Many people spend dozens of yuan on an espresso at a café, yet they may not be clear whether what they're drinking is specialty coffee or "dishwater." Espresso is the base of all Italian-style coffee, and its quality directly determines the success or failure of a cappuccino or latte. This article will systematically explain the hard requirements for a perfect Espresso, key points for identification, and tasting methods, including freshness, grinding, tamping, extraction time, and crema thickness, while also addressing common misconceptions about caffeine content. At the end, product recommendations from the "Front Street" brand are retained, making it suitable for every enthusiast who wants to truly understand coffee.
ESPRESSO Quality
What is coffee? It is both a beverage and a vehicle for taste and the details of life.
When you spend dozens of yuan sitting in a café enjoying a cup of coffee packaged in all kinds of cultural concepts, have you ever seriously thought about whether what you're drinking is actually a qualified good cup of coffee? Or is it that you've spent quite a bit of money, yet what touches your lips is just "dishwater," leaving you with the impression that coffee is bitter, hard to drink, and keeps you awake. If so, that is truly a pity—you may have been paying for a cup of substandard coffee all along. Since you've paid, you have every reason to drink coffee that is worth the money and performs perfectly.
So what exactly is good coffee like? How can you use simple methods to judge and taste a cup of coffee bought in a café for dozens of yuan? This article will provide some concise standards to help you identify the Italian coffee that is becoming increasingly popular in China.
Several classic types of Italian coffee include: Espresso, Cappuccino, Moka, Latte, and so on. All these Italian-style coffees are built on the same base, which is the essence of Italian coffee—Espresso. This article focuses on how to understand and identify this essence of Italian coffee.
1. A perfect Espresso is truly hard-won
To make an excellent Espresso, whether for a home coffee enthusiast or a seasoned Barista in a café, it is considered one of the most challenging "activities." A perfect espresso is like a well-recorded album, a combination of art (the maker's skill) and technology (the design of the coffee machine). I often tell customers that extracting a perfect Espresso is like playing the piano—after you have a prestigious coffee machine (the piano), it still takes someone who understands coffee (understands music) to operate it (play it) before you can make perfect coffee (a melody that touches the heart).
Dr. A. Illy mentions in the book "Espresso Coffee: The Chemistry of Quality" (Academic Press, October 1995, ISBN: 012370670X) that after extensive experimentation, his definition of making superior Espresso is: using 7 grams of freshly ground coffee powder, with water at about 91°C and 9Bar pressure, extracting a cup of about 30ml of coffee in about 25 seconds, with the surface covered by a layer of reddish-brown foam (Crema). These "indicators" are now basically widely recognized. They sound like quantified conditions, as if there are no special requirements, but actually achieving them is not easy. The reason is that, aside from the machine and the person, coffee beans themselves are a natural product; the best expression of each variety, each harvest, and each blend may not necessarily align with what Dr. Illy wrote in his book or any single indicator in terms of grinding, water temperature, and tamping, and it also requires the maker's experience and continuous experimentation to determine. Meanwhile, domestic coffee materials are very limited, and the educational level of coffee bar staff, especially their foreign language level, is generally not high, making it difficult for them to read excellent foreign materials, so the knowledge and skill levels of domestic baristas are also quite uneven.
To extract a perfect Espresso, at least the following hard requirements must be met:
Fresh coffee beans: Freshness is the absolute rule. Famous-brand beans are certainly famous, but stale famous-brand beans will just as unceremoniously lose their aroma. As far as Espresso is concerned, coffee extracted from stale coffee beans will be severely affected in viscosity, Crema thickness, and color, and the taste will be greatly reduced. Our experience is to require coffee roasters to package in small portions, strictly seal opened coffee beans, and store them away from light at low temperature. We absolutely do not use coffee beans opened for more than seven days, to ensure the perfection of every cup of coffee.
Strictly freshly ground coffee powder: Espresso has strict requirements for grind coarseness, and once coffee is ground into powder, it can preserve its flavor for no more than one hour at most. So if you go to a café, order coffee, and do not hear the sound of grinding beans, then it is very likely that what you will drink is an imperfect cup of coffee.
Accurate and level dosing and tamping: Use a standard amount of coffee powder. In international industry experience, it is generally believed that when extracting Espresso, extracting two cups at the same time produces more perfect quality than extracting one cup alone. Tamping coffee powder needs to be level and smooth, and the force of tamping must be consistent (at 30-50 pounds), with proper tamping methods and techniques.
Unfortunately, in a recent Chengdu coffee competition, for the key skill of tamping, the vast majority of baristas made elementary mistakes. I saw many baristas tamp before the coffee powder was even level; leaving aside whether their tamping force was correct, the direction and levelness of the tamp alone could not be guaranteed at all. Why are levelness and accurate force so important? Because the espresso extraction process must withstand water pressure passing through at 9Bar, so level, smooth, and even tamping is the prerequisite for extracting a perfect Espresso. In modern espresso extraction, many key stages can be completed by expensive coffee machines, so for today's baristas, the greatest test of skill is also reflected in dosing and tamping. But unfortunately, many baristas do it very roughly. There are also many tamping schools and innovations internationally, and I personally prefer and use George Sabados's Dosing up technique.
