SERBCCH: pure crema iii
September 24, 2005 – 11:20 pm
you are no longer interested in musty impressions of a no-espresso place from a weeks-old trip. this blog understands your gripe. there is, still, The Code, like the way every major metropolitan library must get a windy architectural critique in the new yorker, whether anyone cares that seattle’s public construct has scrambled the social implications of browsing the stacks or not. The Code says, “if you swill brew, and the taste notables expand beyond simple ash, you must blog.”
three cups is a breed apart. for one thing, their beans, roasted by the gurus of our region, are in open canisters. it’s true, you want to furtively cover the ceramic containers with your shirt tail and inhale through your armpit hole to prevent any more of that specialty-roasted, tree-hugger single origin from wafting into the atmosphere.
and what an atmosphere it is. no retro-ghetto here, a la chapel hill’s other joints of note. rather, you get gleaming stainless table tops, freestanding bars and barstools, exposed textile-mill brick walls and textured art, most of it palatable. it’s a bright place. a place where you hope fervently that wi-fi is as free as the carafes of water and liberal advice. but you would be hoping for too much. what IS it with these college towns where wi-fi is either a costly additive to your purchase or altogether nonexistent?
french press only. these guys know their brew. fresh from counter culture every weekend is a new s.o., and despite the fact that these beans don’t seem to be sealed, my protectionist reflex seemed unwarranted by the result in the cup. you feel like you’re in a spiffed-up trader joe’s. (rumor has it, in fact, that the former owner of whole foods groceries sold his lot and used the apparent windfall to fund three cups, among other ventures.) neat chalkboard squares on the wall tell you about your options. you can have the new bolivian, sir, featuring popcorn-laced apple jelly notes, or the new zealand specialty that leaves one with an aftertaste of longbottom leaf. not really, but the descriptions are equally intriguing. i had the heavily lauded kenya aa, of the overt berry notes and bewitching lightness (i know. bewitching lightness should really be reserved for opium eaters. but we’re talking french press here, which is remarkably closer to ‘eating’ that most coffees.) jake had the mexican of dry chocolate notes. much more understated.
the thing about three cups, though, is that the aesthetic is clean and bright; the attention to detail sets it dramatically apart (beans measured by weight, not volume; ground immediately into your press; sand timers placed on your tray to denote the exact time when pressage is nigh); and the people just drip with intimate knowledge of what you’re ingesting. if a fellow behind the counter tells you you’re about to get walnut overtones with some buttery caramel aftertaste, why then, you are about to get walnut overtones with some buttery caramel aftertaste — in the most overt and detectable way, even for the elementary palate. i especially liked the brown paper tray liners, on which the server would write your coffee variety, in case you forgot and subconsciously expected arsenic and oxycontin in your cup. lots of trendy bodum accessories. tip sheets for hard-core pressers. a veranda on a grassy courtyard. a stellar selection of espresso chocolates, from which the above-pictured bar came. etc., etc.
hard to find the place, though it’s just off the main drag in chapel hill. and you won’t get much help from the web site. but if you’re in the area, stopping is a must. my favorite m.o. is to hit it last, just before driving south again. that way you’re primed for soaking and settling on two large cups o’ brew and some extra-dark chocolate, pre-journey. also: you must pee like screaming banshees at every two-league interstate rest stop on the way home! you could say it spurs remembrance.
UPDATE: yes, this blog realizes the dark irony of calling such a post ‘pure crema iii,’ when in fact what sets the subject mattaer apart is precisely it’s lack of crema. but there was thematic matter to be furthered, you see. third in a series, and what-not. plus, it generates funny looks through your computer screen.
also, this blog realizes that the most logical thing to do in a place where the aesthetic and process are particularly unusual would be to capture it in photos, or even with those newfangled moving pictures. but, since tradition dictated three cups as the last stop, my gear was completely bereft of battery heft by the time we got there. everything dead, i tell you. it was a mournful realization. does that help? no? well, hey. at least i scanned my chocolate wrapper. at 1,000 dpi, no less!
