A delicious Espresso baking skill is very important.

Start with mixed beans.

When we talk about baking beans for espresso, we are actually talking about the science of mixed beans. The highest sweet spots of all kinds of coffee beans from different countries appear at different baking points, so bakers must find a balance between baking and mixing beans in order to make a good cup of espresso. This knowledge begins with the degree of baking and the selection of beans, as well as the baking master's own taste acuteness. If you give full play to these three key points, you will have a good chance of creating an espresso with a balanced export feel and a pleasant flavor. Of course, there are many subjective taste views, but based on my personal experience over the years, I can give you some suggestions.

When using Beiyi roasting, the bean selection process is the key point. You must select the coffee beans with the lowest acidity when roasting. According to my personal Beiyi formula, I use the least sour Brazilian beans out of 10 Brazilian beans; but if I go deeper, if I want to bake the formula, I probably don't need to think about the acidity. About 50% of the Brazilian beans can meet this demand. If you want to use the deepest Nanyi baking, then every Brazilian can do it. Generally speaking, the Beiyi recipe must use arabica beans with mild flavor and low acidity. The classic formula is Mocha-Java, combined with Yemenmoka and Java arabica beans, but there is another popular and widely used alternative formula, which is Ethiopia Harar plus Sumatra Mandheling.

The choice of beans in the Chinese formula is more flexible, but you may have to choose several beans with a strong style, such as Ethiopia Harar. On the other hand, many beans with high acidity, such as Costa Rica and Kenya, reach their peak when they are baked in Chinese style.

Nanyi baking is too deep, so you have to use a very strong recipe, usually rough and strong African beans are very suitable for this way, such as Burundi or Harar. Personally, I think that when you enter the baking degree as deep as French Roast, you have a wide range of flexibility in choosing beans, because at this time, most of the qualities of coffee beans are baked off.

Beiyi style baking

In the case of relatively shallow baking (popular around Milan), this recipe makes a cup of espresso that tastes like sugar water. Personally, I think this kind of formula is the best combination of sweetness and baked drupe flavor, but it is the most likely to cause problems in the extraction stage. The Beiyi recipe has the greatest potential to make sweet espresso, but it is very easy to screw up during extraction. The thick and sweet dry aroma means that the flavor is the most complex and fragile, and the carbonization is relatively low. After years of practical experience, I have found that the Beiyi formula, its aromatic substances after the action of hot water, is the most fragile, if the extraction is not handled properly, it will produce "Jackyl and Hyde change", which should have a sweet smell of espresso, which may become too sour / bitter or astringent.

As a baking retailer, when you use most of these more fragile recipes, you will face the challenge of insufficient stability in the cup when brewing. Because the Beiyi recipe lacks a baking flavor substrate, if your bar staff is a little careless, the espresso will be easy to detect, especially when mixed with milk; when extracted by an expert, when mixed with milk, it will highlight the strong caramel flavor in the espresso. To me, this caramel flavor is the style and characteristics of the Beiyi recipe.

Because the coffee beans of Beiyi formula are less carbonated, their caramel flavor and flavor characteristics account for a high proportion. It is a great challenge to retain these rich characteristics during cooking, especially in the stability of cooking water temperature. If the cooking water temperature changes too much (up and down more than four degrees Fahrenheit), caramel flavor will be the first to be sacrificed. Then there was a dull yellowish crema outflow. If the cooking water temperature is relatively stable (up and down less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit), the crema will appear ochre red. But the ochre red crema does not mean that the caramel flavor can survive after brewing, even at a very stable temperature, it is often sour espresso, then the water temperature may be low (at sea level, the ideal cooking water temperature is 204 degrees Fahrenheit, the measuring point is near the coffee cake). On the temperature-controlled table in my store, I found that the sweeter the espresso, the easier it is for their crema to disperse.

The Beiyi recipe has many other challenges for professional brewers. For example, the machine must be cleaned very carefully, because beans of the Beiyi formula can easily absorb the peculiar smell on the coffee machine. If the cleaning of the machine is not enough, the espresso will produce an uncomfortable bitter taste, which is between charred toast and smelly socks after exercise. In addition, it must be stored in the shape of the whole bean and flipped and mixed from time to time. Coffee beans are stored like red wine in a sealed and opaque container at a temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. In the case of pure arabica beans, beans must be used within 3-10 days after baking, when the crema status of espresso is the most complete. If a high proportion of robusta is used in the formula, the peak of crema may be prolonged, but it must be noted that although robusta beans can provide very thick crema, it can be said to be not helpful for sweetness at all. Under the Beiyi style of baking, most robusta beans show astringent or woody taste, while good arabica beans show sweet taste.

The bar staff must be very skilled in order to correctly cook the Beiyi formula. If there is any error in cooking or filling, resulting in the "channel" effect, the water flows quickly through this crack, the sweet molecules are destroyed, and the composition of the whole aromatic compound flowing into the cup is out of balance. Finally, the whole cup of espresso is occupied by astringency. In addition, the bar staff must also be careful not to put the espresso for too long. The cooked espresso must be mixed with milk as soon as possible. When making cappuccino, the sweet molecule of espresso is one of the important ingredients to form foam, but this ingredient will soon fade, and ceramic cups must also be preheated to preserve the espresso structure.

One of the keys to getting this seductive sweetness is the flow rate. To deal with this variable, the bar player must first carefully adjust the grinding scale. If the flow rate is too fast, it will be sour and astringent, and if the flow rate is too slow, it will be scorched and bitter. The goal of our store is to extract in 25 seconds, and the state of flow must be like a "mouse tail".

