Does the Portafilter Temperature of an Espresso Machine Affect Espresso Extraction?

Generally, portafilters used for espresso machine extraction are stored in any nearby storage space and only taken out when needed for extraction. At this point, the portafilter is at room temperature. However, until yesterday when FrontStreet Coffee was browsing online, they saw a WBC competition from several years ago where Mr. Wu Zelin used a frozen portafilter to extract espresso. This naturally sparked FrontStreet Coffee's curiosity: Does the temperature of the portafilter affect espresso extraction?

Coincidentally, a friend asked FrontStreet Coffee: "Should portafilters be kept on the espresso machine to stay warm?"

So, driven by FrontStreet Coffee's strong curiosity, they decided to go all out and placed three portafilters separately at room temperature storage, in a low-temperature refrigerator, and on a high-temperature espresso machine. They wanted to see if these three different temperature portafilters could extract espresso with different flavors.

Beans used: "Sunflower · Warm Sunshine Blend" (because it was the only one available at FrontStreet Coffee's shop). Coffee amount: 20g. Extraction liquid weight: 40ml.

Tasting Comparison

The espresso extracted with the room temperature portafilter took 29 seconds, with the espresso temperature at 64°C. It tasted with distinct flavors of butter cookies, vanilla, and chocolate, with a finish carrying some whiskey aroma and a hint of berry sweetness and acidity.

(Couldn't take a photo in time, temperature dropped by 1°C >~) The espresso extracted with the high-temperature portafilter took 30 seconds, with the espresso temperature at 66.5°C. It also had distinct flavors of butter cookies and vanilla, with an overall richer body, and the whiskey aroma in the finish was quite noticeable.

The espresso extracted with the low-temperature portafilter took 28 seconds, with the espresso temperature at 61°C. It was the one with the most obvious berry flavor among the three cups, with slightly increased acidity, followed by regular chocolate and vanilla cream flavors, with the finish also carrying some whiskey aroma.

From this experimental comparison, we can learn that different portafilters will extract espresso with different taste experiences, and the key difference lies in the different heat conduction of the portafilters, resulting in espresso at different final temperatures. The temperature differences lead to our varying perceptions of taste. Therefore, espresso extracted with frozen portafilters will be more acidic, with fuller fruit flavors! Meanwhile, espresso extracted with portafilters that have been "baked" at high temperatures will have a richer body - this is the different experience brought by temperature!

Because none of these cups extracted negative flavors, only with slight differences in perception levels, FrontStreet Coffee believes that these different espresso experiences will each find their appropriate uses. However, for frozen portafilters, achieving mass production in coffee shops seems unlikely! If you need to freeze a portafilter for every cup made, how many portafilters would you need to prepare! The key issue is that within seconds of taking it out from the refrigerator, the portafilter will start to fog up, produce water droplets, and容易出现较多的不稳定性. Therefore, if you want to get slightly lower temperature espresso, we can also lower the espresso temperature through external means (such as stainless steel ice balls), not necessarily using frozen portafilters.

Back to the main question: Does portafilter temperature affect extraction? Obviously, it does! While we can't rule out other factors (such as tamping pressure, ground coffee condition, etc.) that might affect extraction, from the perspective of espresso temperature, the portafilter temperature truly affected the final extracted espresso!

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FrontStreet Coffee

No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

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Tel:020 38364473