What Pre-Opening Checks Do Coffee Shops Do Besides Calibrating Espresso? Do Latte and Cold Brew Also Need Taste Testing?

Coffee shops conduct "morning testing" every day before opening. As the name suggests, the main task is to test the taste of coffee to be sold that day. If any deviation is found in the coffee's flavor compared to yesterday, such as the emergence of undesirable flavors, corrections will be made.

Only after the coffee flavor testing is completed does the official business hours begin. However, many friends may wonder: using the same machine, same water, same parameters, and same beans, how could the coffee taste be different? Is this "morning testing" really necessary for coffee shops?

Why Do Coffee Shops Need Morning Testing?

If it's pour-over coffee with controllable variables, daily morning testing is indeed unnecessary to ensure its taste! As long as all brewing parameters remain consistent, the final coffee flavor will have considerable stability. However, for espresso coffee, it's a different story! Although all parameters (not extraction data) are identical to yesterday's, for espresso extraction, parameters cannot guarantee flavor stability! There are two main reasons for this. The first is the impact of coffee bean degassing on extraction!

As we all know, after coffee beans are roasted, abundant carbon dioxide causes them to enter a degassing period that lasts up to two months. During this time, coffee beans continuously release gas, and after a night of gas release, this can easily lead to variables in extraction! For example, originally using 20g of coffee grounds that required 30 seconds to extract 40ml of coffee liquid, after a night of degassing, it might be extracted in 25 seconds the next day. Therefore, the extraction parameters we used yesterday cannot guarantee that equally delicious coffee can be extracted the next day.

But the first variable has a relatively small impact; the main factor is the second one! The second reason is air humidity. Espresso extraction is easily affected by climatic conditions. Daily air humidity changes, especially when the weather is cool or even rainy, show the greatest variation! The environment becomes filled with water molecules, very humid, and with low atmospheric pressure. This causes coffee grounds to clump easily, and during extraction, the coffee machine's pressure is somewhat restricted, making coffee extraction full of instability. Naturally, the coffee flavor cannot be guaranteed to be as delicious as yesterday's! Besides espresso that needs flavor correction, there are other coffees that also need to be tested!

What Else Do Coffee Shops Need to Test Besides Espresso?

Whether a shot of espresso tastes good or not cannot determine its performance in making other espresso-based drinks, because each coffee requires different espresso characteristics! For example, espresso used for making Americanos tends to be preferred for its light mouthfeel and distinct flavor layers; while espresso used for making lattes needs full-bodied flavor and rich texture! The two require completely different types of espresso. Therefore, people often choose the coffee with the highest customer purchase rate to determine the flavor direction of the espresso! And as the universally beloved latte, it plays this important role. So we can know that "latte" is the second espresso-based drink that needs to be tested during morning testing besides espresso.

Besides espresso coffee, there's also a single-origin coffee that needs testing—it's "cold brew coffee!" When first extracted, cold brew needs to ferment in the refrigerator for up to a whole night. The next day, our task is to confirm whether its flavor and concentration are normal after fermentation, and how much ice needs to be added for proper dilution!

Additionally, cold brew coffee can be stored in a refrigerated environment for about 5 days, but refrigeration is not freezing, and there's still a chance of spoilage. Therefore, during this period, we need to test it every morning to ensure its flavor and quality remain unchanged!

In conclusion, morning testing in coffee shops is very necessary! If we're at home, we can certainly do whatever makes us happy. But for coffee shops, morning testing is not only responsible for customers' taste preferences but also a guarantee of food safety!

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FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)

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

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