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"Obai" is an exquisite small-cup milk coffee. Because of its rich and sweet unique experience, it is widely loved by coffee lovers. The key ingredient that distinguishes it from latte and cappuccino is that in addition to the delicate and thin milk foam, this delicious taste is also inseparable from the base of Australian white - "Ristretto".
Because, the Ristretto production method that is widely circulated on the Internet is so great! many! La! This makes the novices confused and unable to truly understand the meaning of Ristretto extraction. Therefore, Front Street will talk about this "Ristretto" today, what it is ~ and how it is made ~
What is Ristretto?
"Ristretto" is literally translated as "Ristretto". Just looking at these two words, you may have a hard time imagining what kind of cup of coffee it is. Therefore, we might as well take a look at its other aliases: "Espresso" and "Espresso". "
How about it? Did you suddenly become enlightened? These completely different words all refer to the same kind of coffee - "espresso." However, "this concentration is not that concentration." Ristretto is very niche. Although it and Espresso belong to the espresso coffee extracted by an espresso machine, it is so niche that among dozens of espresso coffees, only Australia White uses it as a base.
Except for Australian white, almost all espresso coffee bases use Espresso! The reason is that the production method of Ristretto does not exist independently, but is an extraction mode derived from the production method of Espresso!
Ristretto itself also has the meaning of "restriction" in it. As the name suggests: since it is an extraction method derived from Espresso, and with the word restriction, we can understand it as adding certain restrictions when extracting Espresso.
This limitation does not mean controlling a certain parameter, but rather limiting the substances extracted during concentrated production. Obvious! The most critical powder and liquid in concentrated extraction, the one that can limit the extracted substances must be the "liquid"! So, let’s take a look at how this “liquid” is restricted~
What coffee beans are best for espresso?
FrontStreet Coffee generally needs to know the flavors of different varieties of coffee from around the world before blending coffee beans. The beans have different characteristics depending on where they are produced. Different coffee beans have different personalities due to different varieties and origins. There are subtle differences in sour, bitter, sweet, aroma, mellow and other flavors. Single-origin coffee beans often focus on showing the unique characteristics of a certain type of coffee. Blended coffee beans are mostly used in Italian coffee such as Espresso, Americano, Latte or Cappuccino. The taste of coffee is more balanced, smoother and more stable. It can be said that the taste is more popular.
If you want a cup of espresso coffee with a full-bodied taste and aroma, it is recommended to use the Front Street Coffee Blend Bean, which uses a dual-producing recipe from Colombia and Brazil. The blended flavor is: sweet taste. It is roasted in medium depth and when concentrated, the taste will be soft, slightly sour, sweet, and nutty with a sweet aftertaste. The overall feeling is not too exciting, mild, and the fat is medium.
For those who want to learn latte art at home, buy the Front Street Classic Blend, which is a medium-dark roasted Italian recipe composed of three production areas. Its design is inspired by the popular "Mamba" in ancient times, namely Mandheling and Brazil. In order to add aroma and oiliness, the Front Street Classic Blend also contains a small amount of Robusta to enhance the flavor intensity and allow novices to easily make Italian espresso with golden yellow oil at home.
How to make Ristretto
At present, there are two main ways to extract Ristretto. One is to directly limit the liquid output of Espresso to prevent it from extracting later substances. For example, the production plan of Front Street Espresso is: use 20g of beans and take 30 seconds to extract a liquid weight of 40ml.
Then, to make a Ristretto, you need to abandon the back stage of extraction, and only need the front and middle stages of Espresso, that is, extract 70%--28ml of the total volume of 40ml.
The advantage of this kind of extraction is that it "pinches" the node where bitter substances are released in large quantities in the later stage, so that the proportion of bitter substances is reduced, and the proportion of sour and sweet substances is more. The coffee can highlight more sweetness!
In addition, there are many methods similar to this extraction concept: for example, some coffee shops only extract 2/3 of the total concentrated amount; or they use a powder-to-liquid ratio of 1:1 for extraction, etc. So we don’t have to stick to certain parameters, we just need to understand the principles, no matter which way is correct!
Then there is the second method: "Control the flow rate of coffee liquid"! Control the flow rate by adjusting the grind finer for stronger espresso!
Still using the old Espresso production plan as an analogy: using 20g of beans, it takes 30 seconds to extract a liquid weight of 40ml. If we want to make Ristretto, then we need to finely grind it, and then it still takes 30 seconds to extract 70% of the original total amount from 20g of beans, which is 28ml!
The advantage of this extraction method is that it obtains high concentration through superposition. Compared with the former, this method makes it easier for people to distinguish Ristretto from Espresso. After all, it is a directly designed new extraction plan! The taste will be thicker and the flavor will be fuller than the former! However, when it comes to practicality, it has to be the former!
As mentioned at the beginning, most Italian coffee uses Espresso as the base. Currently, only Australian white is widely used in Ristretto. If you want to implement the second method of production, then in order to ensure that other Italian styles and Australian white can be produced at the same time, the coffee shop must also be equipped with an additional grinder, and it will also have to consume time and materials for grinding, which greatly increases the cost!
It is impossible for a merchant to say that they only use one grinder and then "jump back and forth" between coarse grinding and fine grinding. This is unrealistic (unless you drink it yourself). Therefore, instead of using the latter to give themselves a "professional" name, stores are more likely to use the former's extraction scheme, which is convenient, delicious, and can reduce losses~
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
