What is Crema in Espresso? Does Crema Have Real and Fake Varieties? What Does Coffee Crema Mean?

Is This Crema I Extracted Real or Fake?

"Is this crema I extracted real or fake?" This is an interesting topic that FrontStreet Coffee came across while browsing online recently. I believe many friends, upon seeing this, had the same first reaction as FrontStreet Coffee, filled with confusion: "Is there really a distinction between real and fake coffee crema?"

Driven by curiosity, FrontStreet Coffee clicked on the post to find answers. It turns out that, to some extent, coffee crema can indeed be distinguished as real or fake. But to understand what "fake crema" is, we first need to understand what "real crema" is. However, to be honest, so-called "real" crema isn't actually real to begin with.

What is Coffee Crema?

FrontStreet Coffee has always shared that the "crema," known as the soul of espresso, is essentially not what we broadly understand as grease or fat. Broadly speaking, fats refer to edible oils, animal fats, and other lipid substances defined by chemistry. Although coffee crema is called "crema," its main components are carbon dioxide, natural lipids from coffee beans, proteins, and other substances. It's a foam layer created through specific extraction methods. In other words, essentially it belongs to an emulsified foam, not pure fat. (PS: There are fats, but they account for an extremely low proportion, typically less than 1% of the whole.)

The reason it's called crema is simply because the original term "Crema" was mistranslated as fat. Crema is an Italian word that originally means "cream." Because the foam layer on espresso has a very thick and delicate texture, much like cream, it received this name. We can understand the meaning of Crema here as: "foam as thick as cream."

However, such crema can only be produced by pressurized extraction. When hot water quickly passes through finely ground coffee powder under high pressure up to 9 bar, the carbon dioxide inside the coffee beans is rapidly released and dissolved in water, forming microbubbles. These are then enveloped by lipids, proteins, and other substances from the coffee beans, forming a stable foam layer. Finally, when it falls into the cup, it becomes the coffee crema we see.

What is "Fake Crema"?

From the above, we can know that so-called "real" crema refers to a special product created by pressurized extraction combined with coffee bean characteristics. Both conditions are indispensable. Once one of them cannot be met, for example, if the coffee extraction method is not pressurized, or if the coffee beans lack abundant carbon dioxide and lipids, then it's basically impossible to create coffee crema as thick as cream.

However, many friends have found that some coffee preparations can still produce a rich foam layer even without meeting these two conditions, and their foam thickness can even be much thicker than the crema extracted by coffee machines. And these are what people call "fake" crema.

(Image from the internet, for reference only) The appearance of these "cremas" is not natural; they are merely foams created through artificial intervention to imitate crema. For example, by pressurizing air or adding special materials to whip up foam similar to Crema. Their texture and mouthfeel are completely different from the "real" crema produced by espresso machines - not as delicate, not as smooth, serving only a visual purpose. Therefore, people refer to this foam layer created by artificial intervention as "fake crema."

Speaking of this, I believe everyone now understands the difference between "real" and "fake" crema. However, because of the emergence of "fake crema," many beginners mistakenly identify the relatively rough and rich crema extracted by some coffee machines as "fake crema." Because they are neither smooth nor delicate, and don't at all resemble the rumored "real" crema with its cream-like texture, we can often see posts from beginners online asking: "Is this coffee crema I extracted real or fake?"

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