How does handle temperature affect espresso? How is coffee aroma affected by temperature?

In the 2016 WBC competition, Mr. Wu Zelin, a contestant from Taiwan Province of China, used an ice-cold handle to extract and concentrate and successfully won the championship. This operation subverted the perception that there were people at the place at that time, and everyone questioned, like the commentary present: "can the temperature of the handle really affect the coffee itself?"

As the operation is very simple, many friends have tried with skepticism, including Qianjie. The experimental results show that the temperature of the handle can indeed affect the coffee itself. Because some friends mentioned this problem recently, today Qianjie will analyze in detail why the temperature of the handle has an impact on coffee.

How does the temperature of the coffee handle affect espresso? Today, Qianjie restart the experiment, using high temperature handle, room temperature handle and frozen handle respectively to extract a cup of concentrated coffee. The parameters are all using 20g powder 32s to extract 40ml espresso liquid. After measuring and tasting three cups of espresso respectively, Qianjie can come to the conclusion that there are some differences among the three. In particular, the espresso extracted by the frozen handle is very different from the former two in all aspects!

High-temperature handle: the espresso extracted by the high-temperature handle has a temperature of 68 °C. the aroma is richer than the other two cups, while the taste is well-balanced, with flavors of whisky, vanilla, butter cookies and a few berries. Room temperature handle: the temperature of espresso extracted by room temperature handle is 65 °C, the aroma will be slightly weaker than that of high temperature handle, and it is the same as the former in other aspects. Frozen handle: the espresso extracted from the frozen handle has a temperature of 35 °C and smells inferior to the first two, but it will taste more prominent (mainly sour and sweet) and have a better flavor: whisky, berries, vanilla, and butter cookies. The taste is not as mellow as the first two, but it will be smoother. It can be seen that there are obvious differences between the three in aroma and taste, which is the result of different handle temperature. The reason for this difference is mainly because the temperature of the handle affects the temperature and aroma of the coffee liquid.

As we all know, the aroma of coffee is one of the main components of flavor. Most of the aroma is volatile, which will be affected by the ambient temperature and change the rate of volatilization. When the temperature of the coffee liquid is higher, the movement of the aroma molecules in the liquid will become more intense, and the rate of dissipation and volatilization will be faster; on the other hand, when the coffee temperature is lower, the movement of the aroma molecules will become slower, the emission rate will be slowed down, and the more aroma will be retained. The principle of the frozen handle is the same as that of the Paragon golden ball, which is often shared in the front street, except that the object of influence has changed from a small golden ball to a coffee handle.

In addition to the aroma of coffee, the taste of coffee is also affected by temperature. From the above experiments, we can know that when the coffee temperature is high, the acidity of concentrated drink is not so strong, while the acidity of relatively low concentrated drink will be more prominent. This is the change that temperature brings to our taste buds. Since Qianjie just explained it in detail yesterday, I won't repeat it here. To sum up, we can know how the temperature of the handle affects the taste of coffee. If you are interested, you can also conduct your own experiments. But! With regard to the conduct of the experiment, there are two points we must pay attention to.

At the beginning of the choice of the handle, the friend mentioned in Qianjie talked about this topic because the result he got after the experiment was almost the same, even the coffee was thinner and the extraction was not as sufficient as before. The main reason for this is that he uses a bottomless handle.

The temperature of the handle does have an effect on coffee extraction, but only if some part of the handle can come into contact with the coffee liquid and transfer heat. The bottomless handle itself gets its name because there is no bottom, and even if we freeze / heat it, the coffee liquid will not touch anything after it is extracted, so the temperature of the coffee liquid will neither be plundered nor given, and the resulting coffee liquid will not be affected much.

Therefore, when we plan to carry out the experiment, it is best to select the shunt handle, so as to ensure that the experiment can be carried out accurately.

Second, the retention of the powder bowl secondly, if you want the handle to be frozen, it is best to take the powder bowl off. Although freezing in a powder bowl can achieve a better cooling effect, the extraction of coffee will make a difference.

Qianjie mentioned before that when extracting espresso, hot water will not extract pressed powder straight down, but will give priority to finding an easy flow channel! Even if the pressed powder itself does not have any holes, there are cracks where the pressed powder comes into contact with the powder bowl, where hot water flows first and then extracted to the coffee. Therefore, when we freeze together with the powder bowl, the initial extraction water temperature will be affected to a certain extent, if we want to obtain sufficient coffee extraction, then we need to adjust the parameters (the previous article is affected by this factor so that the coffee extraction is not so sufficient).

Notice: the last event before the year will be held tomorrow night, friends, remember to pay attention to ha ~

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