How to Train for Espresso? A Complete Guide to Making Espresso from Coffee Bean to Coffee Machine Selection

Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

Understanding Espresso: A Complete Guide

Espresso is extracted using hot water and pressure. The fresher the coffee bean roast, the more crema it produces. However, if the beans are too fresh, gases produced during roasting dissolve in the water, which can result in a sharp bitter taste or astringency. If you drink it without stirring, the water-soluble and fat-soluble components will separate, making the taste less smooth.

1. Why is a Spoon Provided?

When you order an espresso in a professional coffee shop, it usually comes with a spoon, sugar, and water.

Espresso is extracted using hot water and pressure, so in addition to water-soluble components, it also extracts some fat-soluble components. Water-soluble components are heavier, so they settle at the bottom as coffee liquid, while fat-soluble components float on top as foam. This foam-like component is crema, which contains many elements that influence aroma, consistency, and texture. The water-soluble components at the bottom are primarily substances that allow the tongue to perceive taste.

Simply put, crema is responsible for the aroma, while the extracted liquid is responsible for the flavor.

If you drink it without stirring, the water-soluble and fat-soluble components will be separated. By stirring or shaking to mix the espresso components before drinking, you can experience rich and harmonious flavors and aromas. Therefore, espresso is always served with a spoon.

2. Should Sugar Be Added to Espresso?

Whether to add sugar to espresso is a matter of personal preference. However, adding sugar to rich crema and watching it slowly sink while imagining the rich flavor of the coffee is also a blissful experience.

Sugar can also be used to judge the richness of crema: carefully place a spoonful of sugar on the crema without breaking it. If the sugar starts to get wet from the edges and slowly sinks after staying for 2-3 seconds, it indicates that the crema is rich and has strong support. Rich and supportive crema makes for better latte art.

Since sugar can mask the bitterness of coffee, the sourness that was originally masked by bitterness becomes prominent as the bitterness decreases, making the coffee's impression more vivid. Moreover, sugar can make the coffee's texture milder and can be considered an excellent companion to coffee.

Adding a spoonful of white sugar to hot espresso and drinking while stirring—this is the most traditional Italian way of drinking espresso.

3. Is More Crema Better?

The thickness and duration of crema are closely related to the freshness of the coffee. The richer it is, the fresher the coffee might be; the more gas content produced during coffee bean roasting, the more crema will appear.

When you extract coffee that has been roasted recently, you'll find that it produces extremely rich crema, but unfortunately, it also disappears relatively quickly. When tasting this coffee, the sensation on your tongue will be similar to drinking carbonated beverages. Since the gases produced during roasting dissolve in the water, it can result in a sharp bitter taste or astringency.

From this, we can see that even fresh coffee is not necessarily good coffee; you still need to take care to properly age the beans.

Depending on the degree of roast, the aging time for coffee beans varies. Store coffee in a state isolated from light and oxygen for at least 3-4 days or even a week or more, allowing the gases produced during roasting to naturally escape from inside the coffee beans. Using such coffee beans will make good coffee with beautiful crema.

In a stable state after extraction, when the crema is about 3-5mm thick, it's in the optimal condition.

4. Must Espresso Use Blended Beans?

Espresso is just one of the coffee extraction methods. No matter what kind of coffee beans you use, as long as it's made with an espresso machine, it can be called espresso. As long as it has good flavor, whether it's single-origin or blended coffee, light roast or dark roast, it's all acceptable. There are no strict rules about what kind of coffee must be used.

Espresso machines have optimal extraction conditions, so regardless of what coffee you use, you can achieve the best extraction. However, so-called "good extraction" not only maximizes the extraction of good components from coffee; similarly, bad flavors are also maximally extracted, so this must be noted.

Therefore, you must use good beans without defects in your ingredients. If the coffee beans themselves have defects, as mentioned earlier, those defects will also be extracted in large quantities and amplified to an unbearable degree.

However, all coffee has advantages accompanied by disadvantages. Therefore, compared to using only single-origin coffee for espresso, various single-origin beans are often mixed to complement each other for richness and balance, creating blended beans for use.

Espresso originated in Italy, where it means "especially fast" in Italian. Through steam pressure, coffee liquid is extracted instantly. This method can maintain coffee oils for a long time, creating a mellow and thick flavor with balanced acidity and bitterness, thus被称为 the art of coffee. Additionally, espresso often serves as the base for other coffee types, such as lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, and mochas, all made with espresso as the base.

