Make a cup of mellow espresso

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Coffee is the most popular drink in the world, and hundreds of millions of cups of coffee are drunk every year!

Some coffee lovers think that a perfect espresso is, as Scientific American magazine puts it, "coffee in coffee". The magazine continued: "this is due to the special brewing process of espresso, which fully releases the aroma of coffee beans and highlights the characteristics of coffee beans." The process is to infiltrate the finely ground coffee powder with high-pressure steam or hot water, and then brew a cup of mellow espresso.

A coffee industry expert told "Wake up!" "A lot of people like to drink espresso coffee from cafes, so they want to make a cup in their own home." Household espresso machines are now on the market, and sales of these machines have soared in some places, so more and more people can make the perfect espresso at home.

Do you like coffee? Do you want to be an expert in making espresso? How do you make the perfect espresso? "Wake up! "I asked two professional coffee roasters in Sydney, Australia, John and his father Gerardo.

The coffee beans are just right.

John and his father Gerardo own a coffee roaster with bags of raw coffee beans from all over the world stacked against the wall. John said, "according to the formula I developed, I mixed several different coffee beans together, each with its own flavor, so the mixture is very unique." It takes a lot of time to try to find the taste you want, and it took me six months to come up with our signature espresso formula. " No wonder coffee roasters never let out their treasured recipes!

Gerardo personally oversees the roasting of raw coffee beans. Bakers need a lot of training to master the roasting skills of coffee beans. The roasting process greatly changes the chemical composition of coffee beans and produces 500 dissolved substances. Coffee beans roll in a natural gas roaster, and when roasted to a certain temperature, the water and carbon dioxide in the beans will evaporate, and the beans will expand and make a popping sound. This step will burst the cell wall of coffee beans and secrete the sesame oil of coffee beans to the surface, which is the main source of aroma and flavor of espresso. If you want to be an excellent baker, you must fully master the baking skills, and be able to accurately control the baking time,   and heat.

When the beans are roasted, Gerardo pours the hot dark brown beans into a steel net basket and uses a cold wind to cool the beans so that they don't get too burnt. John said, "the coffee beans have the strongest flavor in one or two days after baking," while the aromatic coffee oil will stabilize in one or two days and can be used to make coffee.

Pour out a cup of fragrant coffee

John added: "of all the ways to make coffee, espresso is the most difficult to master, but the flavor is the most fragrant and mellow." If you want to make a perfect cup of espresso, you need to master three basic steps: grind the coffee beans (1), fill the coffee powder into the filter of the coffee machine (2), and extract the right amount of espresso (3). "it's important to grind the coffee beans to the right thickness," John said. If the coffee beans are ground too thick, the brewed coffee will become too thin and not full-bodied, and if it is ground too fine, the coffee will become too bitter and scorched. When the coffee comes out of the coffee machine, there will be a layer of golden foam on the coffee surface, which is coffee fat. If there is more golden foam, it means that the more coffee oil is extracted, the stronger the coffee will be. "

Now, John puts the ground coffee powder into the filter of the coffee machine, compacts it with a filler, and presses the coffee powder into a cake-shaped coffee block with a smooth surface. Then he put the filter into the coffee machine, turned on the switch, and the hot coffee came out. However, this cup of coffee was seen by the sharp-eyed John to be unqualified because the coffee powder was too coarse. "it usually takes many attempts to make the perfect espresso," John said. Let's try again, this time grind the coffee beans a little bit and press the coffee powder more tightly so that the hot water can flow slowly through the coffee powder. "

John readjusted the steps he had just taken and did it again. Sure enough, a cup of mellow coffee came out this time, and there was a thick golden foam (coffee fat) on the surface. The aroma of the coffee spread, so that I couldn't help but want a cup, and John finally smiled with satisfaction. "as soon as the color of the coffee fades, turn off the switch, which is a critical step," he said. The extraction time for each cup of coffee should be less than 30 seconds. John added: "after more than 30 seconds, the coffee will taste very bitter and caffeine will increase."

John said, "this is a great espresso." he looked at the espresso with foam   and asked, "who wants it?"

People who pursue the original flavor of coffee will usually order the original espresso (English is short black), that is, add nothing to the coffee and add only a little sugar at most. However, some people like to drink cappuccino, latte or other concentrated seasoned coffee with milk. "Today, 90 percent of espresso drinkers drink seasoned coffee with milk," said a magazine (Fresh Cup Magazine). *

It is a great enjoyment of life for everyone to sit together and chat easily and have another cup of coffee or tea on their hands. John said that when people get together to taste good coffee or tea, it can open the chatterbox and bring people closer. This is perhaps the greatest contribution of coffee and tea!

Common sense of coffee beans

A coffee purchase guide says: "the aroma begins to dissipate a week after roasting, an hour after grinding, and a few minutes after coffee brewing." So, if you want to buy coffee beans, it's best not to buy too many at once and store them in a cool place after you buy them. But do not put it in the refrigerator, because the coffee beans will absorb the moisture in the refrigerator, so the coffee beans will easily lose their taste, and the coffee beans should be brewed as soon as they are ground.