Blenz at Megamall (A Coffee Shop review)

Disappointing, and not because this isn’t a paid review. Wanna know why?

Blenz Coffee from the outside

When I saw Blenz a few months ago I said to myself “This place serves serious coffee”. Why? I don’t know, it might be because of its ambiance, or maybe because of their state of the art espresso machine, or maybe because it came from Canada, home of famed barista Sammy Picollo. I didn’t have money then so I made a promise to myself that I’d comeback one day to try their “coffee”.

That day came when I successfully tricked my wife into thinking it was Fathers Day (hehehe, I was one week advance). So we went to Megamall and the first thing she asked me when we got there was “Where do you want to drink coffee?” (that’s my wife!) I remembered Blenz, so off we went. The first thing I noticed when we got there was it didn’t smell of freshly roasted coffee, hmmmm, weird. Canadians to my knowledge are coffee lovers, and would want the freshest coffee they could get their hands on, so I was hoping that Blenz would be the same. I thought to myself, “It’s either their exhaust system was working at max or their coffee isn’t fresh. Oh well, only one way to find out, I didn’t just come here to smell their coffee right? Let’s order. This now brings us to the quality of their service. I don’t know if it was that “period” of the month (because they were all ladies) but no one was smiling! That bothered me a lot because when I worked as a waiter before, I made it a point to smile (or pretend to) whenever I faced a customer. So I ordered a Doppio (double espresso) and my wife got a “Cappachillo”. The lady at the counter just took my order without even looking at me, well, actually she did, once, when she double checked if I was sure it was a double espresso I’m ordering (with a “Are you crazy?” look in her eyes). Don’t underestimate me lady. So I paid and we waited outside. It struck me that although she took my name, she never bothered to ask where I will be sitting. My experience with coffee shops before was that they will ask where you’d be sitting so that they’d know where to find you. Makes sense? So I went inside a couple of times to check if my order was there and nobody even bothered to offer me that they’d just send over the drink to our table. Maybe that was just how they operated, maybe not. So I waited outside until I saw on the counter what looked like my order. So in I went. It was indeed our order and I think nobody planned to deliver it to us at all. Don’t they know that espresso should be served imediately? Oh well, service is just part of the whole experience, let’s try their coffee.

Doppio and Cappachillo at the back

Let’s start with the “Cappachillo”.

For something they advertise as amazing, it actually sucked. It lacked the sweetness one would normally expect from a blended drink. I’ve made and tasted a lot of blended drinks in my time and they never tasted this plain. Were they hoping that the ice cream they put in the drink be enough to give it its needed sugar? I think not. I think somebody just forgot to put sugar syrup in the drink. Tsk, tsk, tsk. The only thing I found good with the drink is that you could actually taste the espresso in the drink, but then again, it might be because of the lack of sugar. Needless to say I finished the drink later on because my wife wouldn’t drink it.

Let’s now go to the Doppio.

I happened to see the lady barista do two espresso based drinks before my order so I pretty much got the idea of their technique (for all you reading out there who do not care how espresso is made skip this part). She always did a single tamp, which was odd for me. I always tamp twice with the right amount of pressure which made sure that the coffee grounds were compact. Tamping once might be a new practice which is effective so if anyone out there is reading this and does the same please enlighten me. Next was she did around a 3 second flush before inserting the portafilter to the grouphead rather violently for my standards. As I expected, the moment she hit the button the espresso came rushing out, this is not looking good. Let’s check out the Doppio.

Doppio up close

Visual: The crema was caramel in color, near perfection, none of the tiger flecking I was hoping to see but better than most coffee shops here in the Philippines serve. The crema was rather thin though, not enough to pass the test of sprinkling sugar on top and not sinking. But the presence of crema does not guarantee anything.  

Doppio crema broken

Aroma: The aroma was ok, you could definitely smell some caramelized sugar and very little to no burnt aroma, but very citrusy. They say that aroma and taste are closely associated so I think I’m in for a “citrusy” espresso.

Taste: When I say citrusy I meant acidic or sour. And man was it sour! Espresso being bitter is something I hear often but sour? I’ve had Doppios before and there was acidity which is normal but not this much! This is a sure sign of under extraction. I forced myself to finish the drink.  

After Taste: Still sour.

Conclusion.

Straight espresso is after all difficult to make well, and even more so to make consistently. I’d still go back and give it one more try. Maybe they’d do better the second time around and maintain it from there; but if it’s the same then there definitely won’t be a third. Mahal ng drinks nyo noh!