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As a symbol of Italian coffee culture, the Moka pot is one of the most famous brewing equipment in the world. Its iconic design, ease of use and wide applicability make it the entry point for many enthusiasts to learn coffee. Front Street today brought the Moka pot that is always available in the store to introduce this coffee appliance to everyone and how to use it.
Unlike other brewing appliances, the Moka pot is a device that extracts rich coffee through heating and pressurization. It was invented by Italian Alfonso Bialetti in 1933. It is mainly popular in European countries, especially its origin, Italy. Most families are equipped with a Moka pot at home.Traditional Moka pots are made of aluminum alloy and can only be heated by an open flame during production. Nowadays, most of them on the market are made of stainless steel, which can be directly placed on the induction cooker to heat for coffee extraction. When purchasing, we can also choose Moka pots of different sizes according to our needs. The most common ones are compact ones that serve 2 to 3 people.
From the picture, we can see that the Moka pot is divided into upper and lower structures, mainly composed of three parts: the upper pot that holds coffee liquid, the powder trough that holds coffee powder, and the lower pot that holds water. When using a Moka pot to extract coffee, a heat source is used to heat the hot water in the lower pot to generate steam pressure. When the pressure is enough, the hot water will be pushed upwards, penetrating the coffee powder to bring out soluble aroma substances, and continuing to break through upwards to obtain a coffee liquid with a rich taste. When drinking, just add water or milk according to your preference.
Before extracting coffee, you need to prepare a pack of coffee beans that are in their best tasting period, a gas stove or induction cooker for heating, a grinder for grinding the coffee beans, and water. In order to present the moka pot coffee creme, the classic Italian blend of Front Street (Brazilian coffee + Indonesian Mandheling coffee + Vietnamese coffee) is used here. This coffee is medium-dark roasted. The extracted espresso has a thick taste. It is suitable for adding milk to make latte coffee. An electric ceramic stove is used for heating.The grinder isEK43s produced in the store.
The grind size of a moka pot is generally a little coarser than that of espresso coffee, and much finer than that of hand brewing. If the ground is too coarse, the contact area between the water and the coffee powder will be small, which will not only lead to insufficient extraction and a dull taste, but also cause the liquid to spurt out due to too little resistance to the upward flow, posing the risk of splashing and scalding. The thickness recommended by Front Street is EK-43s#3-3.5 scale, which feels more delicate than fine granulated sugar.
1. Add hot water to the lower pot, and try to control the water level at 0.5cm below the pressure relief valve (safety valve). I measured it on the front street and found that the amount of water at this position is about 100g. When the coffee powder is paved in the powder trough, it is 20g, so the powder-liquid ratio will fall at 1:5. Note that using cold water will increase the soaking time of the coffee powder, making the coffee over-extracted and bitter. Therefore, Front Street recommends using hot water, which can also shorten the extraction time.
2. The grinding degree of coffee powder needs to be finer than Pour over(V60) coffee and coarser than espresso coffee. You can refer to the size of the filter gap in the powder trough to ensure that the coffee particles are filtered out. Pour the coffee powder into the powder trough gently and pat it evenly and evenly with your fingers.
3. Put the powder trough back into the lower pot, tighten the upper pot, put it on the electric ceramic stove and start heating, and wait for the Moka pot to heat up.
4. When you hear a hissing sound coming from the Moka pot, turn the stove to low heat and open the lid of the upper pot. At this time, you can see that the coffee liquid and oil will slowly flow out.
5. When the pot of coffee liquid is half full, you can turn off the heat source, move the pot to the table, and use the remaining temperature and pressure in the pot to continue extracting the remaining coffee liquid. It should be noted that the Moka pot uses metal parts. Try not to touch the pot body when heating at high temperatures to avoid burns.
6. The finally extracted coffee liquid can be tasted directly, and the taste will be very rich and heavy. You can mix it with milk according to your own taste. Front Street's classic Italian blended bean-extracted moka pot coffee has a rich aroma of caramel, almonds, chocolate and an aftertaste of dark cocoa. Paired with milk coffee made from heated milk, it presents a dense and sweet taste of chocolate cream.
If you want the espresso liquid extracted from Moka pot coffee to have a rich oil layer, Front Street recommends using freshly roasted medium-dark roasted coffee beans. As the roasting degree of the coffee beans deepens, it undergoes a caramelization reaction and produces a large amount of gas, which is "compressed" by pressure and released during the extraction process. As the storage time increases, the beans lose a lot of gas, making it difficult to extract the fragrant oil. The coffee beans shipped from Front Street are freshly roasted within 5 days, so that everyone can enjoy them during the best tasting period.
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
