Coffee is amongst the top 5 most drunk drinks, but theres a science behind the drink that very few people realise.
When a person goes through Barista training they learn how to set up the machine and work it. However, when they're taught to make the coffee itself, they learn about the perfect shot of espresso otherwise known as "The God Shot" and for those of you who don't know what this means, its the point at which the coffee has no bitterness and seems sweet to the taste.
This is created when the set of requirements for the perfect shot are in balance with one another. The requirements range from the setup of the grind, to the length of time the shot takes to come out of the machine. As many of you may know, a fundamental part of coffee is the bean.
It's best to go for fresh, good quality beans with amazing reviews and each bean has to be ground at different settings. The grind is one of the most important parts of making the coffee, as it dictates the amount of water held back in the puck (the coffee grounds left in the basket). Meaning it also changes the amount of shot given, which should be around about 1 floz for a single shot coffee and 1.5-2 floz for a double shot coffee. The best way to judge the coarseness of the grind, is to try to get the grind to feel like slightly gritty talcum powder and although this may seem ridiculous it has worked for me in the past. Now, one of the most important parts to making coffee is the extraction time (the time it takes to create a shot of coffee, whether thats a single or double shot). Which should be between 25-28 seconds meaning the pump pressure hast to be around 9 bars.
If you have successfully done all this, you should start to see a couple of signs. Such as, the puck coming out whole like a hockey puck and breaking when slight pressure is applied to snap it.
Other signs being a healthy crema (the cream like substance at the top of the shot), which should should be a healthy golden brown until the end of the extraction, where it should blonde or go lighter just as the shot has finished.
I hope this will help you on your coffee adventures!
and I'd like to post more at a later date listing the differences between each coffee, if that isn't too dull.
Apologies for the bad quality photos, too!