Café Tacuba opened its doors very recently, and has no less ambitious goal than letting everyone…read morehave the best coffee possible, whether it be in the public café itself, or at home. And that ambition covers the whole process from sourcing the beans to the way they're put in the cup. Beans are bought directly from selected farms, roasted in small batches in the roaster that stands decoratively in the café itself, and customers don't just buy the coffee, they also get background information and helpful tips on how to best prepare it at home.
Co-founder Manolo is a former coffee farmer from El Salvador, and much off the coffee roasted, served and sold at Tacuba is actually purchased from friends and relatives of his. There is a lot of emphasis on the fact that the farms are paid above average prices. Apparently, the few francs a kilo that Tacuba's coffee costs more than supermarket roasts allow them to pay the farmers around double the usual wages. They also explain that they don't only buy when the harvest has been big and successful, which gives a much higher financial security to smaller farms. It's a very worthy cause. Fittingly, all single origin coffee is described in detail, including name and location of the farm, variety of coffee plant, and treatment method. (They also offer some blends at lower prices, though.)
From the moment you're greeted in the café, it's obvious how dedicated the staff is to coffee. They are keen on telling you why their coffee is so much different and better, explaining what you're tasting when you take a sip, and why. They also tell you how to best treat the beans you purchase for preparation at home (some coffee-making equipment is for sale.)
And the coffee is really absolutely delicious! If you're used to the hereabouts much more common, Italian style of coffee, you might be in for a surprise. It's a much more fruity, "lively" drink, that actually tastes a lot more like what you'd expect from something prepared from a berry. Without trying to start sounding too much like a wine guide, there's sweetness, there's a sourness - not the acidic kind of a lot of espresso, but a citric, fruity kind - and hints of spices. I was very pleasantly surprised at how different this coffee, prepared through a filter - an often unjustly dismissed method - was from what I was used to.
Because of the small batches they buy and roast, staff told me that the selection of coffee they offer will be constantly changing. And because they don't roast the beans to death like so many other roasteries do until everything tastes the same, but try to keep as much of the original flavour as possible intact, it's really amazing to taste how coffee can be so much more varied than the usual offers.
The café has seating for about a dozen people and, what's very cool, staff gives you the choice on how you want your coffee to be prepared, whether through the espresso machine or one of several filter methods. The common coffee drinks are also offered - yes, you can get your latte or cappuccino here, as well as some pastries to go with it.
I would already describe Café Tacuba as a must-visit for anyone who likes coffee, with an open mind to maybe discover new aspects of a drink they thought they knew, and learn something in the process. I'm sure I will be back here many times in the future, drinking coffee and knowledge at the same time :)
