How Much Coffee Grounds for Espresso – How to Drink Espresso and How Much Coffee Liquid from 20g of Grounds
When brewing coffee, we all know that the coarseness of the grind is very important. If you're not careful and don't find the right grind setting, or the grind is uneven, the coffee can easily be under-extracted or over-extracted. Compared with pour-over, cold brew, and other methods, espresso requires a much finer grind and more precise adjustments to get the taste of the espresso right.
How fine is the grind for espresso?
For the coarseness of pour-over coffee, Front Street uses the Chinese No. 20 standard sieve, which can be calibrated by how much coffee powder passes through a fixed mesh size. But because espresso is a pressurized, short-time extraction, it also means it magnifies everything—the positive flavors are magnified, and the defects are magnified too. So the requirements for the grind are even stricter. The coffee powder is finer than fine salt; the degree of coarseness and evenness simply cannot be observed with the naked eye, and using a sieve is even more unrealistic.
If the grind is slightly too fine, water passes through the coffee bed more slowly, which easily leads to over-extraction. If the grind is slightly too coarse, water passes through the coffee bed easily, which easily leads to under-extraction. Such a deviation might be just 0.1 of a grind setting apart. So we usually judge the suitable coarseness range by observing the flow rate and taste of the espresso during brewing.
Choosing the Right Coffee Beans
In fact, when making espresso, besides getting all the parameters right, Front Street believes that choosing the right coffee beans is also very important, because they are the key to whether the coffee tastes good. If you want to replicate the same espresso from a coffee shop at home, we recommend using Front Street Classic Espresso Blend. This is a recipe combining beans from three origins—Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam—so it has both the caramel aroma of American coffee and the wild character of Asian coffee. To maximize the rich aroma of the coffee and to let everyone easily extract a rich and creamy crema, Front Street Coffee uses a dark roast. It is very suitable whether you're making an Americano diluted with water or a latte with milk. You can place an order at the Front Street Taobao store or the Front Street Tmall flagship store.
How do you first determine the suitable grind range?
When we get a bag of unfamiliar coffee beans, the first thing we need to do to brew a delicious cup is to determine the grind size. If our grinding equipment has never been used and we don't know how to determine the suitable setting range, we can first use a small amount of coffee beans to test at different setting intervals. When the coffee powder is ground to a fineness that feels like flour to the touch, you can feel the coffee powder by hand—soft and fluffy with no grittiness is fine.
At this point we can start extracting using the common espresso formula. Front Street recommends a grounds-to-liquid ratio of 1:2, meaning 1 gram of coffee grounds extracts about 2 grams of coffee liquid, with a time between 20 and 30 seconds. For example, Front Street uses a 20-gram capacity portafilter basket, so it holds 20 grams of coffee grounds and extracts 40 grams of coffee liquid. If the time is less than 20 seconds, it means the flow rate is too fast; when the espresso flow rate exceeds 30 seconds, it indicates the flow rate is too slow.
A fast flow rate means the water passes through the coffee grounds in too little time, and the coffee often tastes weak or sour. In this case, you need to grind finer. Adjusting the grind setting usually relies on experience accumulated in daily practice. If the difference from the target time is less than 5 seconds, you can adjust by 0.2 of a notch each time; if the time difference is too large, you can be bolder and adjust by 0.5–1 notch. Even if it goes from too long to too short, you can still lock in this grind setting range and gradually narrow it down. Similarly, a flow rate that is too slow means the coffee grounds are too fine, making it hard for water to pass through the coffee bed, and the coffee easily tastes bitter, so you need to grind coarser.
How do you find the correct grind setting?
The formula Front Street mentioned above is only to help us quickly find a suitable grind range; it doesn't mean that espresso extracted this way will taste good. In the end, we still need to judge whether the extraction is qualified based on the characteristics and taste of the coffee beans.
If the espresso has an obvious burnt bitterness but the strength is moderate, it may be because the time is too long, causing excessive release of bitter substances, so you can slightly coarsen the grind. If the crema on top of the coffee liquid is lighter in color and thin, it may be that the tail end of the extraction is excessive, so you can reduce the weight of the coffee liquid—that is, extract less. It's recommended to raise the grounds-to-liquid ratio to between 1:1.5 and 1:1.7. When the espresso has relatively rich flavor but a short finish, you can extract a bit more coffee liquid and try adjusting the ratio to 1:2.5.
Finally, the extraction formula is only a reference. If you're boxed in by it, it becomes hard to adjust for good flavor, and in the end you can only keep adjusting the grind setting, wasting coffee beans. The 1:2 ratio is not a golden ratio that perfectly suits this kind of coffee bean; sometimes 1:1.7 tastes good, and sometimes 1:2.5 tastes good. The time also doesn't have to be limited to 25–30 seconds; sometimes 36 seconds or 24 seconds is the state in which this coffee bean tastes good. Front Street is daily shop production, so parameter adjustments are based on accumulated daily experience. If we brew at home in low volumes and it's harder to gauge, Front Street suggests keeping records and summarizing the relationship between extraction parameters and flavor performance, which will help us adjust quickly and save unnecessary waste.
How do you drink espresso?
Before the formal tasting, we'd better take a sip of ice water first. Because the taste of espresso is indeed too concentrated, taking a sip of ice water before the formal tasting can clean the palate, thereby increasing our perception of the coffee's flavors.
After drinking the ice water and rinsing our mouth, we first take out a spoon and stir the espresso! There are two reasons. One is that during the dripping process, the coffee is not at a uniform concentration. We need to stir so the coffee's concentration can be evenly dispersed; otherwise the coffee liquid at the bottom will be very rich while the surface is very thin.
The second is to let the crema blend into the coffee! The reason many friends taste something very bitter when they take a small sip is that the crema contains some fine powder. This fine powder not only makes the coffee bitter but also makes it richer. Stirring not only better blends the crema's advantages perfectly into the coffee liquid, but also disperses the bitterness brought by the fine powder.
Of course, not stirring is also fine—that way you'll have a richer layered experience. But if you're a beginner, Front Street still recommends stirring to reduce the bitter stimulation from the crema.
Then we need to take a big sip, letting the evenly stirred espresso rush into the mouth, filling and coating the tongue. This lets us fully feel the silky touch brought by the crema—very comfortable! If you're not using dark-roasted beans but a light-roasted SOE, then because the beans are roasted lighter, less crema is extracted, and the mouthfeel will be relatively thinner.
Then begin to feel the coffee's finish. After swallowing, we close our mouths and exhale, fully enjoying the flavor that comes back up from the throat, as well as the coffee aroma that keeps blooming in the mouth! Finally, take another sip of clear water to feel the coffee's sweet aftertaste on the taste buds. It's simply too relaxing!!
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
