Is It Necessary to Warm Your Coffee Cup? What's the Purpose of Preheating Your Coffee Mug?

Is Warming Cups Essential for Coffee?

Warming cups is a subtle step in the coffee-making process. Some consider this step crucial, affecting the flavor of the entire cup of coffee, while others believe it's optional and unnecessary. So, is warming cups optional or essential for coffee?

For Espresso-Based Coffee

For espresso-based coffee, warming cups is essential. Because common espresso drinks like espresso, hot latte, and cappuccino have a characteristic - they taste delicious when hot, but their flavor and texture become less enjoyable as they cool down, and become quite unpleasant when cold. Therefore, heat preservation is very important for espresso-based coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee uses a split portafilter to extract two shots of espresso, with one shot served in a warmed cup and the other in a room temperature cup. After 2 minutes, there were no visible differences on the surface of either coffee, but when tasting, the coffee in the warmed cup was still hot with good flavor and texture; the coffee in the room temperature cup had already cooled down, developed sourness, and had slight deficiencies in texture.

Coffee cups used for hot lattes and cappuccinos are typically thick-walled ceramic cups, as these hot milk drinks require even better heat preservation.

The milk frothing temperature for making milk drinks is generally controlled between 55-65 degrees (too high would cause protein denaturation); therefore, the finished milk drink temperature is approximately 60 degrees. If the ceramic cup hasn't been warmed, the cup itself will absorb some of the coffee's heat, causing the milk drink's temperature to be lower, making the lactose sweetness less noticeable.

Furthermore, faster cooling accelerates the separation and breakdown of milk foam, affecting the texture.

Italians place great importance on warming cups. Basically, all semi-automatic coffee machines made in Italy are equipped with a cup warming area - stacking coffee cups on top of the coffee machine to utilize the heat emitted from the boiler for warming.

For Pour-Over Coffee

For pour-over coffee, however, warming cups is not essential and more often depends on the situation. Pour-over coffee differs from espresso-based coffee (milk drinks) in two ways: first, pour-over coffee can be enjoyed at high, medium, and low temperatures to appreciate its flavors; second, freshly brewed pour-over coffee has a temperature of over 70 degrees, which is quite high.

Taking FrontStreet Coffee's serving as an example, FrontStreet Coffee preheats the sharing pots when brewing coffee, so the brewed coffee is quite hot. When customers are sitting at the bar, FrontStreet Coffee uses small cups without warming them, so that the high-temperature coffee poured into the cups reaches just the right temperature for immediate drinking, preventing customers from getting burned.

When using bone china cups, FrontStreet Coffee pre-warms them with hot water, mainly because bone china cups have wider openings and dissipate heat more quickly, and heat is also lost during the process of pouring all the coffee into the cup, so heat preservation remains the priority.

Some friends have also shared their experiences. He used to be very particular about warming cups, often finding that freshly brewed coffee poured into cups was too hot to drink, requiring a wait of one or two minutes before taking the first sip. Later, he changed his approach and now pours freshly brewed coffee directly into room temperature cups, allowing him to take a sip immediately without losing too much temperature.

Conclusion

Therefore, for pour-over coffee, warming cups is not essential; it's more about considering the actual situation and needs.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473