Why can't espresso be made well on rainy days? What are the reasons why espresso machines do not produce good coffee?

With the gradual rise in temperature and the frequent arrival of overcast and rainy weather, it means that Guangdong has begun to enter the field of spring. Do you think Qianjie is going to celebrate the revival of all things? No, no! The continuous spring rain now will be a condensed to full season for those coffee guys who have to go to the morning shift and make an early adjustment (including the front street).

I believe old fans have found that this is a topic that is initiated by Qianjie every spring. Because indeed, as mentioned earlier, espresso on rainy days is not so good compared to sunny days. In fact, it is not just baristas. If friends often visit coffee shops every day, it must be easy to find that Italian coffee on rainy days is always inferior to that on sunny days. If you go early, you may even see a magnificent view of Italian condensation on the bar. And this is a big test that cloudy and rainy weather brings to baristas.

Espresso needs to be adjusted every day because the state of the beans themselves is constantly changing, but not limited to that. Ambient humidity, temperature, and air pressure all affect the extraction of coffee. Some of these effects will affect the coffee, while others will affect the extraction of the coffee machine. The main factor affecting coffee itself is humidity. The more active water molecules in the air, the higher the environmental humidity, which will give coffee beans the possibility of being invaded by moisture (that is, damp). In the case of high humidity, the ground coffee powder will have more "stickiness", that is, it will be easier than usual to hold together and stick to all the places that can be reached.

The extraction of coffee powder in this state will be very unstable, even if each hand uses the same gram weight, but due to the existence of caking powder leads to frequent channel effect, so the flow rate, extraction time and taste of each handful of coffee may be different. For example, it took 30 seconds for the last hand to extract 40ml coffee liquid with 20g powder, and it was delicious to concentrate. The next hand also used 20g powder, but it only took 25 seconds to extract 40ml coffee liquid. Espresso tastes like insufficient extraction. The front street said that some of the effects are on the coffee machine. Because the Italian coffee machine extraction method is pressurized, that is, in the extraction will use pressure to assist extraction. The pressure is generated by the coffee machine by the pressure pump, which is the pressure difference relative to atmospheric pressure. However, the atmospheric pressure on rainy days will be relatively low, so the reduction of external pressure will reduce the actual extraction pressure produced by the pump. The drop in pressure means that the extraction efficiency is reduced, combined with the influence of humidity, so it is more difficult to make delicious espresso on rainy days.

How to adjust and concentrate quickly on a rainy day? Since it is the impact of environmental factors, if we want to quickly adjust the concentration, we can only reduce the impact of environmental factors (

). For example, in order to reduce the effect of moisture on coffee beans, Qianjie will keep the doors and windows closed all day and turn on two air conditioners for dehumidification, so as to reduce the water molecules in the air (if it is stuffy, turn on the cooling? ). Then when it is time to close, Qianjie will transfer the coffee beans from the bean warehouse back into the bean bag, sealing to minimize the moisture invasion of the coffee beans. In addition, we can also use cloth powder injection to break up the clumps of coffee powder, which can effectively reduce the channel effect. However, this method will increase the time to produce a cup, and it is not suitable for coffee shops with a large number of cups.

Other effects are basically impossible to adjust, and the rest of us can only adjust the concentrated taste according to our understanding of the extraction. If we can't get the espresso right now, we can wait until the impact of the surrounding environment on the extraction is reduced before we start debugging again. And if it is a coffee shop that needs to be opened immediately, the standard of tasty concentration can be appropriately relaxed at present, mainly at the aroma level. Because the high humidity environment will affect the sensitivity of the sense of smell and reduce the volatilization of the coffee aroma, it is more difficult to capture the coffee aroma. So in this case, what we need to do is to make sure that espresso has a proper extraction, has a balanced sweet, sour and bitter taste, and that there will be no negative performance after mixing it into an American style or latte (because fancy coffee is the main product sold in coffee shops). Wait for the humidity to drop, then re-adjust the coffee. This is one of the reasons why coffee on rainy days is not as good as coffee on sunny days, with concentrated aroma but not prominent aroma. )

Finally, because the extraction condition on rainy days is very unstable, it is impossible for us to say that it will be "once and for all" after concentration in the morning. In order to ensure the stability of the product, try to review the taste of espresso every four hours to ensure that the taste of coffee can be corrected in real time.

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