Latte Espresso Ratios & Coffee Bean Selection | Common Milk Frothing Issues

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The Significance of Espresso Coffee

Espresso coffee has epoch-making significance in world coffee history. It was precisely the emergence of espresso coffee that gave birth to various espresso-based coffees, such as latte, cappuccino, flat white, etc. They are all different proportional combinations of espresso coffee and milk. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will guide you through understanding the making of espresso coffee.

The taste of espresso coffee extracted using an espresso machine is very bitter, so few people like it, and even fewer people order it in coffee shops. The vast majority of people still prefer to order milk coffees like cappuccino and latte.

The Core of Espresso Coffee

The core of espresso coffee is the concentrated coffee made by espresso machines under high temperature and pressure, and the prerequisite for making concentrated coffee is selecting suitable espresso beans. Generally, espresso beans are different from pour-over coffee beans, because pour-over coffee has a lighter roast degree. FrontStreet Coffee's pour-over coffee beans come from more than 50 producing regions, and they are all medium-light roasted for pour-over, except for special beans that use medium-dark roast. However, lightly roasted coffee is not suitable for making espresso coffee. The deeper the roast of the beans, the more concentrated the extracted espresso coffee will be, while lighter roasted beans will produce more acidic coffee. Therefore, to make a delicious espresso coffee, you need to choose a suitable bean.

FrontStreet Coffee currently uses its own house-roasted Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend, which is a combination of Honduras Sherry coffee and Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee in a 6:4 ratio. When you take a sip, the acidity of citrus and berries immediately emerges, with a whiskey aroma, and the aftertaste is dark chocolate.

FrontStreet Coffee's Bean Selections

In addition to this bean, there are three other beans with different flavors. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Basic Blend: uses coffee beans that have been popular in recent years - Yunnan coffee beans paired with Brazilian beans, blended in a 3:7 ratio. The resulting espresso has soft fruit acidity, caramel sweetness, nut and dark chocolate flavors, and is smooth and viscous, but the taste is on the lighter side.

FrontStreet Coffee's Specialty Blend: uses Colombia and Brazil in a 3:7 ratio, producing espresso that is softly acidic, lightly sweet, with nutty aftertaste. The overall feeling is not too stimulating, peaceful, with medium crema.

There is also this commercial blend, where FrontStreet Coffee adds appropriate amounts of Robusta coffee beans to increase crema during blending. The formula is Colombia: Brazil: Robusta = 3:6:1. The extracted espresso has caramel sweetness, nut and cocoa flavors, dark chocolate taste, balanced sweet and sour, with a slight bitterness, and a lasting aftertaste.

The Art of Coffee Blending

Have you noticed that FrontStreet Coffee uses beans from different producing countries when roasting this espresso bean? This is because espresso machines used for extraction have a problem - they amplify certain characteristics of coffee beans. For example, using Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee beans for extraction results in a very sharp acidic espresso. Even when paired with milk, the resulting milk coffee won't taste good. This is why FrontStreet Coffee added Honduras Sherry when blending this Sunflower Warm Sunshine coffee bean.

FrontStreet Coffee's blending purpose is to utilize the characteristics of each coffee bean to create a balanced espresso blend. Therefore, when purchasing beans, you can start from this aspect. After selecting the right espresso beans, the next consideration is milk.

FrontStreet Coffee generally chooses whole milk to make milk foam and refrigerates it before use. Whole milk contains fat and protein that not only enhance flavor but also make the foam more stable, better for frothing and creating smooth microfoam.

The Art of Milk Frothing

When frothing milk, first pour the milk into the pitcher, with the liquid level not exceeding half the pitcher - preferably between 1/3 and 2/3 full. Bring the pitcher close to the steam wand until it's just submerged in the liquid surface, with the entry point slightly off-center from the liquid surface. Open the steam valve and listen to the hissing sound of the steam. After getting enough fine microfoam, slowly lower the pitcher. When the pitcher becomes too hot to touch, the temperature should have reached 60-65°C, or you can touch the bottom of the pitcher - at this temperature, you shouldn't be able to hold it for more than 3 seconds, which means frothing is complete. The surface of properly frothed milk should have fine, dense, glossy foam without large bubbles. Unsuccessful milk foam has large bubbles, insufficient volume, and less foam, making it difficult to form shapes when blending with espresso for latte art. But don't be discouraged - after all, milk frothing is a technical skill that improves with practice.

Making the Perfect Latte

When both espresso and milk foam are ready, you can make latte coffee! FrontStreet Coffee uses the Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend just introduced to everyone, using 20 grams of coffee powder to extract 40 grams of coffee liquid, with an extraction time of approximately 28 seconds. Below are the parameters FrontStreet Coffee has calibrated based on its espresso machine's characteristics:

Pressure: 9 bar ± 2
Temperature: 90.5-96°C
Time: 20-30 sec
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:1.7-1:2
Dose: 12g (single shot) 20g (double shot)
Extraction yield: 20ml (single) 40ml (double)

Then blend the extracted espresso according to the latte coffee ratio of 1:6.5 coffee to milk, which is 40ml espresso: 260ml hot milk, to make a cup of latte coffee. Cappuccino can also be made using the above method, just make the milk foam slightly thicker than for latte. The hot latte made using FrontStreet Coffee's method has whiskey aroma and milk-like subtle sweetness, with a nutty aftertaste like hazelnut.

Troubleshooting and Final Thoughts

If your latte tastes bitter, it might be because the coffee beans you chose are too darkly roasted. Espresso extracted from darker roasted beans will overpower the milk's flavor, so a quality coffee bean determines the flavor of an espresso coffee. Another reason is over-extraction, because over-extraction easily makes bitterness more prominent, so you need to improve your espresso extraction technique and related parameter settings.

The above is the simple process of making espresso coffee. Making a latte requires every barista's careful attention to ensure that every cup of espresso coffee produced is fragrant and delicious, allowing everyone to experience the charm of coffee.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473