What Does a Shot Mean in Coffee? Is 1 Shot of Espresso a Single or Double? What Does 1 Shot Mean?

In the article "Want stronger coffee? Can you extract for longer?" FrontStreet Coffee mentioned that if we want higher concentration in espresso when ordering, we can ask the owner to add a shot. However, FrontStreet Coffee recently discovered that many customers still have outdated understanding of shots, as there are often customers who want to add 2 shots at once.

Today's shots are different from the past. Even those with high caffeine tolerance would stay awake until dawn with such high concentration (3 shots). So to prevent this from happening frequently, today FrontStreet Coffee will share again what exactly "adding a shot" means in terms of how much coffee! Before that, as usual, let's first review what "shot" means in coffee!

What does "shot" mean in coffee?

The word "shot" has different meanings in various fields, and in coffee culture, the "shot" we know is a measure word that originates from drinking culture. In drinking culture, a shot refers to a small glass of spirits, with 1 shot equal to 1 ounce, about 30ml. When this term is applied to coffee culture, it similarly means a cup of espresso, a 1-ounce, about 30ml espresso.

However, early shots didn't just refer to the amount of coffee, but also to the espresso extraction formula. 1 shot meant extracting 30ml of espresso from 7g of coffee grounds, also known as a single shot espresso, and the portafilter used for extraction was called a single portafilter.

Since there are single shots, naturally there are multiple shots. So in coffee shops back then, we could often hear another term - "Double shot," which is double espresso, extracted using double the parameters of a single shot, with the formula: extracting 60ml of espresso from 14g of coffee grounds. FrontStreet Coffee has shared many times in pour-over coffee articles that early on, because there were no small electronic scales, the weight of coffee grounds and coffee liquid couldn't be measured, and baristas mainly relied on volume to determine all quantities (bean amount, grounds amount, liquid amount). Therefore, this led to needing portafilters and shot glasses as measuring tools when extracting espresso. When extracting single shot espresso, a single portafilter and one shot glass would be used, while when extracting double shot espresso, a double portafilter would be used, then a split portafilter would divide the coffee liquid into two portions, collected in two shot glasses.

This measuring method was acceptable for pour-over coffee, but for espresso, it actually had a significant drawback. The reason is simple: espresso contains crema, and the volume of crema doesn't equal its weight, so when coffee crema is abundant, the coffee liquid amount determined this way would be far below the target liquid weight. Therefore, when electronic scales became widespread, this measuring method was naturally eliminated, with liquid weight becoming the standard.

How much coffee liquid is in 1 shot now?

In the past, because espresso machines didn't have high enough extraction pressure, more liquid was needed to compensate for the defects caused by insufficient pressure (insufficient extraction efficiency). This is why there was a 1:4+ grounds-to-liquid ratio like extracting 30ml of coffee liquid from 7g of grounds. Today's espresso machines generally start at 9bar pressure, so they don't need excessive hot water to compensate for insufficient extraction efficiency, with grounds-to-liquid ratios generally being 1:2, and ground amounts starting from 18g. This led to an awkward situation. Due to the increased grounds-to-liquid ratio, today's single portafilter or single shot espresso can no longer reach 1 shot (1 ounce) in volume. For example, if a single portafilter uses 10g of grounds, then the extracted coffee liquid calculated at a 1:2 grounds-to-liquid ratio would be 20ml, about half a shot glass, and can only be called "half a shot"; while the coffee liquid extracted using a double portafilter can meet the 1 shot amount (using 18g of grounds, 1:2 ratio, equals 36ml of coffee liquid), it's already considered a double shot. (20ml of espresso)

Conveniently, a phenomenon broke this situation. As technology advanced, people discovered that single portafilters, due to their structural design, are more prone to channeling. Channeling causes negative expressions in coffee, so gradually, single portafilters were eliminated, and coffee shops basically all use double portafilters for their products. (Left is single portafilter, right is double portafilter)

In this situation, if continuing to use the original measuring method where 1 shot equals single shot espresso, then businesses using double portafilters would need to extract double shot espresso, then give half to customers who ordered 1 shot, and deal with the other half themselves. For shop owners, such waste is unacceptable. So from here, the definition of shot changed. 1 shot was no longer the single shot espresso extracted from a single portafilter, but the double shot espresso extracted from a double portafilter. If a customer orders a Double shot, they would receive two double shot espressos. Taking FrontStreet Coffee as an example, FrontStreet Coffee's 1 shot is 38ml, extracted from 20g of coffee grounds (as shown below).

Of course, some large chain stores using fully automatic coffee machines can still produce only single shot espressos. But they also avoid customer misunderstanding by using the number of espresso portions as the measuring unit, rather than using "1 shot"~

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