It may take years to cook a Beiyi-style espresso, but if you end up in a neighborhood where more customers like the taste, your business may be much better than other ripe bean retailers in the same community. However, if your goal is to open any type of chain store, do not choose this Beiyi-style baking, practice cooking and try to fail a lot of times, you might as well choose a deeper baking formula, customers are more acceptable. Beiyi-style recipes are more suitable for baking retailers interested in craftsmen to sell. A coffee lover with talent and great enthusiasm for coffee will be fascinated by the successful espresso of this Beiyi recipe. Once you have successfully mastered the main points of the Beiyi recipe, then you are almost unrivalled in the industry.

Chinese baking

When we bake deeper and more sugar begins to be carbonized or burned, this is called synonymous baking, which is usually popular around Florence with this degree of espresso. This kind of formula produces slightly darker beans with a bitter flavor. But the baking degree is not deep enough to burn out all the flavor characteristics of the production area, and the formula of the middle meaning is mainly another type of balance, that is, the combination of bitterness, remaining sugar and flavor characteristics of the production area. There is more or less a hint of smoke in the Chinese-style espresso.

Using unstable boiling water temperature to extract Zhongyi formula (most espresso machines on the market almost have a water temperature change of more than six degrees Fahrenheit), the espresso of Zhongyi formula still has a stable performance, so this type of formula is the most suitable for general baking retailers and, of course, for high-pole roasters to sell. The advantage of the Zhongyi formula is that in case the bar staff is slightly negligent and the amount of espresso flowing down exceeds the standard, the coffee of the Zhongyi formula will still not have the defects of being sour, thin in texture, or astringent, and will only lack some sweetness compared to the Beiyi formula (even if the Zhongyi formula is carefully cooked, it will not be any better than the carefully brewed Beiyi formula espresso). In the Chinese formula, because the degree of carbonization is slightly higher, and carbon itself is a chemically stable ingredient, it doesn't matter what stage of machine is used to brew this kind of formula, or it doesn't matter if you are not careful when making it. Anyway, there will be bitterness caused by carbonization in the cup.

There is a reason why Italian coffee is roasting deeper and deeper to the south. One hypothetical theory is that due to different climates, residents have an impact on the amount of spices used and their taste preferences. Since ancient times, residents in the north have preserved food and meat because of the lower average temperature. in contrast, the weather in the south is hotter, so residents have to rely on large amounts of spices to preserve their food. Many anthropologists believe that this has a certain impact on the taste preferences of residents in different regions, and it can also explain why southerners prefer more intensive foods and drinks. The application of this theory to coffee explains why southerly coffee tastes more bitter. Of course, these are just theories, which can not be applied in a pluralistic society like the United States. However, if most of your customers belong to the southern ethnic group, you may find that they prefer the taste of deeper-roasted coffee.

Nanyi baking

Nanyi baking is the deepest baking stage in espresso beans. In this kind of espresso, bitterness / carbon taste is the main flavor, overshadowing most sweetness and regional flavor characteristics. Napoli in Nanyi represents the region, where you can find the deepest baked espresso in the world, retaining only a little sweetness and regional flavor. If you bake deeper, all that's left is probably carbon and bitterness. As the bitter taste of espresso at this depth is very strong, it will cover most of the sweetness, but the flavor persistence at this time is the highest, which also increases the fault tolerance rate in cooking. With stylized training and machine, plus a professional bar trainer, this kind of espresso can be done. Nanyi baked beans are very suitable for use in small espresso bar or small chain coffee shops. A cup of espresso with strong persistence can be made by using any business-grade machine.

When I visited Napoli, I personally drank the espresso here. I saw that the bar hands there always soaked the freshly squeezed half-ounce espresso cups in hot water, and people on the Italian side would add a rub of sugar and quickly stir it and swallow it. I speculated that Nanyi-baked espresso may have to be extracted (ristretto) in a very short time because there is less sugar in coffee beans, and the tradition has been to squeeze fewer doses in order to balance the sugar and bitterness in the cup. Many people think that this baking method, coupled with this brewing method in Napoli, is the most perfect match in the world, but this combination may not be popular in the United States, because Americans prefer to drink large cups of coffee without bitterness!

The choice of large enterprises vs. The way out for small retailers

The secret to running a successful joint venture food store is to provide products of stable quality. No matter which branch you buy, the quality of the products you buy must be very fixed. When it comes to coffee retailing, too, as the roasting depth gets deeper and deeper and the sugar in coffee beans becomes more carbonated, we get a batch of French Roast coffee beans, why are they called French Roast? This is because once extracted, these coffee beans are added to a large bowl of milk and served as breakfast for the French. French Roast is the most common baking degree in most corporate roasting retailers. With enough milk and sweetener, the beverage made from beans that roast deeper than Nanyi style will taste a bit like smoky peony (not entirely unacceptable), and in most markets, many customers will think that this kind of coffee is a great cup of "strong taste" coffee.

Why do enterprise-level bakers prefer French Roast? The reason is simple: it doesn't take much effort to get a drink of stable quality. At this depth, the flavor, sugar and acid quality of the coffee beans are burned in the roaster, so you don't have to spend too much effort to choose the coffee beans, anyway, the taste is the same in the end, in addition, freshness does not need to be taken into account, because carbon will not become stale!

I'm not contemptuous of the espresso quality of large chains, but I'm trying to explain how competitive a small bakery retailer has in this situation. In order to survive in this industry, you have to let your store have its own unique style, and espresso has to have its own characteristics. These are the requirements for the survival of small retail stores, because these require high technology.

Only those who spend a lot of time and effort to improve the quality of espresso can stand the test of time and survive in today's boutique coffee market. If you can move forward with this goal, you are a promoter of coffee culture: the food art of combining aesthetics, depth, and technology!