What Impact Does Rainy Weather Have on Espresso? What Key Steps Should You Pay Attention to When Making Espresso?

What causes baristas to groan frequently early in the morning? And what makes even caffeine-resistant baristas develop caffeine aversion? After FrontStreet Coffee's investigation, we finally found the culprit: damp, rainy weather!

The dry, cold weather hasn't even passed yet, and a series of humid conditions such as foggy, overcast, and rainy days have followed one after another, inevitably creating the illusion that spring has arrived! Among these humid weather conditions, what troubles baristas most is "adjusting espresso." To ensure that coffee tastes consistent every day, early-shift baristas must adjust espresso to correct flavors that have changed after sitting overnight!

Generally, in dry weather, the variation in espresso extraction is relatively small. Even when using the previous day's parameters on the second day, there's a good chance of extracting roughly the same delicious coffee!

However, humid weather is different! Humid weather means the environment will have higher humidity. When environmental humidity is high, coffee beans exposed to air are more susceptible to moisture absorption, which affects extraction! Additionally, the involvement of moisture during grinding can also cause negative factors such as flavor loss.

In addition, there's another factor that increases extraction difficulty: pressure reduction! When we experience humid weather, the coffee machine's pressure is often weakened to some extent. What happens when pressure is insufficient? That's right—extraction capability becomes weaker! When these two factors combine, extraction becomes extremely unstable!

Therefore, when adjusting espresso in humid weather, we must be prepared for a "protracted battle." Those with good luck might adjust quickly, but for the unlucky... it's all-you-can-drink espresso! There are also some details that coffee shops need to pay attention to during rainy weather!

I. Reduce Coffee Bean Moisture Absorption

First, when we're in this type of weather, it's best to keep doors and windows tightly closed to minimize incoming humid air. If conditions permit, you can even turn on the air conditioner's dehumidifying function to expel moisture that has already entered the room. When night falls, there will be a very long period when beans aren't in use, and humidity during this time will be heavier! Therefore, it's best to transfer coffee beans from the bean hopper into bean bags during closing time and seal them tightly to reduce contact with moisture!

Of course, don't forget to clean the bean hopper. After a day of beans interacting with moisture, the oils they produce will remain in the hopper. If not cleaned promptly, over time, these oils will develop distinctive odors! (This includes cleaning the grinder burrs thoroughly as well)

II. Appropriately Adjust Coffee Extraction Parameters

As mentioned earlier, humid weather affects the coffee machine's extraction pressure, and pressure in turn affects espresso extraction! However, many people's coffee machines either have non-adjustable extraction pressure or make adjustments troublesome, so we need to modify other parameters to correct the espresso's flavor!

Due to reduced pressure, if you continue to extract using daily parameters, water will penetrate more slowly due to insufficient pressure, and extraction time will be prolonged! Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests coarser grinding and increasing the dose! The reason we don't recommend finer grinding or reducing dose is to prevent the need for an additional step of breaking up clumps (coffee powder clumping) caused by grinding too finely!

III. Maintain Product Consistency

Humid weather doesn't allow parameters to remain stable for extended periods like dry weather does. Throughout the day, beans continuously change according to the environment! These constantly changing beans make parameters unusable for an entire day. You might have just adjusted parameters that produce a perfectly balanced espresso, but a few hours later, using the same parameters might result in under-extracted or over-extracted espresso!

Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests that friends running shops change the frequency of espresso adjustments from once every half or full day to once every four hours. This is the best way to ensure maximum product consistency!

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FrontStreet Coffee
10 Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473