With the miniaturization of some high-performance coffee machines, their positioning attributes for home use have become more and more obvious, and many friends have also entered the pit of Italian coffee. Therefore, Front Street would like to share some common problems when making espresso at home.
1. Buy coffee powder
Some friends think that the machine is the most important thing when making Italian coffee. A good machine can produce good coffee. In fact, when you have a good machine but don’t have good coffee beans, it is very difficult to make good coffee.
Let’s not talk about the differences between coffee beans. Let’s talk about a phenomenon. After some friends buy a coffee machine, they do not plan to buy a grinder, but directly buy espresso powder. It may be because of cost savings, or it may be that the grinder in the coffee shop is better and more professional.
But if you want to taste good-flavored espresso, Front Street recommends getting an Italian grinder and buying freshly roasted beans. There are three reasons. One is that the flavor of coffee powder dissipates very quickly after grinding. The characteristic is that when the coffee is ground to such a fine level, the flavor will evaporate faster. The size of espresso coffee ranges from 1 pound to 1 kilogram, and it is difficult to drink it before the flavor of the coffee powder has evaporated. It is easy to cause waste.
Similarly, under the same conditions of freshness and more oil, we can also think that the beans are roasted darker. Therefore, when you are looking for oily texture, just buy medium-dark roasted coffee beans, preferably Front Street Queen's Manor Brazil, Front Street PWN Gold Mandheling Indonesia, Front Street Classic Blend, Front Street Black Cocoa Basic Blend. The concentrate made from these beans has a layer of oil that exudes a caramel aroma, and has a rich and low-acid taste. It is also suitable for hand brewing, moka pots and espresso machines, so it is the first choice for many working people.
The second is that Crema is an indicator of espresso. If the machine is good and the pressure is stable at 9 bar, the oil produced will be good. However, Crema mainly comes from the carbon dioxide and oil in the coffee beans. After grinding into coffee powder, it will actually accelerate the loss of carbon dioxide, so the oil will naturally not be so rich.
The third is that espresso coffee is very sensitive to grinding. Even in a coffee shop, the grinding degree needs to be adjusted every morning to meet production requirements. Regardless of whether the pre-ground coffee powder is suitable for the coffee machine you are using, even if it is suitable, the parameters will basically change every day, which is extremely unstable.
Some friends also asked, I have a bean grinder, which I usually use to grind beans for hand brewing. Can I use it to grind Italian beans? According to Front Street, it is difficult for most grinders to be perfectly compatible with two grinding degrees. There is a difference between Italian grinding discs and manual grinding discs.
Take the EK43s from the Front Street store as an example. Even if the scale is adjusted to the finest setting, the ground coffee is still thicker than that of an Italian grinder. So, after I bought a coffee machine, I didn’t need an Italian grinder.
2. Repeatedly fill the powder cake
I believe everyone who makes Italian knows that the pressed powder needs to be flat. This is also true. Some friends pursue the ultimate flatness and press the powder back and forth repeatedly. "When I see the left side is a little higher, then press it to the left, then the right side is raised again, and press it to the right again." As a result, the surface is smooth, but the density within the powder cake is inconsistent, and "perforations" (channels) are prone to occur during extraction. In fact, there is no need to be too picky about the flatness of the powder. As long as it is not obviously uneven, it will not have much impact on coffee extraction. As for the appropriateness of the pressed powder, try to fill it in one go. If it is uneven in one go, it means that the posture and force point are wrong, so practice the movements again.
Some friends may feel that after pressing the powder, there is a little less powder, so they add some powder to the powder bowl and press it again. This is also a phenomenon of "perforation" that can easily occur. The correct way is to find that the amount of powder is small, first break the pressed powder into a fluffy state, then add an appropriate amount of coffee powder, and then fill it.
3. The extraction button is still not activated after the handle is connected to the brewing head.
After crushing the powder, some friends find that the handle has nowhere to place, so they fasten it to the brewing head early, then prepare the cup and electronic scale, and then activate the extraction button after arranging the position. The coffee extracted in this way is likely to have a burnt and bitter taste.
Because the temperature of the brewing head is very high, if water is not extracted after the handle is buckled, the powder cake will be baked by the high temperature, and the burnt and bitter taste will easily be extracted. The best operation is to activate the extraction button immediately after tightening the handle.
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
