What's the Difference Between Espresso and Ristretto? What Does Ristretto Mean? What's the Base of Flat White Coffee?

The Origin of Espresso

As we all know, Italians invented a coffee extraction method in the 19th century that uses high temperature and high pressure to extract coffee quickly in a short amount of time. Because coffee preparation was much faster than previous methods and the time needed to serve customers was very short, people named it using the Italian word for "fast"—"Espresso"—which is what we commonly call "concentrated coffee." Yes, it's not only a method of making coffee but also the name of a type of coffee.

What is Ristretto?

However, recently a friend discovered on a certain chain brand's menu that besides regular espresso, there was also an option called "Refined Espresso." This brings FrontStreet Coffee's question: What exactly is refined espresso?

What is refined espresso? Actually, so-called refined espresso is what FrontStreet Coffee often mentions when sharing about flat white coffee—"Ristretto." Ristretto means "restricted" in Italian, and it's also a type of espresso, but because of different preparation methods, Ristretto's taste and concentration are somewhat different from regular espresso.

How to Make Ristretto

The specific method is easy to understand: it involves increasing the coffee-to-water ratio used in extraction while maintaining the original amount of coffee grounds, thereby increasing coffee concentration while reducing the release of bitter substances. Therefore, we can understand the "restriction" aspect of this coffee as being in the amount of extracted coffee liquid. And "Refined Espresso" is simply an alias given by chain brands to make it easier for customers to understand! Besides this, it also has names like short extraction, Italian strong coffee, and Ristretto. But many friends cannot make a good cup of Ristretto because most people think that Ristretto preparation only requires reducing the extracted liquid amount from the original espresso parameters. Although this isn't wrong—coffee concentration will increase—it also easily makes the coffee taste under-extracted and astringent. The reason is simple: the parameters we use for extracting espresso are set according to extracting the full segment of espresso!

The Science Behind Coffee Extraction

Soluble substances in coffee beans account for only 30% of the whole, while the remaining 70% is insoluble woody fiber. According to Golden Cup Theory, within this 30%, only about two-thirds are flavor-desirable substances. Therefore, if we want to make a delicious cup of coffee, we need to control the release amount of soluble substances to around two-thirds. This is closely related to every parameter—dose, grind, ratio, time—all indispensable. Take FrontStreet Coffee as an example: the parameters FrontStreet Coffee uses for extracting espresso are typically 20g of coffee grounds, extracting 40ml of liquid weight in 30 seconds, which means a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:2, with about 30 seconds extraction time. Such parameters ensure that the coffee extracted with this amount of liquid has good performance in both taste and concentration.

The Challenge of Making Proper Ristretto

With the same amount of coffee grounds, the liquid weight extracted by Ristretto is only two-thirds of the original (for example, only 26ml extracted from 40ml). If we directly reduce the extracted liquid weight by one-third on the original basis, it will cause the extraction rate to decrease due to reduced hot water for extraction. Because liquid weight is closely related to time, when we reduce liquid weight, we're essentially reducing the contact time between water and coffee grounds. Naturally, this small amount of hot water will find it difficult to extract a relatively complete extraction rate espresso! Therefore, directly adjusting the coffee-to-water ratio will easily make the coffee taste imbalanced due to insufficient substance release.

The Proper Method for Ristretto Extraction

So how should we extract it? If we want to extract more complete coffee liquid with less liquid weight, then what we need to do is increase the extraction time, allowing hot water and coffee grounds to have longer contact time, so that even a small amount of hot water can dissolve a large amount of flavor substances. The method is simple: adjust the grind to be finer.

By adjusting to a finer grind, the particle size of the coffee grounds will be reduced. We can therefore increase the density of the coffee puck, making it harder for hot water to pass through. More time is needed to extract to the target liquid weight, so naturally, the coffee can achieve a more complete extraction rate. Ristretto made this way not only has higher concentration but also possesses extremely high sweetness due to sufficient extraction rate, making it very suitable for making flat white coffee.

Practical Challenges and Solutions

However, it's not without its drawbacks! The disadvantage is that it requires preparing an additional grinder or setting up additional parameters to meet store operations. And this is the biggest drawback because for many stores, flat white sales are not sufficient to support these additional material costs. So nowadays, many stores' Ristrettos continue to use the original parameters, adding more coffee grounds or directly reducing liquid weight for preparation. Or they directly use regular espresso as the base for flat whites, just like FrontStreet Coffee does.

- END -

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473