Can Drip Bags Make Lattes? How to Make Milk Coffee with Drip Bags? How to Adjust Extraction Efficiency? What Does Coffee Bean Grind Size Affect?

"When resources are limited, we want to maximize the value of what we have available to meet our needs. If conditions aren't favorable, then create them! So how can you make a delicious latte using drip coffee bags?" a customer friend asked FrontStreet Coffee...

As we all know, latte is a milk coffee made with espresso as its base! Because the coffee base has extremely high concentration, even with the addition of a large amount of milk, the coffee flavor won't be masked. Likewise, the presence of substantial milk dilutes the bitterness of the coffee, creating a smooth, sweet, and non-bitter beverage that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Therefore, we can understand that milk and high-concentration coffee are two indispensable ingredients for making a sweet and aromatic latte. The former is simple to obtain, but the key challenge lies in the latter! In a broad sense, the base used for lattes comes from pressurized extraction with an espresso machine - what we call espresso. Without relying on an espresso machine, we would still need pressurized extraction equipment like moka pots or hand presses to create similarly high-concentration coffee.

Drip coffee bags can be considered a simplified version of pour-over coffee. For convenience, the coffee beans are pre-ground and sealed in the bags. This eliminates the grinding step when brewing, and because they're compact and easy to carry, drip bags are extremely convenient in all aspects.

The Challenge of Making Milk Coffee with Drip Bags

If you're brewing a delicious black coffee, drip bags can certainly do the job perfectly! The problem arises when trying to make a delicious milk coffee with them... this raises the difficulty significantly!

There are two main challenges. First is the extraction method! Drip bags can only utilize drip and immersion extraction methods, neither of which has extraction efficiency as high as pressurized methods. Second is the grind size - the particle size of coffee grounds has the most critical impact on extraction efficiency! Since drip bags are pre-ground, the manufacturer has already fixed the grind size during production!

This means our extraction will be significantly limited! Not only is the extraction efficiency of our method lower, but we also cannot change the grind! Under these limitations, can we really make a milk coffee as delicious as a latte using drip bags?

Making one identical to a traditional latte is certainly impossible! Under these constraints, producing a coffee with concentration similar to espresso is nearly impossible. Therefore, we need to slightly reduce our expectations for coffee concentration and make a milk coffee that's somewhat close to a latte - that's still achievable!

How to Make Delicious Milk Coffee with Drip Bags

To make a high-concentration coffee, we need to increase the coffee-to-water ratio, reduce the extraction water, and allow more coffee compounds to dissolve in the limited space! This means that besides the grind, water quantity will also be restricted. Drip extraction is obviously impossible since there's too little water. Therefore, we can only use immersion extraction and improve other extraction parameters besides grind and water quantity. The remaining parameters we can enhance are water temperature and time! However, even if we use boiling water for extraction, the temperature will quickly be absorbed by the coffee grounds due to the small water volume. If we want to extract more coffee compounds from the hot water under these conditions, we can only extend the immersion time! Obviously, nobody would want to endure a long wait just for a latte! So currently, there are only two methods to make concentrated coffee with drip bags in a short time!

The first method is adding stirring! Through stirring, we can force the flavor compounds out quickly, thereby obtaining a high-concentration coffee in a short time. FrontStreet Coffee will now demonstrate how to make a high-concentration coffee using drip bags! Almost forgot! To extract more compounds with a small amount of hot water, increasing the coffee quantity is absolutely essential! FrontStreet Coffee will use 20g of coffee grounds to extract 60ml of liquid. Our drip bags contain 10g each, so we'll need to use 2 drip bags! ( preferably from dark-roasted coffee beans for a richer flavor)

Take out two drip bags, tear open the seals, and pour all the coffee grounds into your prepared container! (preferably one with a spout, and don't throw away the drip bags!)

Then we heat the water to 100°C and pour it into the cup! The coffee-to-water ratio is 1:5, meaning for 20g of coffee grounds, we pour 100ml of boiling water! (The coffee grounds will absorb twice their weight in water, so we'll end up with about 60ml of coffee liquid)

Then we press the timer and start timing! Take out a stirring stick and stir for thirty seconds! This will quickly bring out the flavor compounds from the coffee! After stirring, let it steep for another minute and a half.

When time's up, we take out the inner drip bag - this small white bag - and place it over another cup.

Then pour all the coffee from the container into the bag to filter out the coffee grounds.

When all the coffee liquid has dripped through, you've successfully obtained a high-concentration coffee! Afterwards, you can add iced milk or hot milk according to your preference, with a ratio of 1:3~4. This completes your milk coffee made with drip bags. Stir well and enjoy~

Of course, besides the stirring method, we can also use the microwave heating method from a well-known content creator! Prepare a microwave-safe container, add coffee grounds and boiling water (same ratio), then place in the microwave and heat continuously. After heating, filter it out! This method also allows you to obtain a high-concentration coffee in a short time! However, it's worth noting that it's best not to heat the milk together, as this will break down the lactose and reduce the sweetness~

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