How Does Lungo Compare to a Long Black?

Lungo is an espresso-family drink pulled on an espresso machine with no added ingredients. Where a standard espresso uses 20g of grounds to yield about 40ml, a Lungo extends the extraction to roughly 100ml, so concentration drops and bitterness rises. It is not the same drink as a Long Black, which is espresso poured over water.

The Long Black is defined by its order of assembly: espresso goes into the cup first, then water. An Americano reverses that, adding water before the espresso, and uses more water, so a Long Black tastes stronger. Lungo instead stretches extraction time, a holdover from early machines running at only 1.5 to 3 bar.

Many coffee lovers are still unfamiliar with Lungo, and some even confuse it with Long Black. In fact, Lungo, like Ristretto, belongs to the espresso family—both are made directly with an espresso machine without adding any other ingredients. The difference lies in the amount of extracted liquid: a standard espresso uses 20g of grounds to extract about 40ml, Ristretto reduces the liquid to about 30ml to increase concentration, while Lungo extends the extraction time and raises the liquid to about 100ml, with concentration dropping accordingly. Lungo was born in an era when early espresso machines had only 1.5~3 bar of pressure, and extending the extraction was the only way to compensate for the lack of pressure. Today, with greatly improved machine efficiency, traditional Lungo tends to be overly bitter, but by adjusting parameters, a version suited to modern tastes can still be made. In this article, Front Street Coffee will walk you through Lungo's origins, its differences from Long Black and Ristretto, and how to extract a modern, non-bitter Lungo.

From this feedback, it's clear that quite a few friends still lack a clear understanding of Lungo. So today, Front Street Coffee will break down exactly what kind of coffee Lungo is~

Long Black

That coffee whose preparation order differs from Americano is actually Long Black. Its most widely known characteristic is that the order of adding espresso and water differs from Americano: pouring espresso first, then adding water makes a Long Black; pouring water first, then topping with espresso makes an Americano!

In addition, the two also differ noticeably in concentration. Americano uses more water, while Long Black uses relatively less. Precisely because Long Black has less water added, its coffee concentration is higher.

(Front Street Coffee has previously covered Long Black in detail, so we won't elaborate here; interested readers can click to read: "What Is Australian Black?")

Lungo, however, is a completely different matter!

What Is Lungo?

Although its preparation differs from traditional espresso, Lungo, like Ristretto, belongs to the espresso family. The reason is that both are products made directly by an espresso machine, with no additional ingredients added.

If we say that traditional espresso moderately extracts the substances in coffee

(taking 20g of grounds as an example, about 40ml of coffee liquid is extracted)

, then

Ristretto limits the total amount of extracted substances; with the same dose of grounds, the resulting liquid is less, and the concentration is therefore higher

(taking 20g of grounds as an example, about 30ml of coffee liquid is extracted)

! And

Lungo, by extending the extraction time, obtains more coffee liquid; with the same dose of grounds, the extracted liquid increases substantially, and the concentration decreases accordingly

(taking 20g of grounds as an example, about 100ml of coffee liquid is extracted)

.

Looking at it today, Lungo's extraction approach is clearly hard to accept. Espresso machines already extract so efficiently

—and you'd still extract five times the dose of grounds in liquid? How could that not be bitter?

"Of course it'll be bitter! If you extract everything from the coffee beans, the fully released bitter compounds will surely make you put on a mask of agony!"

However, in the era when espresso machines had just been invented, this approach was actually the most reasonable choice.

As we know, early espresso machines did not have the high pressure of today; pressure could only reach 1.5 bar~3 bar. With such low pressure, it was clearly impossible to fully extract the flavor substances from the coffee in a short time. Therefore, to increase the extraction yield, people had to find another way. At the time, people chose to extend the extraction time, using a large amount of hot water to bring out the flavor substances in the coffee. The result is not hard to imagine: the extracted coffee was low in concentration and bitter! But at least the extraction yield met the standard! Moreover, diluted by the large volume of liquid, the taste of the espresso was still considered decent by people at the time

(by the standards of that time)

.

As times developed, coffee machines kept upgrading and became more and more efficient, so people no longer had to rely on long extraction times to obtain an espresso with a suitable extraction yield

.

Yet this extraction method (long extraction) did not disappear! To distinguish it from today's espresso

,

people gave it the name "Lungo"! In Italian, Lungo means "long, extended." It's easy to understand: Lungo is defined as the elongated version of espresso!

However, due to limited applicable scenarios, Lungo has not been widely used. Precisely because of this, it was gradually forgotten, which is why many friends online today can't tell Long Black and Lungo apart. If you directly copy current extraction parameters to make Lungo, it will definitely be too bitter to drink. But espresso is changing, and people's tastes are changing too. Of course, we can also "iterate" on Lungo—by adjusting parameters, we can make a non-bitter Lungo that better suits modern palates!

How to Extract a "Modern Lungo"?

Actually, it's simple: since today's long, highly efficient extraction causes over-extraction, we just need to lower its extraction efficiency, and then we can ensure that even after a long extraction, this coffee won't be over-extracted!

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.