Dan, I do wonder which Cafe/Coffee place in Melbourne you visited that didn't satisfy your coffee demands? 😉 I'm half way in between going pro rating the Top 5 coffees in Melbourne or anywhere for that matter, or just giving a Top 5 list. My concerns are as follows: 1) From my point of view, I find that the Top 5's in both Melb and Sydney had enough differences to warrant having them separated by a ranking or score. Clearly, some were better than the others. Although each day or each visit might produce variances in performances, not to mention sometimes a particular gun barista might have a day off (or training for championships), I'm sure the majority of us coffee freaks visit the venues enough times, during a particular period, to be able to judge them on an overall basis. Afterall it ain't a once off experience... or... judgment. A top notch coffee venue should be consistent enough to take into consideration the discrepancies? 2) I actually find that overall, on this forum, the level of expertise of forumers are so high that most coffees are rated and slightly biasedly based on the Espresso/Ristretto experiences - If I'm not incorrect? Relative to say some other people or books who might review them in a slightly different light. I think if I were to review coffees as SB/Rist or Milk based coffees, I might rank the venues slightly differently. Besides, a lot of readers/customers do enjoy and order milk coffees too. It depends on the audience. 3) I sincerely feel that only a Top 5 coffees rating might not be enough. In Melbourne for example, there are certainly more than 5 cafes that offer a near-perfect experience at any one time. I could count 7-8 and it is still growing. This is probably slightly contradictory to no.(1) mentioned above. In reality if a score was given to each venue say out of 100 (Robert Parker Jr style... arr hemm), then its possible a few of them will score equally or some might be better than others. The top scorers will be within the Top 5 finalists but not necessarily mean being ranked no.3 is better than no.4, as long as their scores are equal, whereas no.1 coffee will almost definitely have a higher score? Gets too confusing somehow. :-?
