For awhile now I’ve been meaning to plot out a tour of coffee shops in Cincinnati. Although I’ve already been to half a dozen or so, I’m going to push the reset button on my live coffee browsing and report on my findings here with a new cafe review once or twice a week.
So cafe #1 in this tour of 20+ shops is Coffee Emporium in Hyde Park. I recently met the owner/roaster of CE, Tony Tausch at a barista jam. I’m not sure how long he has been with the company, but CE has been in Cincinnati since 1973 and has 3 locations. You can find out more about Coffee Emporium here.
The baristas on duty were Micah (manning the La Marzoco) and Amy who were definitely welcoming and conversational. Amy was very patient with my questions about the company, coffee, and food. Micah seemed fairly enthusiastic about being reviewed by some no-name coffee geek like myself.
It was $1.60 for my for-here mug of coffee. I had the Sumatra Aceh first and then got a refill of the French Colombian for $.75. Unfortunately, they don’t have a “bottomless” option. Although food options and quality won’t figure in to my overall scoring of cafes (that tells you I don’t consider food a cafe necessity). The wi-fi was easy to access with my macbook pro and it appears they were using Pandora for the in-house tunes. When it came time for the “capp test” Micah asked a common question. Do I want it “wet” or “dry?” That in itself is a bit of an indication of their espresso quality and culture. At Micah’s suggestion I got a little cinnamon powder, which I don’t usually do but it sounded good at the time and really was a good addition. Although it was a larger cappuccino than I prefer (their smallest size was a 12oz and I prefer a 6 to 8 oz capp), the milk was aerated properly and the espresso flavor was decent…though quite muted by the abundance of milk. The milk/foam was not quite the velvety microfoam I desperately hope for in a capp, but it certainly was better than most other capps I’ve had in the city. I opted not to order a straight espresso for some reason. I should probably do that in the future to evaluate the flavor/balance/smoothness of the house espresso roast. Here are the scores I would give on this experience. I’m sure this system will evolve as I visit other cafes, but somebody had to be my first guinea pig, eh?
The Cappuccino: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
The Brewed Coffee: 4 stars
Food Selection & Quality: 4 stars (this score won’t be relevant to the composite “grade”)
Customer Service: 4.5 stars
Third Place/Vibe: 4.5 stars
Total Score: 16.5 out of a possible 20 stars. Anything at or above 12 stars will be worth recommending and re-visiting. Under 12…sorry! It was nice knowing you. 
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this cafe visit and will put it on my list to recommend highly to others as well as to re-visit frequently for my own consuming and connecting pleasures.
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