Coffee Tour of Minneapolis/St. Paul

Coffee places I tried over the weekend, in order of preference:

1. Cafe Expatriate. Riverside near Cedar, Minneapolis. Roasts own. Excellent.
      Plenty of bicycle parking next to the restrooms. Leave your alligator shirt at home.

2. Espresso 22. 15th and University, 2nd floor. Uses Regency beans (New Prague, MN).
      Almost as good as (1).

3. Susan's. University near Raymond, St. Paul. Pretty good. Uses Dunn Brothers.

4. Espresso Expose. Washington Ave near the university hospital, Mpls.
      Good roast but strange aftertaste. Uses McSomebody Brothers'.

5. Nordstrom Espresso Bar. At the megamall, Bloomington. Uses custom roast from Boyd's. Standard.

6. Kafte. Calhoun Square, Uptown, Mpls. Roasts own. Way too dark (probably an "Italian Roast").
      Probably way overextracted as well. Elitist. Baristas apathetic.

7. Coffee & Tea Ltd. On 14th in Dinkytown. Uses own French roast. Very similar to Kafte, although
      the atmosphere was a little less pseudointellectual and more commercial. Same coffee problems.

8. Espresso Royal(e?). Across the street from C&TL. (Last visited in January.) Awful, from quality
      of coffee to attitude of baristas.

I don't know where in this list to put Blue Mountain, on Nicollet Mall in Mpls, as I haven't had espresso there. The varietals are very, very good, although more lightly roasted than one might expect and thus more caffeine-laden.

I was amazed by the number of independent coffeehouses that have sprung up in MSP this year. For every place I visited there were two or three I heard about but didn't get to.

Therefore I can't assert that Expatriate is "best in town". I can say that anybody better than Expatriate would be world-class.

Note to Seattle-style espresso fans: stick to numbers 1-5. 6-8 have no conception of what the American espresso movement (or Italian espresso, for that matter) is about. "Double espresso" from these places is an 8-oz cup *full* of overextracted French roast. Also don't try to order an Americano here - in MSP an "Americana" is adulterated cappucino.

Overheard this morning at Keys, a blue-collar lunch counter around the corner from Susan's:

      Owner: Did you throw away that brown paper cup?

      Waitress: Yeah. I thought it was...

      Owner: That was my cappuccino!

      Waitress (pouring someone another cup of Farmer brothers drip coffee): Huh?

      Owner: That was my CAPPUCCINO!!!

      (meanwhile, owner's teenage son empties contents of another brown cup into his porcelain one)