Espresso Coffee Characteristics Flavor Profile Introduction | Beginner's Guide to Espresso Extraction Methods

What is Italian Espresso Coffee?

Italian espresso, also known as Espresso, is a method that uses steam pressure to force hot water through finely ground coffee, producing a small, concentrated, aromatic black coffee liquid with golden crema floating on top. While we rarely see it directly on café menus, it's the foundation of everyday drinks like Americano, latte, and cappuccino—making it the soul of the coffee shop.

What are the characteristics of Italian espresso?

Before espresso coffee existed, coffee was brewed using immersion methods, which required fine grinding, slow extraction, and considerable waiting time. Espresso was invented in the early 19th century when Italians developed the idea of using steam pressure to force high-temperature, high-pressure water through coffee puck to accelerate the traditional drip extraction rate. Through continuous improvements and innovations, this led to the semi-automatic and fully automatic espresso machines we commonly see today.

Due to the fine grinding, high water temperature, and high-pressure extraction of espresso, the concentrated coffee gathers multiple flavors, with various flavor compounds impacting our palate exponentially. As an agricultural product, coffee varies with climate, soil, and other conditions—even beans from the same region can have different flavors in each batch. Blended coffee beans use complementary methods to help achieve more balanced and stable aroma and taste in each extraction. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using specifically blended beans designed for espresso machine extraction. FrontStreet Coffee offers four types of espresso blends on its menu, all suitable for brewing with espresso machines and moka pots.

Traditional Italian espresso used very dark roasted coffee beans and included rich Robusta beans, resulting in a strong, bitter, and intense flavor that needed to be sipped slowly. However, with the rise of specialty coffee in recent years, improvements in coffee bean quality and extraction techniques, and coffee drinkers' pursuit of flavor and mouthfeel, today's Italian espresso is no longer limited to bitter flavors. For example, the espresso served at FrontStreet Coffee's stores exhibits fermented wine aromas, berry sweetness and acidity, rich aromas, and a smooth, very approachable mouthfeel.

What details should be noted when making Italian espresso?

Common commercial espresso machines can provide stable atmospheric pressure of nine bars or more and hot water above 90 degrees Celsius. The high pressure forces hot water to quickly pass through finely ground coffee, extracting a coffee liquid with rich crema, intense aroma, and thick mouthfeel. To extract an ideal espresso, the barista's job is to master various parameters that affect coffee flavor and adjust them to achieve the optimal extraction range.

In operation, there are many factors that affect the flavor of an espresso, including coffee bean quality, roast level, grind size, espresso machine boiler pressure, water temperature, distribution and tamping pressure, dose amount, extraction time, and extraction liquid weight, among other factors and details. Typically, the machine's pressure and water temperature are preset and not easily changed. Distribution and tamping pressure are adjusted according to the barista's habits. The four main factors used in daily extraction adjustments are dose, time, liquid weight, and grind size. Brewing parameters can subtly change based on daily air humidity and coffee bean conditions, requiring adjustments up or down to achieve better extraction results.

What are the types of Italian espresso?

According to the Golden Cup theory proposed by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe, after water contacts coffee grounds, about 30% of soluble substances are released, while the remaining 70% of large molecular lignin structures cannot dissolve. Within that 30%, only two-thirds are desirable flavor molecules, so we need to adjust several key parameters to control the extraction rate around 20%.

According to extraction methods, espresso can be divided into three types: Ristretto (short extraction), Normale (normal), and Lungo (long extraction), all of which are concentrated coffee liquids extracted quickly using espresso machines.

Ristretto typically refers to Italian extra-strong coffee, also called refined concentrated espresso. Compared to regular espresso, Ristretto is more niche, and the commonly seen Flat White is made with Ristretto as its base. "Ristretto" means "restricted," which we can understand as "restricting" the coffee extraction amount, taking only the front-middle portion of the espresso to increase coffee concentration.

For example, FrontStreet Coffee's espresso recipe uses 20 grams of coffee grounds to extract 40 grams of coffee liquid, with a coffee-to-liquid ratio of 1:2 and a time of 30 seconds. Ristretto extraction uses only 70% of the espresso amount, meaning 20 grams of coffee grounds extract 28 grams of coffee liquid, with the time naturally shortened accordingly. Alternatively, the coffee grind can be adjusted finer to slow the flow rate, making the coffee liquid more concentrated. Each coffee shop will make different adjustments based on the coffee beans used and the specific flavors the barista wishes to present.

Normale is the most common and popular type of espresso—it's essentially the standard espresso we typically think of. Currently, most establishments focus on producing Normale, though they don't emphasize this specifically. According to Golden Cup standards, Normale's extraction rate is between 18%-22%, with a concentration range of 8%-12%.

Lungo is coffee made with double the amount of water of a normal serving. "Lungo" means "long" or "extended" in Italian, and it's also called "lengthened espresso"—that is, extending the extraction time, thereby reducing the coffee's concentration and making it smoother to drink. After multiple adjustments and tastings, FrontStreet Coffee's final extraction recipe controls the Lungo coffee-to-liquid ratio at 1:5. This means using 20 grams of coffee grounds, extending the extraction time to 42 seconds, and extracting 100 grams of coffee liquid.

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