Sunday afternoon ... I had my morning coffee (blend of two of my home roasts in a caffe latte), then finished reading a paper I am reviewing, and took an afternoon ride. Chose Macbeth / Fox Hollow loop because it brings me conveniently near several Allann Brothers Coffee, which seemed more in the spirit of coffeeneuring than getting some pretty awful afternoon coffee at a convenience store along one of the other potential short ride loops.
Allann Brothers is actually a chain based in Albany, but it's not a Starbucks-like mega-chain. They make pretty good coffee, which they roast themselves not too far away, and the shop has a pretty good neighborhood vibe. Allann Brothers is also one of the few places you can still see commercial espresso machines with hand levers. While Pavoni makes a sort of imitation of this for home use, the commercial hand lever machines work on a completely different principle: You pull down to compress a spring, and it is the spring that then applies steady pressure to the water through the group head. Thus the origin of the term "pulling a shot", and a "short pull", in which the lever is pulled down only part way to reduce the amount of water in the espresso shot. The other place I have seen these old machines, several years ago, was Sicily. I never saw them in northern Italy.
This being afternoon, and me being sufficiently caffeinated, I chose hot chocolate instead of coffee. It took three tries to understand the server asking me whether I preferred semi-sweet chocolate or Mexican chocolate. Semi-sweet, with whipped cream, why not. It was nice.
Coffeeneuring data: 13 October (Sunday), Allann Brothers at Hilyard Street and 24th, hot chocolate, approximately 15 miles round trip including the loop around Macbeth and Fox Hollow (otherwise it would be 6.2 miles round trip by the shortest route).
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