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As domestic coffee culture gradually becomes more popular, many friends who have just entered the coffee circle have begun to acquire various instruments to study extraction. Compared with the expensive and complicated espresso machines, the Moka pot is much simpler and more user-friendly, so it has become an entry-level appliance for many coffee novices.
Learn about it firstmoka potThe structure and principles of
The Moka pot is a direct-fired espresso appliance. The original design idea is to use boiling water to create steam pressure, which directly penetrates into the coffee powder, extracts flavor substances, and pushes it to the top of the pot, thereby obtaining a rich coffee liquid. The coffee extracted with a moka pot has a strong taste, sour and bitter taste, and has a small amount of oil.
Moka Pot ExtractionThe form is similar to our common supercharged espresso. After the water boils in the lower seat, it will generate water vapor. More and more steam will condense to create a certain pressure, forcing the hot water to penetrate the coffee powder, dissolving the flavor substances and flowing with the coffee liquid into the container above. The Moka pot brews coffee at about 1.2 to 3 atmospheres of pressure. The increase in pressure brings together the coffee flavor, so the coffee brewed by the Moka pot also has a mellow taste.
Moka potDetailed operation tutorial
Before making coffee, we need to be equipped with fresh coffee beans, water, a grinder, a heated gas stove (or induction cooker), and our protagonist-moka pot. Here, Front Street selects its own roasted "Front Street Classic Italian Blend Coffee Beans" for extraction. This is a formula specially designed for espresso machines and moka pots. It is a combination of Front Street Indonesian Mandheling, Front Street Brazilian Cerato and Front Street Vietnamese coffee. You can buy it directly at the Front Street Taobao store or Front Street Tmall flagship store.
1. First remove the base of the Moka pot and add pure warm water to the lower pot. This can shorten the brewing time and prevent the coffee powder from being heated too quickly and causing the flavor to become burnt and bitter.
The water volume is controlled at about 0.5cm below the pressure relief valve line. The safety valve prevents the coffee pot from exploding due to the clogging of the extraction channel caused by grinding the coffee powder too finely. If the safety valve is submerged by water and the extraction channel is blocked, the consequences of an explosion in the high-temperature coffee pot will be disastrous.
2. Weigh the coffee beans and grind them. To extract rich black coffee, the grinding degree must be finer than ordinary hand brewing. The Front Street store uses an EK-43s grinder with a scale of 0.5. The control of the amount of powder depends on the size of the Moka pot. The one used here in Front Street is the Bileti Classic Pot for three people, with an amount of 18g of powder.
3. Pour the ground coffee powder into the powder trough, fill it until it is nine-tenths full, smooth it with your fingers and put it into the base. There is no need to press hard, as an air layer that is too tight can easily block the flow of water upwards, thus affecting extraction.
4. Then tighten the upper and lower pots, dry the pot body with a towel and place it on a gas stove or induction cooker for heating. When using an open flame, be careful not to exceed the base of the Moka Pot.
5. Just wait for the Moka pot to heat up. When you hear a hissing sound, turn to low heat and the coffee liquid and oil will slowly flow out. When you see that the upper 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.
Finally, pour the extracted coffee liquid into the cup and taste it directly. In the mouth, there is a strong aroma of whiskey, vanilla, cream, sweet and sour berries, with the aroma of roasted nuts. Adding a certain proportion of hot water brings out the fresh and sour fruit, and when paired with milk, it has the sweetness of chocolate.
daily usemoka potDetails to note
Our common Moka pots are generally metal in shape. Try not to touch the pot body when heating at high temperatures. You can use a wet towel to avoid burns. If we hear a whining sound, but the coffee liquid never overflows from the pot, it is likely that the liquid outlet is blocked. We should turn off the heat source first to avoid excessive internal pressure and causing a safety hazard.
If the grinding degree of the coffee powder is too coarse, it will cause problems such as insufficient extraction and splashing. If the grinding degree is too fine, it will cause over-extraction, and the coffee will be burnt and bitter, making it difficult to drink. The powder trough needs to be filled and leveled. If there is not enough coffee powder, the water in the lower pot will not be fully extracted when it enters the middle powder layer under the action of steam pressure, which will cause the upper pot to splash significantly and the taste of the coffee will be difficult to describe.
Every time Front Street Moka Pot is used, it will be disassembled and cleaned in time to avoid coffee grounds stains, which are prone to odor transfer and burnt bitterness. If old coffee stains are left on the filter, gasket, and extraction channel, they may cause blockage and affect normal extraction.
Front Street recommends medium-dark roasted beans. Since the Moka pot is a pressurized extraction method, if you use light-roasted coffee, the texture of light-roasted beans is harder and a finer grinding is usually required to improve the extraction rate. However, fine grinding under high temperature and pressure can easily make the coffee sour and irritating, and it is also more difficult to extract the aroma of oil.Therefore, Front Street recommends darker roasted Italian blended coffee beans as raw materials. Not only is it easier to drink fragrant coffee with rich aroma and oil, but it also allows us to extract a more stable coffee flavor.
There are four types of Front Street Italian blended coffee beans suitable for Moka pot brewing on the Front Street bean menu. Moka pot enthusiasts can choose the Italian blended beans that suit their taste according to their own needs. Front Street hopes that every customer who places an order can taste the aroma of coffee during the best tasting period, so it will ensure that only beans freshly roasted for 5 days are shipped.
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
