What is espresso with beans? The concept of blending of traditional Italian coffee beans

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Q2: what is the concept of blending of traditional Italian coffee beans? Note Coffee Workshop (official Wechat account cafe_style)

Arnie: from trying all kinds of machines, I understand the principle and science of extraction; from baking commercial beans, I feel the charm of shallow baking; when I come into contact with boutique coffee, I see the mystery of the local soil. Mix beans with different characteristics, this is another world, general espresso beans are imported either from Italy or Seattle. I used to buy freshly roasted espresso beans directly from the origin, excluding the time factor of international shipment. to understand the purpose of deep baking. As far as individual coffee is concerned, although the flavor difference brought by the year is not big, these slight differences will be magnified after the beans are synthesized, so the deep roasting can facilitate the control of the quality to obtain the average taste, reduce the flavor difference brought by the year, and it is more durable to store.

In addition to espresso, lattes are mixed with milk and coffee, and the flavor concept is different. Here, the purpose of coffee is to highlight the sweetness of milk, so the objective goal of Latte is that the coffee itself is mellow, and after adding milk, it tastes like cocoa, so a good cafe should have more than two bean recipes, one for brewing espresso and the other for making lattes.

Q3: there are so many ways to brew coffee, why did you choose to study espresso? What are the good extraction criteria for you?

Arnie: the common painful experience of all coffee beginners is that they don't know the objective criteria of coffee, including the flavor of beans, how fine they should be ground, how to cook them, and how long it takes to cook them. The Italian coffee machine provides a very precise standard, the traditional definition, the use of 9 atmospheric pressure, extraction time 25 seconds, brewing 30cc coffee, through the above standards, we can go back to determine the amount of beans, grinding thickness and filling pressure channel to achieve a standard extraction.

As the brewing of the Italian coffee machine will magnify and highlight the characteristics of the coffee flavor, we use the standardized brewing of the Italian coffee machine to find out the original flavor of the coffee (although it will be relatively strong), which can be used as a reference for the adjustment of the flavor and methods of other brewing methods. This is the inspiration given to me by the Italian coffee machine. In addition, in addition to the number of seconds, espresso can be used to determine whether the extraction is complete or not, and the cup can be opened immediately when the color of the outflow becomes lighter, which is also one of the advantages.

Q4: so, how should the average person choose an espresso machine?

Arnie: the most direct difference between business and ordinary household machines is the caliber of the cooking head. For Italian coffee machine, the variable of caliber influence is pressure, the same piston pump, used in a coffee machine with a smaller caliber than the standard 58mm, will produce higher pressure, while the same amount of coffee powder is put into a small caliber filter cup, the thickness of pressed powder will increase, in fact, this will produce new factors for extraction, so if the budget permits, it is still the standard caliber of 58mm as the priority choice.

Q5: what do you think is the secret of coffee beans and brewing?

Arnie: the way of cooking is to think about the complementarity of "baking depth of beans" and "collocation of water temperature", "thickness of grinding" and "cooking time", so most enthusiasts choose the depth of bean baking in their favorite cooking way. to put it simply, shallow culture is suitable for higher water temperature to balance sour taste, while deep cultivation requires lower water temperature to suppress bitterness. If soak for a long time, such as "French pressure", take a thicker grinding, the focus is to understand the principle of cooking to think.

I usually use an American coffee machine with a blade electric bean grinder as my alarm clock, set the time, and the sound of the bean grinder will wake me up every morning. When the aroma of the coffee floats out, you will know it's time to get up. You may say that the grinding of this bean chopper is uneven, so I think from the point of view of uneven grinding, increasing the weight of beans to adjust the state of cooking, plus the beans are fresh enough, there will still be good coffee waiting for you to get up.