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