Hi everybody,
firstly, please excuse me for writing not in German. My written German is really bad but I can read and understand it, though.
My name is Phil and I'm not only a regular coffee consumer but probably someone called a coffee lover. As you see I'm one of those freshly registered Qype users and one of those who gave five stars. This makes me a suspect and should be reason enough for me to stay away frome here. I still decided to register in order to review the coffee bar and to speak out what I think about what's going on here. And I do hope that there are some open minded and honestly fair judging Qype members with some Qype history and experience outside who are willing to step forward.
Let's start with my review
As I said I love good coffee. I'm travelling a lot and tasting good coffees in good coffee bars has always been one of the most exciting activities for me. To my knowledge Paul's Coffeelution Coffeebar has been offering its coffee specialities for about three years now. Unfortunately this bar came to my attention not earlier than this year. It is located in a university building called 'Audimax' just opposite to a copy shop. When I visited it for the first time I was surprised because it is rather small and the room itself is a kind of junction beetween staircase and elevator. Thus there is not much space to sit down (I think about five or six stools at wall-fixed tables) which makes it easily a little overcrowded during rush hours, so you shouldn't come around midday (i.e. 12-3 pm). Otherwise you really have to queue up because most of the students and also other people go there. To my taste the interior is very nice and there is a chilling atmosphere. You can have your coffee preparations in preheated thickwalled cups or to take away. Most students opt for paper cups for taking away so the limited space isn't a problem.
Now the coffee
Just great! The Coffeelution guys definitely know how to get the best out of their quality coffees (mostly Mexico Arabica from Chiapas, fair traded, organically grown). Not only the espresso but even the drip coffee served has a very delicious taste. The cup is very well balanced with fruity acidities and a good body (despite of Mexican origin). The espresso crema is most times thick and stable (sugar stays 3 secs) with a speckled hazelnut brownish colour. Perfect, not more than approx. 25 to 30 ml, that's how I should be. Variations like espresso doppio or caffe lungo are available as well.
Cappuccino.... this is a dream. Not only hard core black-coffee-afficinados get what they are looking for. It is hard to find a coffee bar where you can get this very special type of frothy milk. It's exactly how it should be, frothy with not visible bubbles and still liquid. And to get to the top, they do sometimes Latte Art!
They also offer all the other usual preparations like Latte macchiato, Caffe crema, and so on. I haven't tried these yet.
Besides they have a range of different teas, unfortunately all in bags but I think still acceptable quality for a not specialized tea bar.
Also they have muffins, donuts, cookies and other bakery products of high quality. Sometimes they offer free Cantuccini and other delicious stuff for free :-)
The owner and the Baristi working there have always been treating me very nicely. And so do I. Last not least, Paul seems to know just everything about coffee. If there is no rush hour you can easily approach him with any question about coffee!
Unfortunately I am not always in Aachen but everytime I have the opportunity I don't miss to pop in!
Now, let's come to the less nice things
I have been knowing and even passively using Qype for a long time. It might not be that important to me than it is for other people since internet-wise I use a lot of sources to gather information. But most times I just open my eyes and ears on the street. Nevertheless Qype is interesting and can be informative. Actually I have been dealing with social media for quite a while and I know how people somtimes act and react. I don't know if my writing could help to get a clear view but I want to give it a try. So here we go
As I said before I do know this coffee bar. Many times I could witness that customers where so happy with their coffee that they not only said 'Thanks' (well, in German mostly) but stating that this was a very good coffee or even the best coffee they ever had. Well, could be that some just wanted to be very nice but there are too many uttering their positive opinion (as I do). You are wondering why I know this? Because I experienced it! To my knowledge they recently started some marketing campaign addressing their satisfied customers. Obviously there was the problem that apparently everybody loved this coffee bar, even queueing up in long queues but only very few people wrote reviews in those internet media like Qype. My two cents is that this coffee bar just don't need it but for what reason ever, they started this read more