Cappuccino at Victrola Coffee Roasting

This is getting to be a regular thing for me, having coffee around 5:30 PM.  It's weird, because I would never drink tea at that time of day (it would surely keep me wired well into the next morning), but I'm beginning to enjoy this little evening ritual.

I intended to go back to Espresso Vivace and order a more serious drink, but they were PACKED, so I decided to go see if Victrola Coffee Roasting (the third of Seattle's famous "V" roasters) was more mellow.  Being kind of on the outskirts of Capitol Hill, it was indeed a mellower experience, and represents my most positive coffee shop experience to date.

So, the first thing worth noting is that the guy on bar at Victrola was the friendliest barista I've had.  In fact he's the only one to ask how my day was going and genuinely try to strike up a conversation.  That was a big plus.  I've heard rumors that people do, in fact, go to coffee shops to socialize, but up until this point my experience with baristas has been rather frigid, to say the least.

Onto the drink: I've been curious about cappuccinos ever since I saw "So I Married an Axe Murderer"...not that that giant bowl of milk looked appealing (I'm reasonably sure that that monstrosity is really a latte, in fact), but prior to the Starbucksification of America, the cappuccino really seemed to be the definitively-iconic high-end espresso drink.  Unlike the latte or the mocha, which have become ubiquitous and rather commodified, the cappuccino in my mind still holds a bit of European mystique.  I also figured that, if I found the macchiato insufficiently balanced by its thimble-full of milk, but found the con panna too difficult to mix, the cappuccino must be the logical next step up.

Definitely a far cry from the "Campbell's Cup-o-Chino"!

I'd say in terms of quantity, this is about the sweet spot for me.  I reckon it was about 6 ounces, which according to Wikipedia is the proper European size.

Again, I'm still not sure how much I actually enjoy the flavor of the espresso, but in this drink I felt like the bitterness was pretty well muted.  Still the predominate flavor was of charred wood or burnt toast, but it did seem a little smoother than in the macchiato, and was more consistent than in the con panna I had yesterday.    I really tried to search my palate for subtle traces of floral, fruity, berry, or chocolate flavors, but again they failed to materialize.  "Roasty and earthy" were all I really got.  Even still, I did not have any trouble drinking it, as I feel like I'm beginning to enjoy the flat dark abrasiveness in a slightly-masochistic way.

I also experimented by giving it a sprinkling of cinnamon, which definitely improved the flavor (though I should have stirred it in, rather than leaving it sitting atop the foam, as I only got it in a few sips).  Compared to espresso, cinnamon is incredibly sweet, and I felt like if I could really get the cinnamon flavor mixed in, it would be a nicely-balanced drink.

So far I haven't noticed a tremendous difference in the taste of the espresso between Stumptown, Caffe Vita, and Victrola, although the latter two have seemed a bit less acrid and a bit more "muted", without that odd "hollowness" I got from the Stumptown Hair Bender.  This cappuccino is probably the closest I've come to enjoying a coffee drink for the espresso in it, rather than something added to it.  I did not feel like my mouth was coated in a weird savory-bitter film this time...there was decidedly less of a linger, which I appreciated.  I reckon that the cappuccino will be my go-to espresso drink from here on out, as my interest in scaling up to a latte or a mocha is pretty marginal.  Though I will probably give a mocha a shot at some point just to see what all the hype is about.

Now I'd like to return to Vivace for a cappuccino and see if it really was, in fact, a superior form of espresso that made the Cafe Nico the most palatable coffee drink I've had so far, or whether it was the orange and vanilla flavor added to it.