Monday, May 09, 2005


the franke ecolino

so here in my temporary office in wimbledon they have a little employee cafeteria, which features an interesting super-auto coffee machine, a big franke ecolino. after eyeing it with concern lo these several days, i finally decided to try it out.

so i plunked down my GBP0.50 (US$1) and pushed the magic "single cappuccino" button. in theory if well-tuned and maintained this puppy should be able to make coffee every bit as acceptable as the super-autos used by the mermaid's counter monkeys (we really can't call them "baristi," you know).

the very nice lady at the cash register told me that the whole beans -- visible in the hopper poking its head outta the machine -- probably came from coffee republic (btw, i'm terrified that this website says absolutely nothing about their coffees but does find space to mention their bankers!) and was a fair-trade espresso blend. the econolino does contain a grinder, and so the machine whirred for a second while it ground my shot.

then out poured some vaguely warm milk for about 5 seconds, after that came about 5 seconds of watery "coffee," and finally out hissed about 5 seconds of giant soap-bubble milk "foam," with huge bubbles suitable perhaps for a child's bath. no microfoam here; definitely what david schomer derisively calls "sea foam."

hmm. it looked rather dodgy, as they say here, this 10-oz.-or-so, 15-second drink. yuppers, thin and watery, with an oily, turpeny taste.

yuck. not even drinkable. sigh.

someone call the franke repairman. . .the milk surely wasn't hot enough, but i don't see a faq for simply "makes poor espresso," do you?

in short, i'm nearly ready to trade my blogger password for a latte voucher, how about you? (just kidding of course. wild horses couldn't drag my password outta me. . .)

posted by fortune | 5:46 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments