Coffee is the "upstart" of daily drinks, and everyone has more or less experienced drinking coffee outside. The freshly ground coffee in the cafe is fragrant and sweet, but the number of times you go out to a restaurant is limited by your time and the thickness of your wallet. The best solution is of course to make it yourself at home. I have met many customers on Front Street Street. I have tasted the unique aroma of espresso coffee at the Front Street store, and I want to recreate a similar taste at home.
Friends who have the conditions will prepare a special espresso machine at home, while friends who are less well-off will probably prepare a Moka pot at home. Moka pots are favored by many friends because they are cheap and can brew fragrant and rich espresso liquid. There will always be friends asking the front street barista, what kind of coffee beans are suitable for the Moka pot? How to use a Moka pot to brew a cup of delicious and rich espresso? But, does a Moka pot brew espresso?
The Moka pot is now the first choice for many coffee lovers to make Italian espresso. Although the extraction pressure of the Moka pot is much lower than that of a professional espresso machine, the extracted coffee liquid has a less sticky taste. However, compared to expensive and professional espresso machines, Moka pots are relatively cheap as coffee equipment. You can often buy a set of very good Moka pots for only a few hundred yuan.
After a simple operation, you can get a cup of espresso coffee made by your own hands. I believe that when it comes to this, many friends are getting ready to make a move. Next, Front Street Coffee will introduce to you how to use the Moka pot and some tips.
The emergence of the Moka pot can be traced back to the 1930s. An aluminum metal practitioner who had been living in France for more than ten years returned to his hometown and returned to Piedmont to establish his own workshop to make and sell aluminum furniture products. One day, Alfonso Bialetti had a sudden idea while observing the washing machine at home, so he came up with the moka pot, a coffee brewing equipment.
The structure and working principle of the Moka pot are similar to those of the washing machines at that time. It is mainly divided into three parts: upper, middle and lower. The lower pot holds hot water. There is a powder trough for coffee powder in the middle and is connected by a metal channel. The upper pot is responsible for holding the extracted coffee liquid.
When the lower pot is heated, as the water temperature increases, more water vapor is generated in a limited space. The hot water surges up through the metal pipe in the middle, passing through the fine-grained coffee powder in the middle, and then emerges from the upper pot like a fountain, leaving the concentrated coffee liquid with coffee oil in the upper pot. This is the extraction process in a Moka pot.
Front Street Coffee’s steps to make coffee using a Moka pot
1. Fill the pot with an appropriate amount of hot water
2. Pour the coffee powder into the powder trough and distribute it evenly
3. Place the powder trough into the lower pot and tighten the upper and lower pots
4. Heat the Moka Pot
5. When the moka pot makes a "whining" sound and coffee liquid starts to pour out, turn off the heat source
Since the Moka pot is brewing coffee, there is a process of increasing the pressure, which means there is a certain degree of danger. You need to always pay attention to safety when operating.
The diameter of coffee powder is between 0.3mm and 0.55mm. Since it is difficult to detect with the naked eye, friends can purchase special powder for Moka pots or a powder diameter ruler for comparison, or determine the coffee powder diameter through continuous testing. When filling the lower pot with water, you need to pay attention that the water level cannot cover the pressure relief valve. It should be installed to a place 0.5cm below the pressure relief valve.
During the process of brewing coffee with a Moka pot, if the coffee liquid spurts upward too fast, it means that the diameter of the coffee powder is too thick. If you hear the moka pot making a "whining" sound but no coffee liquid surges up for a long time, Front Street recommends cutting off the heat source immediately and taking safety measures.
On the bean rack of Front Street Coffee, which displays nearly half a hundred types of coffee beans, friends often stand in front of the bean rack and wonder what kind of coffee beans are suitable for Moka pots. We all know that espresso coffee is characterized by thick, smooth and rich oil, so the same is true for moka pot coffee. Therefore, when choosing coffee beans, give priority to Italian blends with stable extraction or medium-dark roasted single-origin coffee. If you like rich fat, buy Front Street. Front Street’s classic blend, the classic combination of “Mamba Coffee” allows you to make rich and fragrant black coffee at any time.
Many friends said that they prefer coffee with rich fruity aroma, so we would recommend Front Street Strawberry Candy espresso coffee beans, which can be ordered directly at Taobao or Tmall stores. This is a espresso made from two major origins: Costa Rica Tara beads, which are famous for their honey processing, and Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. On this basis, coupled with Colombian coffee beans, the espresso that can be prepared is not only non-irritating, but when extracted by the coffee machine, it has good oil and dense texture, and at the same time has a sweet and sour taste like strawberry gummy.
If you want to use single-origin coffee beans, try Front Street Brazilian Queen Estate, which is a rare yellow bourbon variety. Since the pectin layer of the yellow bourbon coffee cherries is thicker, it means that the sugar content is richer. When the whole coffee cherries are preserved for sun-drying, as much fructose substances as possible can penetrate into the green coffee beans, giving the coffee with a rich nutty tone a sweetness like preserved fruits and a thicker taste.
Recommended Moka Pot Coffee Beans - Front Street. Brazilian Queen Manor Coffee Beans
Production area: Morgiana, Sao Paulo state, Brazil
Manor: Queen's Manor
Altitude: 1400 meters - 1950 meters
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Treatment method: Sun treatment
There are always friends who ask the front street barista, can the coffee brewed by the moka pot be considered espresso?
Front Street mentioned earlier that professional espresso machines have high extraction pressure and can produce a cup of espresso coffee with a thick texture and rich oil. The Moka pot has many advantages and disadvantages in brewing coffee. Although it is simple to operate and convenient to use, its extraction pressure is only about 1.5bar. You should know that the extraction pressure of espresso coffee is generally above 9bar. In addition, because the metal filter of the moka pot's powder tank is relatively sparse, it means that the grinding degree used by the moka pot is much coarser than that of the espresso machine.
These factors lead to the fact that the coffee oil brewed by the Moka pot is far less rich than that of the espresso machine, and the taste is thinner than the coffee liquid produced by the espresso machine. In other words, the coffee brewed by the Moka pot cannot be regarded as espresso, but can only be regarded as a distinctive espresso.
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