Selecting Espresso Beans

Espresso is made by blending multiple coffee beans, such as Kenya, Mandheling, Mocha, Brazil, Colombia, etc., which are often used as base beans for blending. Different varieties and origins of beans, combined with different roasting times, naturally create unique textures and aromas when mixed. When selecting coffee beans, the main criterion is whether the post-extraction taste meets personal preferences.

Brewing Espresso at Home: From Coffee Beans to Machine Selection

1. Kenya

Kenyan coffee beans have obvious fruity acidity and a harder texture. Among them, coffee beans with blackcurrant flavor are considered top-grade. Small farm coffee beans are far superior to large farms in quality and production capacity, while large farm quality can only be considered medium. Kenyan beans are classified into seven grades based on particle size and appearance, with the highest being AA or AA+, followed by AB, PB, C, E, TT, and T, but good appearance doesn't necessarily correlate with good taste.

2. Colombia

Belonging to the Arabica variety, Colombian coffee has neutral body thickness with a sweet aroma after roasting. The taste has strong acidity with sweetness and slight bitterness. It's often used in blended coffee, with the highest grade varieties having a sweet potato peel flavor.

3. Mandheling

Produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, it's considered a base bean. When roasted, it has a bitter taste with thick and strong flavor, making it the most commonly used coffee bean in blended coffee.

4. Mocha

Mocha from Ethiopia, Africa, belongs to the Arabica variety and has a unique sweet and sour taste that is charming, with a special chocolate flavor. When roasted, it carries fruit aroma. When mixed in coffee, it can enhance aroma and mellow texture, adding to its uniqueness.

5. Brazil

Belonging to the Arabica variety, its taste is slightly acidic, slightly sweet, slightly bitter with a light aroma. It's a neutral-tasting coffee bean without strong special flavors, making it very suitable for both single-origin drinking or mixing with other coffees.

Standards for Good Coffee

A good espresso can be judged from the appearance and color of its crema. First, the crema should ideally have a mirror-like oily shine (another opinion is tiger stripes, but if there's too little coffee powder causing over-extraction, white spots will appear), and its thickness should be around 3mm. The extraction amount for one cup depends on the cup capacity, with 25-35ml being the optimal range. It's best to finish it within two sips to maintain fresh flavor. Italians usually visit a coffee shop before work in the morning for an espresso, drinking it on the spot without even needing time to sit down.

Coffee Cups Are Also Important

Additionally, many people overlook the importance of coffee cups, but when you've brewed a perfect espresso, the design of the cup you serve it in is also important, affecting both mouthfeel and heat retention.

Italians naturally only use their index finger and thumb to elegantly hold the coffee cup handle, instantly creating a leisurely coffee-drinking atmosphere. The solid thickness design of the coffee cup rim also differs greatly from ordinary coffee cups, perfectly allowing the lips to fully receive each sip of fragrant coffee without spillage. As for the size of the coffee cup opening, it's just right to cover the nose when drinking, fully satisfying the sense of smell with rich coffee aroma.

▲ Fancy coffees like cappuccinos are all variations of espresso. Good espresso can be judged from the color of the crema on top, which should have a mirror-like oily shine without white spots.

The 4 M's of Brewing Good Espresso

To brew good espresso, Italians have summarized four important elements, which are also called the 4 M's of espresso by general coffee enthusiasts:

Mano

The barista, meaning the craft of the maker. This is naturally the most important part. The maker must understand coffee and continuously research and study to make coffee brewing an art.

Macinazione

The grind size of coffee beans. If the coffee powder is too fine, it will cause hot water to stay in the filter for too long, making the brewed coffee more bitter. Conversely, if the coffee powder is too coarse, it will make the hot water flow too quickly, resulting in weaker coffee flavor.

Miscela

The coffee bean formula. Espresso uses coffee beans mixed in different proportions. Italians believe this is the only way to create uniquely flavored coffee. As for the formula and proportions, they depend on the maker's skill and preferences.

Macchina

The espresso machine, which can be divided into commercial and household types. The main differences are the mechanism for generating steam pressure and the design method for controlling brewing time, with semi-automatic and fully automatic distinctions.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473