This is our second lesson in our journey of learning more about coffee drinks or beverages. Yesterday we learned about how to make and taste caffe' latte, if you missed you can check it out here.
Today we are looking at how a perfect espresso is made.
What is espresso?
Espresso is simply an extract of coffee from hot water.
How to make a perfect espresso?
Usually a perfect espresso is determined by a number of factors that include the following;
1~ Type of coffee
2~ Coffee roast degree
3~ Grind size
4~ Dose
5~ Tamping
6~ Water quality
7~ Water temperatures and lastly
8~ Extraction time.
Procedures.......
1~ In most cases when you are serving in a coffee shop, select roasted washed Arabica coffee beans. Washed coffee beans are less bitter and Arabica is most preferred due to its high level of flavors and aromas.
2~ Select medium roast Arabica coffee beans because of it's high aromas and sweetness especially for espresso in particular. Then pour the beans in a coffee grinder.
3~ Turn on the grind button on the coffee grinding machine to grind the coffee (remember we grind on order, so that the ground coffee doesn't lose its aromas).
For a "double shot", we usually prefer to use between 18 and 21 grams of ground coffee as the standard serving size. Remember as you add more coffee in the portafilter, your shot will increase in both body and density. Don't forget to adjust your grinding machine according to taste and try to troubleshoot.
4~ Level the coffee in the portafilter properly.
5~ Tamp the coffee in the portafilter using a tamper firmly and leveled to enable an even extraction.
6~ Check whether the water in the boiler is hot by reading the pressure gauge's water boiler reader. If the reader points to the green mark, the water is ready for extraction process.
Note: If the water is cold, it will not extract all the flavours in our coffee, which will make the creamer on the espresso to look white and our coffee will not taste good.
Clean the grouphead's screen filter by running hot water through it before fixing the portafilter to remove all coffee residues that stack there.
7~ Fix the portafilter in the grouphead and place an espresso cup below the portafilter and immediate turn on the grouphead's switch (remember if you delay to turn on the switch, coffee will be burnt and this leads to a bitter taste of the espresso or even some flavour are burnt). Extraction time for a "double shot" of an espresso is recommended to be between 21-24 seconds.
8~ Lastly turn off the grouphead switch after counting the required seconds while watching the quantity of the espresso in the cup.
9~ Your espresso must look goldish in colour in the cup, this impresses a customer at first sight.
Thanks for reading.....
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Yours truly,
