Missing that one thing...

Blue Bottle, Blue Bottle, Blue Bottle, oh how the people adore you. I am very fortunate to live in the backyard of one of the biggest roasters in gourmet coffee, Blue Bottle. What I find so interesting about Blue Bottle is the adoration they receive from the New York Times see, here, here, here and here, just as examples. What I mean by point to the adoration is that I believe, while they are good there are a lot of roasters out there that are probably dare I say better than Blue Bottle.

Don't get me wrong I like Blue Bottle and my bag of Hayes Valley Espresso was delicious and I am sad that I saw it's end today. However, the bag of Deep Cello Bossa Espresso that I am starting in on now is in my opinion better than this espresso. Now Blue Bottle has this adoration that puts them ahead of a Deep Cello due to them being one of the first gourmet so they really have that first to market advantage and have probably become a favorite of a lot of people.

Now I have to divulge that I did have a pretty bad experience the first time that I had Blue Bottle. They have a pour over stand at a farmers market where I live and when I first moved to the area was recommended to check out this stand. So a few weeks later I find myself there and order a cup of pour over. Anyway, the barista that was doing my pour over was really busy flirting with someone that she was talking to and my coffee was really bad. The coffee was luke warm after the pour and extremely sour. I should've gone back, but we were walking back to the car and I didn't feel like it.

Since I have been to some of their shops in the area and have had pretty good experiences with them. As the baristas have been friendly and helpful when taking order being pretty good at recommending the right drinks. They have an excellent Iced New Orleans cold brewed coffee.

All of that being said I find that most of their coffees like this particular blend seem to be good, but they always seem to have something missing from them that I do get from other roasters. Like this Hayes Valley blend, which I believe is their chocolate blend, and it's a good one as the best way that I can describe it is like having a dark chocolate hot cocoa with chili powder. However, it seems like something is missing to it, I can't really describe what I would like to have in it just that it's missing that one thing.

That one thing is what I find in other roasters and am glad that Blue Bottle is here, but I appreciate the other roasters that they have spawned. Are there any big gourmet roasters that you guys are not that fond of?