Strict extraction time and volume: The beauty of concentration. When it comes to Espresso, many people probably mistakenly think that the more the better, but in fact this is not the case. I have seen many counter staff holding a large 4-ounce cup (sometimes an even larger cup) to catch Espresso, stopping extraction only when the cup is full. The correct extraction volume should be between 1-1.25 ounces. In addition, if you want to make a Double or Ristretto, please use an ounce measuring cup to measure the correct extraction volume.
The most basic time for brewing a Single Espresso should be controlled between 20-30 seconds (I tend to think that extracting about 1 ounce in 25 seconds is the best expression).
A standard double espresso is made from 14-17 grams of coffee, using pure water at 88-95°C, at 9-10 atmospheres of pressure, extracted over 22-28 seconds to produce 47-62.5 milliliters (1.5-2 ounces). Espresso flows out of the filter spout like warm honey, with an ochre-red color, in which crema accounts for 10-30% of all components.
2. Identification points of a perfect Espresso
Look at the volume: The standard volume of a perfect Single Espresso is one ounce of coffee essence extracted in 25 seconds.
Look at the appearance Crema: A perfect Italian espresso always has a thick, reddish-brown crema on the surface. Crema is the proteins, oils, and other aromatic components in coffee extracted under high pressure, and it is the essence of concentrated coffee. For a perfect espresso, the thickness of the perfect crema should reach at least 4mm or more, and a gentle blow cannot break it. Under correct operation, if it becomes golden yellow or even white, it means the coffee has been left too long and is expired; if we can restate the period for drinking after roasting, it is one week under good preservation. The crema floating on the surface can also help judge the condition of espresso operation. If the color is somewhat pale yellow or white and the amount is very small, and the coffee flows out too quickly, this indicates that the extraction pressure is too low and the extraction is insufficient, requiring finer grinding and tighter, more even tamping to increase the resistance of the coffee puck. If the color is too dark, the flow is incoherent, or it even drips, this indicates that the extraction resistance is too great, the pressure is too high, and the extraction is excessive; but for the entire puck it is under-extracted, caused by the powder being too fine, too tight, or too much.
Smell: A perfect espresso should have a pleasant aroma, and absolutely should not have a burnt smell. If there is a burnt smell, then unfortunately, what you are drinking is an over-extracted espresso.
Taste: A perfect espresso should taste thick, and the mouthfeel should not be simply bitter; it may have bitterness but combines aroma or acidity, which is mainly related to the coffee bean blend.
3. How to taste a cup of Espresso
Espresso is the most aromatic and concentrated coffee in the world. Before tasting, you need to drink a cup of water to freshen your mouth. The basic tasting method is to smell first; the aroma of espresso is intense and fascinating, and you should immerse yourself in it properly. Then comes tasting. There are many schools of Espresso tasting, and of course this can be determined according to personal preference. Basically there are two kinds: one is to drink it in one gulp, and the other is to take a small sip first and then drink it all at once. Each tasting method and feeling is different. Basically, drinking it in one gulp lets you taste the overall flavor of espresso, while drinking it in stages lets you taste the layers of espresso flavor. If what you are drinking is a perfect espresso, then you will definitely easily feel its obvious and flamboyant difference from other coffees you have drunk before. A perfect espresso can leave a sweet aftertaste in your mouth for 20-30 minutes after drinking.
4. The most aromatic coffee with the least effect on sleep
Perhaps due to the long-term influence of instant coffee and the development of domestic coffee culture, many people believe that coffee greatly affects sleep. So here I borrow the statements of international authorities to explain the caffeine content of Italian coffee.
The caffeine content in espresso is not higher than other coffee preparations just because the taste is strong. Caffeine is a tasteless, water-soluble white powder with a certain stimulating effect. According to research by coffeeresearch.org, caffeine is not addictive. The caffeine content in espresso is the lowest among all coffee preparations, because during the production process, coffee and water are in contact for the shortest time. The caffeine content of Espresso is about 1/4 that of ordinary single-origin coffee, and 1/8-1/10 that of instant coffee.
Only after having a perfect espresso can we, on the basis of espresso, prepare various coffees that sweep the world, such as Cappuccino, Moka, and Latte.
One final note:
The machine is not the most important key to good espresso!!! The person operating the machine is!!! We call the expert who operates the espresso machine a barista.
What is the secret to becoming an excellent barista?? The answer is: pay attention to the relationship between all details (parameters) and the coffee in your mouth, and try to control all details, striving to obtain the best result.
Front Street Coffee recommendation: For friends who want to consistently extract a qualified Espresso at home, Front Street suggests choosing freshly roasted beans in small-portion packaging, strictly sealing them after opening and storing them away from light at low temperature, and trying to use them within seven days; at the same time, equip yourself with an espresso grinder that grinds evenly and a coffee machine that can provide stable 9Bar pressure, so as to better reproduce the extraction standard advocated by Front Street.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
