ESPRESSO
ESPRESSO SWEET SPOT:
Let’s talk a little about what the “espresso sweet spot” means to the coffee world. The long trip coffee faces from the plant to the cup has to be met with an excellent extraction process in order to make a real tribute to the coffee, as well as to the palate.
The espresso sweet spot comes at some point during the extraction and includes a perfect balance between sourness, bitterness, sweetness and acidity, allowing the coffee to express itself in the best possible way.
It is then a combination of fresh coffee, water, water temperature, grinding, and roasting, all of this in perfect relation to the extraction time and the espresso amount (weight).
We have to take into account the fact that the coffee machine doesn’t do anything, but is always working in the same way. Our machine doesn’t know about coffee, it is us who has to establish the parameters we have mentioned above and play with them to reach the goal.
Let’s see how we can get there.
- The espresso sweet spot shows up when the espresso doubles in weight, the amount of coffee we dropped in the filter basket.In other words, when using 18 grams of Salento coffee the best result will be getting 36 grams of espresso between 25 and 30 seconds extraction, for 16 grams of coffee, 32 grams of espresso and so on.
2. Failures and how to solve them.
- Too fast: This happens when the espresso reaches the double amount in less than 25 seconds. This can happen due to three things, the grinding is not as fine as we need it, we didn’t press hard enough when using the tamper (this means the space among the coffee particles is bigger than needed), or we are not using enough coffee. The picture below shows an example; we used 18 grams of coffee and got 40 grams of espresso in 26 seconds.
Our espresso then would have too much water and we won’t have the chance to enjoy its real taste.
- Too slow: This happens when our espresso reaches the double amount in more than 30 seconds and this happens due to the opposite circumstances; too much coffee in the basket, too much pressure with the tamper, or grinding finer than we need which will make the water encounter resistance when trying to go through the coffee paste.
When this happens, our espresso will have a strong concentration of the coffee components in a small amount of water, so its flavor will exceed the desired levels of sourness, sweetness, acidity, and bitterness.
For the picture below we used 19 grams of coffee.
3. The Guide:
There is a guide we can refer to, as a balance during the process. It happens when the extraction, the weight, and the time meet in a range that goes between 15 and 20 seconds, as shown in the picture below.
4. Final result:
Our espresso looks uniform, creamy, it presents a homogeneous hazelnut color, and it is kind of shiny. When moving the cup in circles the cream will cover the inner cup surface in a uniform way and keep its color. The aroma is pleasant, enjoyable, it is dedicated, not strong, it stimulates our sensory memory in a positive way according to the kind of coffee we are using. Chocolate, sugar cane, and caramel are just some of the several experiences we will feel through the aroma.
The taste of our espresso will deliver a great balance of the coffee characteristics, not allowing the bitterness or sourness to overshadow the sweetness and acidity. We can then enjoy what the coffee has to express and it will freely invite us to live what the real coffee experience is about.
Buy your coffee for espresso, we always use Salento coffee or Passion 300
Visit us! Finca El Ocaso Salento
Milton Cifuentes Guzman
Barista Principal de Finca El Ocaso.
